Best On Screen Take Off Software. Period.

Highly recommend Planswift to General Contractors and Specialty Contractors alike. Best On-Screen Take Off software available.

Pros

Ease of use, very user-friendly interface. Quickly rip takeoffs. Great reporting and customization capabilities.

Cons

One time fee may be expensive for some, but it is well worth the investment!

It's A Love/Hate Relationship

Like the title says, it's a love/hate relationship. Lots of really powerful features, but it's really outdated and lacking some modern cloud syncing features and others talked about in the Cons list.

Pros

It's extremely in-depth and you can do almost anything you can imagine. The tools to build parts and assemblies are extremely extensive and haven't found anything we can't do. Other than a handful of bids that we send out for, we estimate the entire home for each client. Every single nut, bolt, box of screws, rebar, rolls of house wrap, etc. There's nothing we can't do. The

Cons

Terrible customer service! I usually call and have to leave a message and someone might get back to me in 24-48 hours. They don't seem to know their software well either as we were able to figure out things that they said wasn't possible... Way outdated: No 4K monitor support, very old looking interface, only available for Windows. No built-in cloud syncing between computers. If there is a change in pricing, adding parts, building assemblies, etc. for a while we had to manually do this in each computer. We ended up figuring out how to utilize a cloud platform to sync up all changes to our parts and assemblies across computers and it now works now. No built-in Job file sharing. Again, we set up a cloud system using Google Drive local sync and it works well. We just can't be in the same job at the same time or it might get errors. There is no automatic association between a part in a parts list and the same part in an assembly. For instance, by default, if I update a price in the parts list it doesn't reflect that price update in any instance of the part used on an assembly. You have to use a $200 plugin that basically adds a search and replace function. Price changes on parts are not reflected in current jobs unless you manually go in and change it. We found a workaround for this though. For all of our assemblies, we were able to link the "Cost Each" back to the original part's "Cost Each" through a file path. Just a pain. I ran out of room to type so I must stop here..

Robust Potential, glitchy programming

I've been a Planswift user for last 8 years. The program has a lot of bells and whistles with so many custom options. Its a rather incredible concept but some of the tools like hip/valley tool, comparative overlay and auto count don't work properly. My number one issue with plan swift is the code. I complained about how slow the program would get after just a few hours of measurements, especially when using a lot of joint tool and overlays. I would mostly get silence from customer support when making that comment, it seemed odd but I didn't put much thought into it and just kept upgrading hardware on my PC to compensate. Well, now I have a computer that could animate for Pixar yet Planswift still shows me its hourglass mocking the value of my time. I also noticed it would crash more often than I find reasonable and will also crash excel when open even if not using Planswift at the time. When this would happen, excel was unable to recover my progress in that worksheet. VERY frustrating. So, I started to look into composing better spreadsheet design do compensate. I went to an excel guru with estimating background and after just several hours we were both unsure of how we were to make chicken salad out of the fodder. I decided to go shopping, there are tons of in screen programs out there but if you want takeoff with legends to be able to efficiently convey that fancy estimate you spent hours and days putting together to a team on the forld, there are very few that do it well. Most do not have a joist tool or hip/valley intelligence and many other features Planswift has. But most all the others are faster than P.S. and will allow you to work on multiple jobs at same time (P.S. does not). For the light user on a budget, this could be your ticket and I will gladly sell you one of the four P.S. Licenses I am currently sitting on. But if you want to do whole project estimating that is visually auditable with reliable output that won't slow you down and actually speed this boring, low-to-no paying process down then I suggest you search elsewhere. I found my dream software by mixing tei that have most of what Planswift does combined. But mega faster, without crashing or ever hour classing and better reports I do t have to spend hours cleaning up after exporting.

Pros

Features, easy to learn, lots of customization options

Cons

Glitchy, crashy, ruined my day far too many times with lost/disconnected data & subsequent reduced productivity

Great software for organizing and implementing budget information

I have used PlanSwift from the beginning of my training as an estimator 4 years ago, and even the formal training class I took used PlanSwift as the basis for the training. I have rarely needed Customer Service, but when I have, they have been great. The free webinars also have been helpful.

Pros

Extremely simple measurement takeoffs, and excellent features for organizing information. It is also intuitive to use as far as the takeoffs go. The detailed budgeting information and ability to export so that the data can be used with other software is what makes PlanSwift so valuable as an estimating tool.

Cons

It is difficult to find files when there are a lot in one folder. I haven't been able to figure out how to search or reorganize the import list in a way that keeps me from having to just scroll through the list until I find the file I want to import. The good thing is, the most recently saved file is at the bottom of the list, so if it's a new file, it is easy to find. And those are usually the files I'm looking for. The other downside for me was that I had to have my computer rebuilt, and the PlanSwift files were stored in a place on my computer that is not routinely copied when an IT tech rebuilds the computer. Sorry I don't remember where the files were stored. HOWEVER, the PlanSwift customer service team was extremely helpful and worked with my IT tech to try to find and restore the files. Although they were not able to restore any of the files, they were able to change the location of storage so that wouldn't happen again. Also, I waited to have my computer rebuilt until I had finished a big project, so I didn't really miss anything that I had lost.

Estimating 2.0

Pros

Drawing tools are easy to use. Assemblies make the process simple as a single line can capture multiple items at one time. The reporting functions make it easy to review the results and modify the assemblies as a whole as standards change.

Cons

The updating process is very slow. As more assemblies are added to the file, the software gets bogged down and glitchy.