PDF takeoff & estimating
Measure it once. Price it your way. Prove every number.
MarkMetric is PDF takeoff built for how the work is actually done. Measure across every scale on the drawing — and across the whole drawing set — without a number ever going wrong. Then price it from your own rates, on the terms that apply to this job. What comes out is a clean, defensible takeoff that shows its working, line by line.
See it in action
A brief walkthrough, plus four short clips on the parts that set MarkMetric apart.
Two things go wrong on every takeoff.
A drawing set isn’t drawn to one scale — a site plan at 1:500, a detail at 1:20, a section and a plan on the same sheet. Measure off the wrong one and every figure built on it is wrong. And a measurement on its own isn’t a price — you still have to turn quantities into real costs, at the rates that apply to this job, from whoever’s supplying it. Most tools handle one of these. MarkMetric is built around both.
A scale on every measurement — not every sheet.
Set the scale once, the way the drawing allows: measure a known dimension, or enter the ratio and page size directly when the title block states them. MarkMetric ties that scale to each measurement, not to the whole sheet — so a plan and a section drawn at different scales come out true, side by side, and quantities stay right across every drawing in the set. Measure a floor on the GA, a wall on the detail, an area on a plant-room plan at another scale — they all sum into one quantity, correctly, with nothing converted in your head.
And when the drawing doesn’t give you everything, you bring it in. Know a wall height that’s only on the spec? Add it as a parameter, with a note on where it came from. Need a pile cap or ring beam that isn’t drawn? Enter it as a dimensioned group. Supplied values sit alongside measured ones, combine into the same derived quantities, and carry through to the exported audit — so a plan-only drawing still gives you a full, traceable takeoff.
Areas, lengths, counts, volumes. Derived quantities — wall length × height, areas summed, slab area × thickness, perimeters. Voids cut straight out of an area. A parameter changed once recalculates everything built on it.
Price it on the terms that apply to this job.
A takeoff is only half done until it’s priced. Real jobs aren’t priced at one standard rate — you’re working off a supplier’s quote on one, a key account’s rates on another, a local merchant’s list on a third. MarkMetric lets you carry as many price lists as you have relationships, and apply the right one per project. Fill a template once and keep it ready to load, or type rates straight in for a single job — either way they’re yours.
Your price lists, your projects, your margins stay on your own machine. They’re never uploaded, never shared, never seen by us. Your rates are your edge — with MarkMetric they don’t leave your computer.
Set different coats where a product needs them — two here, three in a wetter environment. Add wastage per product or across the whole job. Round up to whole rolls, sheets or buckets — or, if you’re drawing from stock, allocate the exact half-sheet you’ll actually use. The bill matches what you’ll really order.
The price is only as good as the measurement under it.
This is why the two halves belong together. A priced takeoff built on a wrong scale is a confident, fully-costed mistake. Because MarkMetric keeps every measurement true to its own scale — across every drawing — the quantities your prices land on are right to begin with. Measure once, correctly. Price it your way. The number you hand over holds up.
Every number shows its working.
Export to Excel and the audit sheet sets out each measurement, the scale it was taken at and whether that scale was measured or set by hand, every supplied value and where it came from, and how each total was built — quantity, wastage, rounding, the lot. Export the marked-up PDF and your measurements sit back on the drawing, exactly where they were taken. Hand it to a checker, a client, or your future self, and every figure can be followed line by line.
Why a takeoff you can defend matters →
If you measure a drawing and price the work, it’s for you.
Quantity surveyors and estimators pricing across a full drawing set. Small builders pricing their own jobs. Drylining and stud-partition contractors taking off frames and boards. Waterproofing, gas-membrane and roofing installers working to their merchant’s rates. Specialist contractors and surveyors. Tender writers. Material suppliers quoting from a client’s drawings. One tool, because the job underneath is the same: measure once, price it your way, show the working.
Pricing a single partition? Our free stud-wall calculator gives you the timber lengths for one wall →
Built by people who’ve done the takeoffs.
MarkMetric was designed by a team who’ve spent years on the tools — surveying, estimating, working across trades — not by software people guessing at the workflow. That’s why it does the things the others don’t: the half-bucket from stock, the wastage set per product, the known value carried in with a note on its source. The detail is there because someone needed it on a real job.
Ready to try it on your own drawings?
One licence, bought once. No subscription, no renewal — you own the version you buy.
Lifetime licence
£495 one-time
- Every feature — no tiers, nothing held back
- One-time payment — no subscription, no renewal
- Runs in your browser, on Mac or PC
- Your projects and pricing stay on your machine
Buy from inside the app, so your licence locks to the machine you work on.