Checklist for trials and demos
Questions to ask before you buy AI takeoff software
Run every vendor through the same past job and the same questions. A vendor's demo file was chosen because it works; your job was not. Print this page and take it to every demo.
Before the demo
Settle these first so the demo is spent on your job, not the vendor's.
- Pick a past job you already priced by hand, with a known answer, in the trade you will use the tool for.
- Make sure it has at least one known problem: an item on the plan but not in the schedule, a spec that overrides the schedule, or an addendum.
- Decide who will run the trial. It should be the estimator who will use the tool every week, not a manager.
- Write down how you will score it: missed items, extra items, time to a bid-ready result, and cleanup before export.
Accuracy on a past job
The only accuracy figure that matters is the one on your own drawings.
- Will you run our past job, start to finish, while we watch, or let us run it ourselves in a trial?
- How is your published accuracy figure measured? On what files, and how is a miss counted?
- Does the tool read only the drawings, or the schedules and specification too?
- Can every quantity be traced back to the place on the sheet it came from?
- How does it handle scanned sets, poor-quality PDFs and details at a different scale?
Missed items and conflicts
Every tool misses something. What matters is whether you find out before the bid goes in.
- When the schedule and the plan disagree, does the tool show both, or pick one without telling us?
- How does it flag an item it is unsure about? Show us one on our job.
- What happens to an item that appears on the plan but not in the schedule?
- How are addenda handled? Does it list what was added, removed and changed since the last set?
- If the tool gets an item wrong, how do we correct it, and does the correction carry through to the export?
Data security
Bid documents belong to the owner and the architect. Know where they go.
- Do you hold a SOC 2 Type 2 report (or ISO 27001)? Can we see it, or a summary, under NDA?
- Where are our files stored, and in which country?
- Are our drawings or takeoffs used to train your models? Can we opt out?
- Which third parties (sub-processors, AI model providers) see our files?
- Who on your team can open our projects, and is that access logged?
- How do we delete a project, and how long are backups kept after we do?
- Is single sign-on available on the plan we would buy, or only on a higher one?
What the output looks like
A takeoff you have to re-key is only half a takeoff.
- Show us the export from our past job, in the format we price in.
- Does it go straight into our estimating or quoting system? Which ones, by name?
- Can we change the columns, units and grouping to match our estimate template?
- Can someone without a login review the takeoff (a PM, a GC, a supplier)?
- Is there an API if we want to connect it ourselves?
Price, access and support
Get the numbers in writing before you commit an estimator's time.
- What is the price for our number of estimators, in writing? Per user, per trade or per project?
- What is included in the trial, and does trial work carry over if we buy?
- Is there a usage limit (AI credits, pages, projects) and what happens when we hit it?
- Is it annual only, or monthly? What is the cancellation term?
- Who do we call on bid day, and how fast do they answer?
- How long until a new estimator is productive, and is training included?
How to score the answers
Use the six criteria from how we rank: trade fit, schedules, plans and specs read together, accuracy checks, output formats, security and learning curve. Grade each vendor Shown, Partly or Not shown on what you saw on your own job, not on what the sales deck says. Then compare your grades with ours on the ranking.