Great, efficient, time saver!!

Easy & straightforward to use. Great user interface. Reliable automated counting (if drawings are half decent!)

Copying symbol selection over to new drawings & also reviewing later revisions of drawings does not always work as it should with no real explanation as to why apart from it being something related to the drawing

Using countfire has completely changed the way I do my job. I have gone from old school drawings and highlighters to paperless and streamlined. I would guess that it has increased my productivity by a factor of 3. Every day I learn of a new feature and if I have any questions or issues, they are dealt with quickly and efficiently by one of the superb and knowledgeable customer service gurus. I love that they are paying attention to what I am doing constantly and suggesting ways to improve how I'm doing it. Overall, this is a really great tool with FLAWLESS customer service, regardless of timezone issues. Thank you Countfire team.

It's easy to use, functions really well and they've thought of (almost!) everything! It's really great that it puts all the information into a nice, neat Excel spreadsheet so I can easily add my costings and work out my prices.

I'm only a couple of months into using countfire but there's nothing I don't like about it. I have made a couple of suggestions for features - I need to be able to switch from imperial to metric measurements at will being the main one. Autosave another. I think that these have been taken on board.

The ability to select 1 symbol and count fire counts all of them.

Either the loading time or the fact that sometimes it messes up the background and believes it is not background. Though I understand this is probably due to the drawings rather than countfire.

Labour & cost saving, great product

Very efficient, software very easy to use, great support team, would not want to be without it.

Having correct symbols for design purposes, this is in the pipeline.

Countfire has been a breeze from start to finish, the help team have always been on hand to help out and implementing and training on the software was seamless! I love countfire, you will too.

I’m impressed, countfire allowed me to do a take off in 28mins... the other guy in the office actually had the take off and got out his fluro’s and a pad...he had allowed himself 2 days... It’s brilliant, simple and easy to use. The wholesalers love me because the take off is easy to read!

The cost is high, but the amount of time I saved means it’s worth the large cost!!

Countfire works very well as quick take off tool when producing estimates, it saves a lot of time when working through large quantities of drawings, you only need to make small adjustments to the search criteria as opposed to going through every drawing and taking off by hand.

There are some limitations in what you can and cant do, with some updates from the suggested features it would become a far more competent tool for a designer estimator like myself - in particular different shaped coverage indicators and a larger choice of symbols and colour choices would massively improve the usability of countfire.

Take offs and PDF comparison are good providing the pdf is in the right format

Expensive per user, no multi user plans so £200 a user seems high

The take off package is great and saves times and money on printing endless amounts of drawings. And also great service and very helpful.

the main reason for using this is take off package which is very helpful and saves time at tender stage.

Estimate side seems a bit over complicated for new users.

Being a new user of the program is has been very user friendly and the tutorials were very informative.

one con to mention i noticed straight away is you can min/maximise the task bar on the right to view the drawing full page.

the ease of use for take offs is very good

some other features can be confusing however the countfire team are more than happy to help out

Countfire is easy to use and the customer service team ensure this is always the way. I like how the information is collated and keep things organised.

I dont like how you cannot quickly check quantities without processing the take off then downloading. If there was a quick check function then that would be a lot easier for things like sending my luminaire enquiries before i complete my take offs. I understand the risk with not having the checking function doing this but i would be happy to take the risk. Matching overlaid drawings with the zone function is a tedious task and i got excited when i saw the overlay function appear but this function isnt great so zoning remains my least favourite task.

Overall countfire has made my job as an estimator a lot easier and quicker. It helps me maximise the speed of my take offs whilst making sure the quality is up to standard.

The product itself is very easy to use and get used to. I can take drawings off in whatever way I need, and even go back to edit take offs if needs be with no hassle.

One feature I would like to see added to countfire is the ability to copy a Group/Measure/Count. Sometimes on one drawing I could have multiple types of spurs for example, and it would be nice to be able to copy one line item, and edit part of the reference to save typing out the whole thing.

Great piece of software that not only speeds up the process but also helps with the reporting.

The software is easy to use and if in doubt the speed of assistance is almost immediate. The ease to choose symbols which then copies across to all drawings in that section makes it so much faster.

Not having used any other software for take offs in the past doesn't give me much to say what features the software lacks or is missing, anything we do use is a bonus and with new features constantly updating I cant fault it.

