Auto count symbols on blueprints: three ways to do it.

How do you auto count symbols on blueprints?

Pricing reviewed 13 November 2026, based on public documentation as of Nov 2026. Bluebeam, Revu, PlanSwift, On-Screen Takeoff, Takeoff BOOST, ConstructConnect, STACK, Kreo, Togal.AI, Countfire, Trimble and ConEst are trademarks of their owners; this is an independent comparison published by Pilars.

Three approaches to automatic symbol counting, compared

Approach 1: Bluebeam visual search

Revu can search a PDF for a graphic the same way it searches for text. You draw a box around one receptacle, run the search, and it returns the places where it found a match. You check the hits and apply count markups to them, and the totals show up in the Markups List like any other count.

On a clean vector sheet where the engineer placed the same block every time, this saves real time. Its limits are the ones you would guess. It looks for one shape at a time, so a set with thirty device types means thirty searches. Symbols that are rotated, scaled, or crossed by a wall line or a tag can be missed. It has no idea that a duplex and a GFCI are different items if they are drawn alike, and it does not read the fixture schedule. Scanned sheets are harder still.

Note that this is not one of the AI features Bluebeam launched in the Max plan in 2026. Those are aimed at drawing review and comparison, and Bluebeam's pricing page lists nothing called auto count. Check with Bluebeam which plan includes the search tools before you buy for this purpose; the count tool itself starts at Core ($330). More in can Bluebeam do takeoffs and electrical takeoff in Bluebeam.

Best for: a team that already has Revu and counts a few sheets now and then.

Approach 2: AI auto count inside a takeoff tool

This is where most of the 2026 product news landed. The established takeoff tools have each added a count feature, and they are not all the same thing.

• Takeoff BOOST AI (ConstructConnect). Announced in April 2026 and available first in On-Screen Takeoff, where it auto counts repeating items. PlanSwift Essential at $2,000 per year includes Auto Count, Auto Scale and Auto Bookmark, and Core at $3,000 adds Auto Takeoff. On-Screen Takeoff pricing is not public; you get a quote.
• STACK. STACK Assist automates counts for doors, windows and symbols. STACK documents its Symbol Counting AI as currently available only on electrical plan sheets. STACK is priced "as low as $299 per user per month".
• Kreo. Auto symbol count is part of the Pro plan at $175 per user per month, billed annually. The $100 Essential plan has no AI.
• Togal.AI. The $299 per user per month Growth plan includes unlimited image and symbol searches, though the product is strongest on floor-plan areas.
• Countfire. Built around counting: "Count thousands of symbols in seconds across every drawing in a project", aimed at electrical and M&E estimators. Pricing is not public; you get a quote.
• Electrical estimating suites. Trimble added AI count-based takeoff across its MEP estimating products in June 2026, and ConEst SureCount has a patented Auto Count that counts all symbol types on a drawing at once. Neither publishes pricing.

These tools do well when you want to keep your existing takeoff workflow, your assemblies and your estimate link, and simply stop clicking every device. The work that remains is review: confirming the groups are the right types, catching the misses, and making sure the same device was not counted on both the overall plan and the enlarged plan.

Best for: estimators committed to a particular takeoff or estimating product who want its counting to be faster.

Approach 3: automated AI takeoff

The third approach does not start from a symbol you select. Pilars reads the whole plan set and the spec book together, uses the symbol legend and the fixture and equipment schedules to decide what each symbol is, counts by type across every sheet, and returns confidence-scored quantities sourced to the sheet. The hard part of counting is rarely finding circles on a page. It is knowing that the circle on E2.01 is a Type A2 fixture and that the same room appears again on the enlarged plan.

• Control when you want it. The count runs automatically, but nothing is locked. Open any detection and change it: add a device the model missed, remove one it should not have counted, or reclassify a type, and the totals update. The estimator has the final say.
• Faster. The set is read in minutes, with no first pass to draw or click and no search to repeat per symbol.
• Benchmark-backed. In our duplex receptacle benchmark, run on one real power plan, the Pilars fine-tuned model counted 97.5% of the devices. Twelve other systems ranged from 65 to 88%, including Togal at 84%, Kreo at 82% and STACK at 72%. It is one task on one sheet, run by us, so treat it as that and not as a general accuracy claim.
• All 19 trades. The same upload covers receptacles and fixtures, plumbing fixtures, diffusers and equipment, sprinkler heads, doors and windows.

The price is $300 per user per month, billed monthly or annually. Each user covers one trade with unlimited takeoffs, so a shop counting electrical and HVAC needs two users at $600 a month. That is more than a Bluebeam or PlanSwift seat and much the same as Togal.AI, so buy it for the automated first pass, not to save on software. It is the wrong tool for counting one symbol on one sheet when you already own Revu, and the right one when the alternative is two days of clicking. You can run your own set in the live demo.

Best for: electrical, mechanical, plumbing and fire protection subs, and GCs who want several trades counted from one set.

Where automatic counts go wrong, and how to check one

No approach on this page removes the need to check.

• Double counting. The same room drawn on an overall plan and an enlarged plan, or a device repeated across a match line.
• Look-alike types. Duplex against GFCI, single-pole against three-way, one downlight against another. The subscript or tag is the only difference.
• Obscured symbols. Devices under hatching, leaders, dimension strings or text.
• Legend mismatches. A symbol used on the plan that is not in the legend, or a legend that differs from the last engineer's.
• Scans. Raster sheets with noise and skew are harder for every method.

The check is the same whichever software produced the number. Reconcile fixture counts against the fixture schedule by type, compare device counts with what the panel schedules imply, and spot-check two or three rooms by hand. Our guide to counting electrical devices without double-counting lays out the manual method in full, and it doubles as an audit routine for an automatic count.

Questions estimators actually ask