Togal vs On-Screen Takeoff.

Togal vs On-Screen Takeoff: which is the better choice?

OST was first released in 1988 by On Center Software and has been the default tool in commercial drywall, ceilings, paint and flooring offices for a long time. Togal arrived with a different premise: the software should make the first pass. In April 2026 ConstructConnect answered with Takeoff BOOST, available first in OST. So this is no longer a comparison of AI against no AI. It is a comparison of an AI-native browser tool against a veteran desktop tool that has added AI.

Pricing reviewed 13 November 2026, based on public documentation as of November 2026. Togal.AI, On-Screen Takeoff and Quick Bid are trademarks of their owners; this is an independent comparison.

Togal and OST side by side

What OST does that Togal does not

An estimator who has spent ten years in OST is not attached to the tracing. The attachment is to the structure around it.

Conditions. OST organises a takeoff around conditions: a wall type, a ceiling type, a flooring finish, each with its own properties. A drywall shop builds a library of them and every new bid starts from that library. Multi-Condition Takeoff, which ConstructConnect describes as patented, lets one traced line take off several conditions at once, so a single pass along a partition can carry both faces of board, the framing and the finish.

Typical areas. On a hotel or an apartment block you take off one unit and apply it across every matching unit and floor. For repetitive buildings this is a large saving that has nothing to do with AI.

Overlays and Quick Bid. Overlays compare revisions, and the takeoff flows into Quick Bid, ConstructConnect's estimating product, where the conditions become priced items. Togal has drawing comparison, but it has no estimating partner product; quantities go out as an export.

That is why the OST side of the argument lands with interior subs. The AI in Togal produces areas and lengths. The condition structure in OST produces a bid-ready breakdown the way a drywall estimator thinks about it.

What Togal does that OST does not

It publishes the price. $3,588 per user per year, on the website, with unlimited automated takeoffs, chat prompts and image or symbol searches. You can budget before you talk to anyone.

It runs in a browser. No install, no licence to move between machines, and it works on a Mac. ConstructConnect does sell a separate browser product, ConstructConnect Takeoff, which runs on Mac or Windows with Takeoff BOOST built in, but it is a different product from OST and its pricing is not public either.

AI is the starting point, not an assist. Togal's workflow begins with the software detecting, measuring and counting. Takeoff BOOST in OST, as described by the vendor, auto counts repeating items, names sheets and detects wall types inside a workflow that is still built around the estimator drawing conditions. Those are useful time savers. They are not the same thing as a full first pass, and they are months old.

Sharing. External collaborators can view Togal work without an account, which suits a GC passing quantities to several people.

Third-party listings report G2 ratings of 4.8 out of 5 for Togal from about 60 reviews and 4.4 out of 5 for On-Screen Takeoff from 148 reviews. The Togal complaints are about cleaning up AI results and reworking exports; weaker results on civil and sitework sheets also come up.

How to compare a published price with a quote

You cannot put OST in a cost table without a number, and estimates of OST's price that circulate on competitor blogs are not reliable enough to repeat. Do this instead when you ask ConstructConnect for the quote:

1. Ask for the per-seat annual price with Takeoff BOOST included, and whether BOOST is in every licence or a higher tier.
2. Ask whether Quick Bid is in the quote. If you need OST plus Quick Bid to produce an estimate, compare that total against Togal plus whatever you price in today.
3. Ask about the licence type. ConstructConnect has reportedly been moving OST from licence keys to email-and-password subscriptions during 2026, so confirm how seats are assigned and moved.
4. Use both trials on one drawing set. OST has a 14-day trial. Togal starts with a demo, so ask for access to your own plans as part of it.

Then set the OST figure against $3,588 a seat. If your team is four or more, Togal's price also becomes a quote, and you are comparing two negotiated numbers.

Best for: the verdict

On-Screen Takeoff is the better pick for commercial drywall, ceiling, painting and flooring subcontractors who already own a condition library, bid repetitive buildings with typical areas, and estimate in Quick Bid. Switching away would mean rebuilding that structure somewhere else, and Takeoff BOOST now gives those shops some AI without the move.

Togal is the better pick for general contractors validating quantities across trades, for newer estimating teams with no OST history to protect, for offices with Macs, and for anyone who refuses to buy software without seeing the price first.

A team in the middle, say an interior sub with two veteran OST estimators and two new hires on laptops, can reasonably run both for a bid season and let the hours decide. For an OST-internal decision see PlanSwift vs On-Screen Takeoff, since both now belong to ConstructConnect.

If you would rather not click at all

Togal and OST both keep an estimator in the software through the first pass. Pilars runs that pass unattended. The plan set and the spec book go in as PDFs; minutes later the software has read every sheet together, resolved door, finish and fixture schedules, counted and measured, and returned quantities with confidence scores and the sheet each one came from.

An OST estimator's first worry is control, and it is a fair one. Every detection in Pilars can be opened and changed: reclassify a partition type, pull a boundary to the right line, add or delete a device, overwrite a quantity. Totals update as you go. The software drafts; the estimator decides.

Like Togal, Pilars has a public price, and it is nearly the same one: $300 per user per month, where a user is one estimator on one trade with unlimited takeoffs, against Togal's $299 per user per month. The difference in terms is that Pilars can be billed monthly, where Togal bills annually. A painting sub with one estimator would spend $3,600 a year, however many sets the shop bids, and a second trade means a second user. It takes off 19 trades, where Togal is architectural-first and OST's home ground is interiors. Pilars does not reproduce an OST condition library or Quick Bid, so a shop built around those would bring Pilars quantities into its existing estimate.

The one accuracy test Pilars has published is on an electrical sheet: duplex receptacle counts on one real power plan, 97.5% for Pilars against 84% for Togal, with the method on the benchmark page. OST was not part of that test. See Pilars vs On-Screen Takeoff and Pilars vs Togal for the direct comparisons.

Questions estimators actually ask