The system is very easy to use which makes the familiarisation process quire easy. With any new software you have to familiarise yourself with the peculiarities of the system and work with it to get the best from it which is what we have found with Countfire. The first thing you notice is the speed and responsiveness of the auto count system which is so much better than other systems we have tried. We have found Countfire to suit our business needs but there are improvements to be made and hopefully we will see this product develop further.

Easy to use, fast, useful for auto counting from certain revised drawings such as lighting. Demarcation of drawings is a good feature.

There is no 'back' button to help you correct mistakes - you have to rely on not saving changes which is not ideal. Recognition of different orientation of symbols is limited to 90 degrees only - expanding this would be useful. Typical small power symbol auto count can be time consuming because of how symbols are recognised by the system, this makes the auto count process unreliable particularly across multiple drawings - a manual count often becomes the best option which defeats the object.

I've found the software brilliant and the customer service exceptional. Its taken my business to the next level and couldn't imagine how i would run my business without it.

Easy and quick to use. Absolutely brilliant.

It would be nice to be able to copy test off the drawings to paste in the software

Countfire makes doing takeoffs extremely easy and the amount of time it saves leaves more time to do other things that need doing.

not enough colours in the palette, When you measure & ask for itemised it measures every click not just start to finish giving far to many reults

The new feature to overlay drawings to save time taking off similar drawings more than once.

Can be long processing some complicated drawings.

Countfire has saved me tons of time performing takeoffs. It is also very helpful in accomplishing a set of takeoffs for a project with a quick turn around time.

I absolutely love the quick response from the members of the Countfire Staff. They are quick to respond and help resolve any issues you may have.

I love everything about the Countfire Program.

Its quick and easy to use. There are a few things which can be done to make it even better but overall its far more efficient than using paper and coloured pens.

It is pretty easy to use once you are using it on a daily basis. It makes the take-off process a lot quicker and doesn't require the need for printing off a Forrest worth of trees for drawings, plus you don't need to keep a whole range of coloured pens handy.

I have found that I have gone back to drawings that I have taken off first time around and noticed symbols which I did take off were not highlighted. That could be simply down to me not saving each time. However, I have had to go back through each drawing to make sure I haven't missed anything. There should be something in place to highlight anything that has been missed. It would also be helpful to have an option to pick regularly used symbols and containment so that you can save time not having to manually type them in.

The ability to drag, drop and created elements save days of manual counting on paper. the software can be used anywhere you have internet connection

an internet connection is required and a large amount of storage for dropbox also

This lowers the rate of human error, whilst also saving on printing paper. Very quick turn around too :-)

I love the ability to join drawings, this is useful on Drawing updates, Split Drawings. I have also found a use for System Modifications too.

When I have to Manually Count, I find the dots placed can flood the drawing making it hard to ensure you have covered everything, when toggling the tabs, this equally leaves questioning.

Countfire is so easy to use. I've only recently moved to the estimating department and this tool is essential. I love that the Countfire team keeps an eye on the way you use the software and come in with suggestion how to use the tool more effectively if they see you making the same mistake multiple times. They will also offer suggestions on the most efficient ways to do your take-offs.

Countfire can sometimes fail to recognize the same symbol if there is a difference in orientation, but having said that, the "Toggle" function will identify missed symbols.

So far, it is early days, I have found everything very straightforward. I spent time working through a lot of the help screens before I attempted my first take off, but still encountered a problem selecting some symbols. I couldn't find the answer myself so used the chat option. Within minutes I was chatting to someone who could help straight away with advice and even videos to show me how to deal with my problem. Looking forward to learning more as I progress.

Love the common sense feel to this software. Very quick to do a take off. Every problem I have encountered so far has had a solution. Support and help screens are excellent.

I actually haven't found anything I don't like so far, but I have only been using it for a short time. I think it is just a case of getting your head around what the software needs from you to do its thing.

Very helpful in times of need when a project needs a quick turnaround! The customer service team are also very responsive and there when you need them! Would highly recommend for estimating larger projects if you want to cut down on estimating time.

Speed, adaptability to pricing schedules/demarcations and the fact Countfire themselves are open to taking on ideas for user interface improvements to make take off easier

When drawings take ages to load up

Very positive so far - still learning but for me it has been quite easy to pick up so am very confident I will have the hang of it quite quickly.

It is very straightforward. I am a bit of a tech phobic and am picking this up quite easily.

Nothing yet as I have only been on it for a very short while