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Software

Countertop takeoff software

Countertop takeoff software turns a kitchen or bath layout into the quantities a fabricator prices: square footage, linear feet of finished edge, cutouts, backsplash and slab count. There are three kinds. Draw-and-quote tools have the estimator draw each layout. General construction takeoff tools have the estimator trace areas on a PDF by hand. Drawing-reading tools, which is what Counterly is, take the plan PDF as the input and measure the countertops from it, leaving the estimator to check the result. Which one a shop needs depends on how its work arrives.

The three kinds of countertop takeoff software

  • Draw-and-quote. The estimator draws the countertop and the software calculates area and edge and prices it. Strong when the job is a homeowner and a tape measure.
  • Trace-on-PDF.A general takeoff tool with a scale and area tool. The estimator traces every run on every sheet. Flexible across trades, but the countertop rules such as depths, overhangs, splash and finished edge are the estimator's to apply.
  • Drawing-reading. The software reads the plan set and produces the geometry itself. The estimator reviews and corrects instead of drawing or tracing. Strong when work arrives as drawings, most of all when unit types repeat.

What Counterly does with a drawing

You upload the plan set as a PDF, or as JPG or PNG images of the sheets. Counterly finds the countertops, traces each run, and reads its length and depth from the drawing. It separates backsplash from countertop area, counts sink and cooktop cutouts, measures finished edge in linear feet, and groups everything by the plan's own labels, such as KT1, KT2 and V1. Then it nests the pieces on the slab size you chose and reports slab count, yield and waste. No CAD work or markup is needed before upload.

What the estimator still does

The estimator checks the result against the drawing, type by type. Each measurement is shown with the run it came from, so a wrong depth or a missed island can be found and corrected by naming the type, the sheet and the dimension. Counterly raises a question when the drawings do not settle something, such as whether backsplash is in the bid. Those questions and any assumptions stay attached to the result and appear in the export.

What you get out

A cut sheet as a PDF, the takeoff as a spreadsheet, and a priced quote you can send to a customer. The full list of inputs and outputs is on the supported file formats page.

Questions to ask any takeoff vendor

  • Is the input my drawing, or do I draw or trace the layout myself?
  • Can I see which line on the drawing each measurement came from?
  • Are results reported per unit type, or only as a job total?
  • What happens when the drawings are revised after I bid?
  • Do you publish accuracy against completed jobs, including the misses?
  • Will you run a job I have already completed, so I can compare against my own numbers?

Where Counterly is the wrong tool

If you measure every job yourself and nothing arrives as a drawing, a draw-and-quote tool fits better and Counterly adds little. Counterly is not a shop management system: it does not schedule installs, track jobs, manage inventory or do accounting. It does not replace field templating and it does not output machine files. Automated reading is a first pass an estimator confirms, and results are better from dimensioned drawings than from sheets with no printed dimensions. The measured results are on the accuracy page.

How pricing works

Counterly's pricing is usage-based. What a shop pays follows how much takeoff work it actually runs through Counterly, so a shop is never charged for more than it uses. A shop bidding two apartment jobs a month does not pay what a shop bidding twenty pays. Counterly does not publish a fixed price list; the number comes out of a short conversation about your job volume. To get it, book a demo.

The fastest way to judge any takeoff software is to run a job you have already completed and compare the output with what you actually quoted and cut.

From the shop floor

We publish what estimators tell us about these pages, including the parts where the software was wrong. If you run takeoff in a shop and this page got something right — or got it wrong — send it to us and it goes here with your name on it, or without it if you prefer.

Book a demo

Bring a plan set you have already bid and compare Counterly's takeoff with your own.

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