Cheapest AI takeoff software in 2026: prices and features compared

We build CostLogic. This comparison comes from each vendor's public pricing and product pages, linked in every section, and we update it when those pages change. Every price here was read on September 27, 2026.

The short answer. CostLogic is the lowest-priced paid AI takeoff platform in this comparison at $19 a seat a month billed annually, or $24 month to month, and it carries the measured quantities through an estimate and an invoice. If all you need is manual takeoff, Mint Takeoff is cheaper at $15 a month. If you only measure a few pages a month, CyanBuild's free tier covers three of them. Everything else that measures with AI costs between $29 a month and $3,000 a year.

How we counted

"AI takeoff" here means the software measures something for you from the drawing: finds the rooms, fills the areas, counts the symbols. Tools where you draw every polygon yourself are manual takeoff, however good the drawing tools are.

"Paid" means the cheapest plan you can buy that includes takeoff. Free tiers and trials are noted, and they do not count as a price.

Prices are the vendor's own self-serve numbers. Where a vendor lists annual and monthly, we quote both and rank by the annual price divided by twelve, because that is the commitment most of these plans actually ask for. Where a plan is month to month only, the monthly price stands as is.

Manual takeoff, AI takeoff, and the full workflow (takeoff, then estimate, then invoice) are kept apart. A $15 manual tool and a $3,000 AI suite are not competing for the same job, and a table that pretends they are would be useless.

Where an add-on, a page cap, a credit counter, or a missing feature changes what you would really pay, it is called out in that tool's section.

The comparison

Per user per month, cheapest plan that measures with AI

1. CostLogic$19Starter, annual
2. CyanBuild$29Starter, month to month
3. BuildCrux$31Solo, annual
4. MeasureSquare$164Commercial, annual
5. Kreo$175Pro, annual
6. PlanSwift$250Core, annual

Every tool, with the price and the catch

CostLogic

Starter is $19 a seat a month billed annually, $228 a year, or $24 month to month. Pro is $47 a seat a month billed annually, $564 a year, or $59 month to month. Both plans measure from the PDF in the browser, and Auto Room finds the rooms and areas on a page for you: 15 runs a seat each month on Starter, 50 on Pro, with a ten-run top-up for $10 if you burn through them. Onyx, the built-in assistant, is on both plans too. It adds layers, pulls measurements into the estimate, and raises the invoice when you ask.

What sets the price apart is what happens after the measuring. The quantities become a priced estimate with markup, waste, tax, and deposit, the accepted estimate becomes an invoice, and the invoice can post to QuickBooks Online. CostLogic does not process payments. You send the bill, collect the money the way you do today, and log it, or let a payment recorded in QuickBooks update the invoice for you.

The limits are real. Starter stops at three seats and 25 active projects, so a fourth person moves the company to Pro. Every seat is a paid seat on both plans. There is no digitizer support and no roll-goods layout, which matters if you install carpet or sheet vinyl (see MeasureSquare). The trial is fourteen days, no card, three Auto Room runs included.

Mint Takeoff

$15 a month per seat, month to month, cancel any time. There is no annual plan, so twelve months is $180. Mint is a desktop program you download, and its pricing page lists no AI features: you draw the takeoff yourself and send the quantities to a spreadsheet. A free version lets you try it, capped by how many shapes you can draw rather than by days, with no account needed.

That makes Mint the cheapest paid takeoff software here by sticker price, and we say so plainly. It is also a different product. No room detection, no estimate, no invoice. If you price jobs in Excel and want the least expensive way to get numbers off a plan, it is a fair pick.

CyanBuild

The only free AI takeoff on this list. Free covers three pages a month on one project, with a CSV bill of quantities out. Starter is $29 a month for thirty pages and five projects, Pro is $99 for 120 pages, Enterprise is $299 for 400. Every plan is month to month, and no annual price is listed.

CyanBuild counts pages, not seats. Upload plan pages, the AI produces a bill of quantities, export it to Excel. It does not estimate or invoice. The page cap is the number to watch: thirty pages is a couple of small residential sets a month, and one commercial set can eat the whole allowance in a single upload. Cheap for the occasional measure, expensive at volume.

Easy Takeoffs

One plan. Pro is $399 a year, or $39 a month, for a single user with unlimited projects and documents. Fourteen days free, no card. Teams and Enterprise plans are listed as coming soon, so a three-person office buys three accounts today.

It is manual takeoff done well, and it stops there on purpose: a CSV and an annotated PDF, and you price the job somewhere else. The pricing page lists no AI measuring. Against Mint it costs more and runs in the browser. Against CostLogic it costs $171 a year more and does less afterward.

BuildCrux

Solo is $39 a month, or $31 a month billed annually ($372 a year), for two users. It includes AI takeoff on up to eleven residential plan sets a month, plus estimates, contracts, invoices, and a customer portal that takes card payments. Crew is $149 a month ($119 annual) for ten users, adds commercial and multifamily work, and turns on a two-way QuickBooks sync. There is no free trial. You pay from day one and have thirty days to ask for the money back.

