Free Plumbing Takeoff Software for Contractors

Yes. Easy Takeoffs is the only genuinely free plumbing takeoff tool with no trial period, no credit card, and no feature gates. You get full access to the polyline tool for tracing pipe runs, the count tool for fixtures and valves, measurement grouping by system (supply, waste, vent), and CSV export for material ordering. Most plumbing estimating software requires a paid subscription. PlanSwift charges around $1,749 per year for a single license. STACK starts at $2,599 per year. Trimble Accubid, a plumbing-specific estimating platform, runs $3,000 or more annually. Even the tools that offer a free trial limit you to 7 or 14 days, which is barely enough to learn the interface, let alone complete a real bid. Easy Takeoffs works on any device with a browser, so your office desktop, a tablet on the jobsite, and your laptop at the kitchen table all access the same projects. There is nothing to install. Upload your plumbing plans as PDFs, set the scale, and start measuring pipe runs and counting fixtures immediately. The tool handles multi-page plan sets, so you can keep architectural, plumbing, and riser diagram pages in the same project and switch between them while tracing different systems.

Start with the plumbing plan sheets, not the architectural set. Plumbing plans show pipe routing, fixture locations, and riser connections that architectural plans omit. Upload the full plan set as a PDF and navigate to the plumbing pages. Set the drawing scale using a known dimension, such as a wall length or the scale bar printed on the sheet. Most residential plumbing plans are drawn at 1/4 inch equals 1 foot. Begin by tracing the main building drain and the horizontal waste branches to each fixture group using the polyline tool. Click at each fitting location, direction change, and cleanout. Then trace the vent system, following the vent risers from each fixture or group up to the vent header and through the roof penetration. Next, trace the hot and cold supply lines from the water heater and main shutoff to each fixture. Use separate measurement groups for waste, vent, hot supply, and cold supply so your CSV export lists each system separately. Finally, use the count tool to mark every fixture: toilets, lavatories, tubs, showers, hose bibbs, water heaters, and any specialty items like grease interceptors or floor drains. Export the combined footage and counts to CSV for pricing with your supplier.

Waste factors for plumbing pipe depend on the material type and the complexity of the routing. PEX tubing runs 5 percent waste on straight residential runs because it bends around corners without fittings, but a manifold system with individual home runs from the manifold to each fixture can hit 8 percent because every run has a stub-out cut. Copper pipe runs 8 to 10 percent waste. Each solder joint requires a deburring cut, and short pieces between closely spaced fittings cannot be reused elsewhere. PVC DWV pipe runs 8 percent on typical residential waste and vent systems. Cutting a 10-foot stick for a 7-foot run leaves a 3-foot piece that may or may not fit another run. Cast iron no-hub pipe runs 10 percent because the heavy pipe is harder to cut cleanly, and the no-hub couplings require precise alignment that sometimes means recutting. For commercial projects with complex routing, add 2 to 3 percent above these numbers. A 4-story riser with offsets at each floor generates more cuts and short remnants than a straight drop. Always apply the waste factor after adding your rough-in connection allowance (8 to 12 feet per fixture), not before, so the waste percentage covers the full footage you will actually purchase.

Use the count tool in Easy Takeoffs to click on each fixture symbol on the plumbing plan. Plumbing fixtures are represented by standardized symbols: a circle for floor drains, a rectangle with a small extension for toilets (water closets), ovals for lavatories, and larger rectangles for bathtubs. Create a separate count group for each fixture type: water closets, lavatories, bathtubs, showers, kitchen sinks, utility sinks, hose bibbs, floor drains, water heaters, and any specialty fixtures. As you click each symbol, the count total updates in real time and every marker sits on the plan so you can visually verify nothing was missed. For commercial projects, cross-reference your count against the fixture schedule in the specifications. The schedule lists every fixture by type, manufacturer, model, and count. If your plan count does not match the schedule count, submit an RFI before bidding. Your count total also determines the fixture unit value for pipe sizing calculations. A water closet is typically 4 fixture units and a lavatory is 1, so accurate counts directly affect the main drain and vent header sizing for your bid. Export your fixture counts grouped by type to CSV for pricing.

