Steel takeoff service — done by a working detailer

Send us the bid set. Get a material list the next business day.

No software to learn, no seats, no subscription. Send a link to your drawings, we quote a flat price off the page count, you pay, and a bid-ready Excel material list lands in your inbox by the next business day — piece marks, lengths, spec grades, sorted by shape.

Get a quote See a real material list
1 daystandard turnaround
$85flat, sets up to 50 pages
125 linesin the published sample

How it works

Four steps. The only thing you do is send a link and pay an invoice.

  1. 01

    Send a link

    Dropbox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, Box, SharePoint, a plan-room link — whatever you already have. Nothing to upload here, so set size is never a problem.

  2. 02

    We quote

    We open the set, confirm the page count, and email you a flat price from the table below. Usually within a few hours on a business day.

  3. 03

    You pay

    We send a Stripe payment link. Card or bank. The clock starts when payment clears — that's the only reason we ask for it up front.

  4. 04

    You get the list

    An Excel material list in your inbox by the next business day, with a note listing anything the drawings left unresolved.

What you actually get

One deliverable, done properly: the material list your shop buys steel from.

  • One line per member — quantity, shape, length, grade, and piece mark
  • Grouped by shape family — wide flange, HSS, channel, angle, plate — with subtotals and linear-foot totals
  • Spec grades called out per line (A992, A500 Gr.B, A36) so purchasing can price it straight off the sheet
  • A flagged-items note for anything the drawings didn't resolve, instead of a silent guess
  • Delivered as Excel, so you can drop your own mill pricing beside it
Budgetary, not stamped. A FabTakeoff material list is a bid-stage quantity document. Verify against the issued construction documents before you submit a number you're bound to.

Flat price, by the size of the set

Priced on the total page count of the set you send us — all disciplines, not just the structural sheets. One job, one price. No subscription, no seats, no minimum.

Pages in the setPriceTypical job
Up to 50 pages$85Single building, light commercial, a mezzanine or infill package
51–150 pages$225A full school, medical, or mid-size commercial set
151–300 pages$450Multi-building or multi-phase set
301–600 pages$800Large multi-building or multi-phase set
Over 600 pagesQuotedSend it over and we'll quote it the same day
Rush — same-day turnaround+50%Added to any tier above, subject to capacity that day
The count is confirmed before you pay anything. Drop your PDFs into the form below and it counts the pages for you — in your own browser, without uploading anything. We check that count when we open the set. If it lands in a different tier, we email you the corrected price and you decide from there. No payment link goes out until you've seen the final number.

What the same work costs everywhere else

Published 2026 rates for steel takeoff and estimating work. We come in under the ranges below, and the reason is written at the bottom — it isn't that we cut corners.

How takeoff work is normally pricedGoing rate
By the drawing sheet$30–$100per sheet
Single-trade takeoff — small job$250–$600
Single-trade takeoff — large or complex$500–$1,200
Mid-size commercial takeoff$400–$1,500
Estimator by the hour, US-based$50–$150per hour
A percentage of the steel package1%–3%
FabTakeoff — a 133-page mid-size commercial set, next business day $225flat, all in
Why we're cheaper, honestly. Most of those services hand you a full priced estimate — labor hours, cost breakdowns, a bid total. We hand you the material list and stop there. You're going to price it with your own mill quotes and your own shop rates anyway, so we don't charge you for cost modeling you'd throw away. One deliverable, done properly, at a fraction of a full estimate.

Rates above are published ranges from 2026 construction-estimating pricing guides, for comparison only. What anyone charges you depends on your drawings.

Get a quote

Takes about a minute. You'll get a price by email — no payment, no commitment at this step.

Dropbox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, Box, SharePoint, or a plan-room link. Make sure it's set so anyone with the link can view — that's the most common reason a quote gets held up.
Drop the PDFs here to count them or — drop the whole set, all disciplines
Nothing is uploaded. The pages are counted inside your own browser and only the number is sent to us. Your drawings never leave your computer — that's what the link field above is for.
When your number is due.
However you refer to it.

We reply with a flat price. Nothing is charged until you approve it and we send a payment link.

Straight answers

Who does the work?

A working steel detailer based in Washington State, using purpose-built estimating tooling and reviewing every line before it goes out. You're not getting raw machine output, and you're not getting an offshore data-entry room either — you're emailing one person who opens your set himself.

Why pay before the work?

Because a takeoff is hours of work that can't be repossessed once it's emailed. Payment up front is what lets the price sit at a few hundred dollars instead of an estimator's day rate. It's also how the rest of this industry works — outsourced estimating is quoted, invoiced, then delivered.

What you get in return: if we get something wrong — a shape misread, a length off against the drawing, a member missed that the drawings clearly showed — we correct it at no charge. That's in writing in our terms, not a slogan.

What if the drawings are unclear?

We don't quietly guess. Anything the set doesn't resolve — a missing schedule, a detail that contradicts a plan — comes back to you as a flagged line so you can price it as an assumption or chase an RFI.

Is my bid set confidential?

Yes. Your drawings and your material list are never published, resold, or shown to anyone else. The sample on this site is one of our own completed jobs, with the building name and every identifying detail stripped out before publication.

What's not included?

The material list, and only the material list. No erection pricing, no shop labor hours, no connection design, no stamped drawings. If joists, deck, or miscellaneous metals are outside your scope, tell us on the form and we'll leave them out.

Can I send more than one set?

Yes — one form per set is easiest, and each is priced on its own page count. If you're bidding weekly, say so and we'll sort out a standing arrangement.