BuildCrux is the strongest low-cost all-in-one here and the closest thing to a direct competitor to us. It goes further than CostLogic on payments and project management. Solo's residential-only rule and the plan-set counter are the catches, and $31 a month is still $12 a month more than CostLogic Starter for one person.

Kreo

Lite is $35 a user a month billed annually ($420 a year), Plus is $70 ($840), Pro is $175 ($2,100). Every plan is annual, and the trial is seven days. Auto Measure, One-Click Area, Auto Count, and the Caddie assistant are on Pro only.

So Kreo is a $35 manual tool or a $175 AI tool, and the AI is the reason people recommend it. Pro's measuring is the deepest of anything in this comparison at any price. After the measuring you get assemblies and cost calculation, with no proposals and no invoicing. Buy it for the measurement, not the price.

MeasureSquare

Retail is $540 a year ($54 monthly), built for on-site and showroom measuring, with no PDF plan takeoff. Multi-family is $1,640 a year ($164 monthly) and adds PDF takeoff. Commercial is $1,970 a year ($197 monthly) and adds AI-Powered Takeoff and an AI Plan Analyzer, so AI from plans costs $1,970.

MeasureSquare is the specialist flooring product, and nothing else here touches its roll-goods work: seam layout, roll cut optimization, dye lots, stagger for sheet vinyl, pattern matching for carpet. If you install carpet or sheet goods, that is the job it exists for. For tile, LVP, and hardwood measured from a plan, CostLogic covers the areas, perimeters, waste factors, and pricing at roughly an eighth of the price, and it does not pretend to do seams.

PlanSwift

Essential is $2,000 a year for one seat: takeoff and estimating, Auto Count, Auto Scale, Auto Bookmark, priority support, two hours of training. Core is $3,000 and adds the full Takeoff Boost suite, which is where Auto Takeoff lives. Trade starter packs are sold separately. Windows only. The trial is fourteen days with no card.

PlanSwift's measuring and assembly depth is what the rest of the desktop world is judged against, and the 2026 AI suite is real. It is also the most expensive way to get AI takeoff in this comparison, and it stops at the bid. We wrote up six PlanSwift alternatives for anyone weighing the move.

Contractor Foreman

Basic is $49 a month billed annually ($588 a year) for one user, and Standard is $105 for three. The plans page lists takeoff on every tier. The takeoff feature page says something different: "Takeoffs are currently in development," with a sign-up for updates. We checked both on September 27, 2026, and until the feature page changes we treat the takeoff as not shipped.

What you can buy today is a large all-in-one platform: estimates, invoices, card and ACH payments, scheduling, time cards, and thirty-odd other modules, for less per user than almost anything here. It is in this article because a lot of buyers will meet it in the same search. It is not, yet, in the AI takeoff ranking.

What you give up at each price

Under $20 a month buys either the cheapest manual takeoff (Mint: desktop, spreadsheet out) or the cheapest full workflow with AI (CostLogic: browser, estimate and invoice out). The difference is not the measuring. It is everything after.

$29 to $39 a month buys page-metered AI (CyanBuild), a clean single-user manual tool (Easy Takeoffs), or a residential all-in-one with AI takeoff (BuildCrux). BuildCrux is the one to look at if card payments and a customer portal matter more than plan depth.

Under $50 a month, on paper, buys Contractor Foreman's entire business platform. Just not its takeoff, for now.

$1,600 to $3,000 a year buys the specialists: Kreo Pro's measurement, MeasureSquare's roll-goods layout, PlanSwift's assemblies and Auto Takeoff. Each does one thing deeper than any of the cheap tools, and each stops before the invoice.

Questions people ask

What is the cheapest AI takeoff software? For a paid plan that measures from plans with AI and carries the numbers through to an invoice, CostLogic Starter at $19 a seat a month billed annually. For AI measuring alone, CyanBuild is free for three pages a month and $29 for thirty. Mint is cheaper than both at $15 a month, and it is manual.

Is there takeoff software under $50 a month? Six of the nine: Mint ($15), CostLogic ($19 to $24), CyanBuild ($29), BuildCrux ($31 to $39), Kreo Lite ($35), and Easy Takeoffs ($39 monthly, about $33 on the annual plan). Only CostLogic, CyanBuild, and BuildCrux include AI measuring at that price.

What about flooring? Hard-surface flooring from plans, meaning tile, LVP, and hardwood, is an area-and-perimeter job, and CostLogic handles it: Auto Room finds the rooms, waste factors and material presets price them, and the estimate becomes the invoice. Carpet and sheet vinyl need seam and roll layout, and that is MeasureSquare's territory at $1,640 and up.

Is the price per company or per seat? CostLogic, Mint, Kreo, MeasureSquare, and PlanSwift price per user or seat. CyanBuild prices per page. BuildCrux and Contractor Foreman price per plan with a user count. For one estimator the per-seat tools win. A bigger office should run its own headcount through the table above.

Does CostLogic take payments? No. It sends the invoice and you record the payment when it arrives, or QuickBooks Online records it for you if the invoice was synced there. BuildCrux and Contractor Foreman do process card payments.

If you measure from plans, want the AI on the cheapest plan, and would rather not buy a second tool to price and bill the job, CostLogic Starter is $19 a seat a month. Fourteen days free, no card.