Takeoff ROI calculator.
Put in how many bids you run and how long a manual takeoff takes. See what those hours cost you each month, what the same work costs through Pilars at $100 per trade, and how many extra bids the freed time buys back.
| Metric | Value | How it’s figured |
|---|
How the math works
Every number above comes from one of these lines — no hidden assumptions, and nothing counted twice:
- Hours/month on takeoffs — bids × trades per bid × hours per manual takeoff. A 1-trade bidder doing 10 bids at 16 hrs each spends 160 hrs/month measuring.
- Manual labor cost — those hours × your fully-burdened estimator rate. At $45/hr that’s $7,200/month for the example above.
- Pilars cost — bids × trades × $100. The same 10 single-trade bids cost $1,000.
- Monthly savings — manual labor cost minus Pilars cost ($6,200 in the example), and ×12 for the annualized figure.
- Hours freed — the manual takeoff hours that no longer happen. The AI takeoff itself is ~6–12 min of compute; budget some review time, but it’s a rounding error against 8–80 manual hours.
- Extra bids possible — hours freed ÷ hours per takeoff. It’s capacity you get back, not revenue we assume — multiply by your win rate and margin to size the upside yourself.
The real win isn’t the line item. It’s the next bid.
Cutting takeoff cost from thousands of dollars to $100 a trade is the obvious part. The bigger lever is that your best estimator stops spending the week tracing walls and starts chasing more work, scrubbing scope and writing tighter proposals. See the full ROI breakdown, or send Pilars a real set and watch it run a takeoff in minutes. $100 per trade, per plan — no seats, no subscription.
Questions estimators actually ask
How is the ROI calculated?
Monthly takeoff hours = bids × trades per bid × hours per manual takeoff. Manual labor cost = those hours × estimator hourly cost. Pilars cost = bids × trades × $100. Monthly savings is the difference, hours freed is the manual hours that disappear, and extra bids possible is hours freed ÷ hours per takeoff.
Is AI takeoff really that much faster than manual?
The machine takeoff runs in roughly 6–12 minutes, but you should still review and adjust the output, so budget review time on top. A manual takeoff runs 8–16 hrs residential and 40–80 hrs commercial. The savings come from replacing hours of measuring with minutes of compute plus a focused review.
What should I use for estimator hourly cost?
Use the fully burdened cost — base pay plus payroll taxes, benefits and overhead — not just the wage. The default $45/hr is a common fully-burdened figure; adjust it to your own numbers for an accurate result.
Does this count extra revenue from winning more bids?
No — it’s deliberately conservative. It reports labor savings and the extra bids you could pursue with the freed hours, but it doesn’t assume those bids are won. Multiply extra bids × your win rate × average margin to estimate upside revenue.
How much does Pilars cost?
Pilars is $100 per trade, per plan. A single-trade bid is $100; a three-trade bid is $300. There’s no per-seat subscription, so cost scales with the work you actually send through.
Turn those numbers into a quote.
Send Pilars one real plan set. We’ll run the takeoff in minutes and you can hold it next to your manual numbers. $100 per trade — no seats, no subscription.