Yes, and separating them is critical for an accurate plumbing bid. In Easy Takeoffs, create separate measurement groups for each system: hot supply, cold supply, waste, and vent. Each group gets its own color on the plan overlay, so you can visually confirm that every pipe trace belongs to the correct system. When you export to CSV, each group exports with its own total footage, making it straightforward to price each system separately with your supplier. This matters because the pipe materials and costs are different for each system. Hot supply might be 3/4-inch type L copper at $8 per foot, while cold supply is 3/4-inch PEX at $1.50 per foot. Waste lines are typically 3-inch or 4-inch PVC DWV at $3 to $6 per foot, and vent lines are often 2-inch PVC DWV at $2 per foot. Mixing these into a single measurement group makes accurate pricing impossible. For commercial projects, you may want additional groups: storm drainage, condensate drains, gas piping, and medical gas. Each uses different materials, different waste factors, and different labor rates. The grouping also helps during installation because your foreman can pull the CSV for just the waste system and hand it to the crew doing underground rough-in.

Digital plumbing takeoff from properly scaled PDFs is consistently more accurate than manual scaling with a ruler on paper. Manual takeoffs introduce cumulative error every time you place a ruler on the plan, read a measurement, and write it down. A 1/16-inch misread at 1/4-inch scale equals 3 inches in real life. Over 50 pipe runs, those errors compound. Digital tracing eliminates ruler parallax and reading errors because the software calculates footage directly from the calibrated drawing scale. In head-to-head tests, digital takeoffs typically land within 2 to 3 percent of the actual installed footage, while manual takeoffs vary by 5 to 10 percent depending on the estimator. The bigger accuracy gain comes from completeness, not precision. Manual takeoffs miss pipe runs because the estimator skips a section of the plan, miscounts fixtures, or forgets to include the vertical risers. Digital takeoff with visible markers on the plan makes omissions obvious because unmarked areas stand out. The accuracy also depends on drawing quality. If the engineer drew the pipe routing to scale, your digital trace will be accurate. If the routing is schematic (showing connections but not actual paths), the digital trace captures the schematic routing and you need to add allowances for the actual field routing. Always verify the drawing scale before starting.

Plan-view plumbing drawings show horizontal pipe routing but compress vertical runs into symbols. Riser diagrams, when provided, show the vertical routing. Upload the riser diagram page alongside the plan views in the same Easy Takeoffs project. Set the scale on the riser diagram independently because riser diagrams often use a different scale than plan views, sometimes 1/8 inch equals 1 foot or even a schematic no-scale format. Trace the vertical runs on the riser diagram with the polyline tool, clicking at each floor line, offset, and connection point. Put riser measurements in their own group so they export separately from the horizontal plan-view measurements. When no riser diagram is provided, which happens on many residential plans, estimate vertical footage using floor-to-floor height. A typical residential story is 9 feet floor to floor. Each fixture group needs a waste stack and vent riser from the basement or crawl space up through the roof. Add the floor-to-floor height for each story the riser serves, plus 2 feet above the roofline for the vent termination. For a 2-story house, that is 9 plus 9 plus 2 equals 20 feet per vent riser. Multiply by the number of separate risers, not the number of fixtures, because multiple fixtures often share a single stack.

A plumbing takeoff is the quantity measurement phase: counting every fixture, measuring every linear foot of pipe by type and diameter, tallying fittings, hangers, and accessories. A plumbing estimate uses those quantities to calculate the total cost of labor and material for the job. The takeoff answers "how much material" and the estimate answers "how much money." The two are sequential. You cannot produce an accurate estimate without a complete takeoff. If your takeoff misses 40 feet of 3-inch PVC waste line, your estimate is short by roughly $120 to $240 in material and 2 to 3 hours of labor (at $65 to $85 per hour, that is another $130 to $255). The combined miss can easily cost $250 to $500 on a single pipe run. On a full residential rough-in with 15 fixtures, a sloppy takeoff that misses 10 percent of the total footage could cost $1,500 to $3,000 in underestimated material and labor, turning a profitable job into a loss. Easy Takeoffs handles the takeoff phase: trace pipe runs, count fixtures, export quantities. You bring those quantities into your estimating workflow, whether that is a spreadsheet, dedicated estimating software, or your supplier price sheets, to build the dollar estimate.

Every direction change in a pipe run requires a fitting: 90-degree elbows at right-angle turns, 45-degree elbows at offsets, tees at branch connections, wyes at waste line junctions, and couplings at pipe joins. When you trace a pipe run with the polyline tool in Easy Takeoffs, each click point represents a direction change or connection. Count the click points along a single pipe trace and you have a close approximation of the fitting count for that run. For a more detailed fitting takeoff, trace each pipe segment individually rather than as one continuous polyline. This gives you a fitting at every segment junction. Typical fitting counts per fixture on residential work: a toilet rough-in uses 2 to 3 elbows, 1 tee or wye, and 1 closet flange. A lavatory uses 2 to 4 elbows (supply and waste), 1 to 2 tees, and a trap adapter. A bathtub/shower uses 3 to 5 elbows, 2 to 3 tees, and a tub waste and overflow assembly. For pricing, fittings often represent 15 to 25 percent of the total pipe material cost. A fitting-heavy residential rough-in with 15 fixtures might have 80 to 120 fittings total. PVC DWV fittings run $2 to $15 each depending on size and type. Copper fittings run $3 to $25 each. PEX fittings (brass crimp or expansion) run $2 to $8 each.

Yes. Commercial plumbing plans are typically multi-page PDF sets with separate sheets for each floor, each system (domestic water, sanitary waste, storm drainage, gas), and riser diagrams. Upload the entire plan set as a single PDF and navigate between pages within the project. Commercial plans are usually more detailed than residential, with pipe sizes noted on the drawings, fixture schedules in the specifications, and flow diagrams for complex systems. Use separate measurement groups for each system and each floor. A typical commercial takeoff might have 15 to 20 groups: floor 1 domestic cold supply, floor 1 domestic hot supply, floor 1 sanitary waste, floor 1 vent, and so on for each floor, plus separate groups for storm drainage, gas piping, and any specialty systems. The polyline tool handles the long horizontal runs through commercial corridors and the multiple branch connections at restroom cores. The count tool handles the higher fixture densities. A commercial floor might have 20 to 40 fixtures on a single floor: water closets, urinals, lavatories, mop sinks, drinking fountains, and electric water coolers. Export each group separately to CSV so your estimator can price domestic water, sanitary, storm, and gas as separate scopes when building the bid.

A complete plumbing takeoff requires three types of drawings at minimum. First, the plumbing plan sheets show horizontal pipe routing, fixture locations, pipe sizes, and cleanout locations on each floor. These are your primary takeoff sheets for measuring horizontal footage and counting fixtures. Second, plumbing riser diagrams show vertical pipe routing between floors, including stack sizes, vent connections through the roof, and branch connections at each floor. Without riser diagrams, you must estimate vertical footage from floor-to-floor heights. Third, the architectural floor plans provide room dimensions, wall locations, and ceiling heights that help you verify plumbing plan accuracy and account for pipe routing through walls and chases. Beyond these three, you also benefit from the site plan (for water service and sewer lateral lengths from the building to the main), the structural plans (for locating beams and footings that pipe must route around), and the mechanical plans (for coordinating with HVAC ductwork in shared ceiling spaces). Specifications matter too. The fixture schedule lists every fixture by type and manufacturer. The pipe material schedule tells you whether the waste system is PVC, cast iron, or a combination. Upload all relevant pages into the same Easy Takeoffs project so you can switch between them while building your takeoff.

A typical residential plumbing takeoff for a 2,000 to 3,000 square foot house with 10 to 15 fixtures takes 30 to 60 minutes with digital takeoff software. The same job takes 2 to 4 hours with manual scaling on paper. The time difference grows with project complexity. A 3-story commercial building with 60 fixtures, separate domestic and storm systems, and gas piping might take 3 to 5 hours digitally and 8 to 12 hours manually. The biggest time savings with digital takeoff come from system grouping and measurement reuse. When you trace the cold supply main with the polyline tool, you can clone that group and modify it for the hot supply run that follows the same path but in a smaller pipe size. Manual takeoffs require re-measuring the entire parallel run. Multi-building projects like apartment complexes show the largest gap. If 12 units share the same floor plan, you take off one unit and multiply. With paper plans, you are still measuring each unit individually because it is too easy to lose track of which unit you have already counted. The time also depends on drawing quality. Clean, well-detailed plans with pipe sizes and fixture symbols clearly labeled go faster than schematic drawings that require you to interpret the routing.

Organize your plumbing takeoff by system first, then by floor. Create measurement groups in this order: sanitary waste and vent (these are often taken off together because the vent routing depends on the waste routing), then domestic hot supply, domestic cold supply, storm drainage, and gas piping. Within each system, subgroup by floor if the project is multi-story. This organization matches how plumbing bids are typically structured and how the work is installed. The underground crew needs waste footage for the below-slab rough-in. The above-ground crew needs supply and vent footage by floor. For fixture counts, group by fixture type rather than by location. Your supplier prices water closets as a group, lavatories as a group, and so on. Having 14 water closets in one count group is more useful for ordering than having "bathroom 1: 1 WC, 1 lav" and "bathroom 2: 1 WC, 1 lav" in separate groups. The exception is large commercial projects where each restroom core is bid as a separate unit cost. In that case, group fixtures by core location. Export to CSV with this structure and your estimator can price each system scope separately, which is essential for commercial bids that break plumbing into underground, above-ground rough-in, and fixture setting phases.