What a construction takeoff costs in Canada
Almost nobody in this industry publishes prices, which makes it hard to tell whether a quote is fair. Here's how takeoffs get priced, what actually drives the number, and what we charge.
How much does a construction takeoff cost?
At SharpBid, from $450 for a single-trade finish takeoff, rising to $900 for glazing, with a $450 minimum engagement. Across the wider Canadian market, quoted prices vary enormously because four different pricing models are in use and they aren't comparable to each other.
The reason a straight answer is hard to find is that "a takeoff" isn't one product. A single-trade flooring count on a 40-sheet tenant improvement set and a full envelope takeoff on a six-storey wood-frame building are separated by an order of magnitude in effort, and both get called a takeoff. Before comparing two quotes, it's worth knowing which model each one is built on.
What are the four pricing models, and which is fairest?
Most takeoff providers use one of four. None is dishonest; they just put the risk in different places.
Per sheet
A flat rate multiplied by the number of drawings. It's simple to quote and simple to verify, which is why it's common — and it's a poor proxy for effort. A 300-sheet set with six partition types is genuinely less work than a 40-sheet set with forty. Per-sheet pricing rewards providers who take on repetitive sets and punishes you when your set is dense.
Per square foot
A rate applied to building area. Fine for broadly uniform buildings, badly wrong for anything with varied assemblies. A warehouse and a hospital of identical floor area are not the same takeoff, and a rate that works for one bankrupts the other. It also encourages measuring gross area rather than the conditions that actually carry labour.
Hourly
Honest in the sense that it tracks effort exactly, and awkward because you don't know the number until the work is finished. Hourly makes sense for open-ended verification work — remeasuring a disputed quantity, checking someone else's numbers — where the scope genuinely can't be defined in advance. It's a poor fit for bid-period work, where you need to know your cost before you commit.
Fixed price per job
The provider reads your actual set, quotes a number, and absorbs the difference if the drawings turn out worse than they looked. It requires the provider to do real work before quoting, which is why it's less common. It's also the only model where your cost is known before you commit and can't move afterwards.
We use fixed pricing, quoted within 4 business hours of receiving drawings, for that reason. If a set is messier than it appeared, that's absorbed on our side rather than invoiced to you.
What actually drives the cost of a takeoff?
Four things, roughly in order of impact. All of them are visible in your set before you send it.
- Number of distinct assemblies, not building size. The partition legend, the finish schedule and the details are where effort lives. Forty partition types over 20,000 SF is more work than six types over 100,000 SF, every time.
- Drawing quality. Vector PDFs measure fastest. Scanned sets are workable but slower. A set with no scale bar and no dimension to calibrate against costs real time before any measuring starts.
- Repetition. A tower with fifteen identical floors is close to a single-floor takeoff plus verification. A building where every level differs is fifteen takeoffs. This is why wood-frame and concrete residential often prices better than its square footage suggests.
- Turnaround. Same-day work displaces other jobs and gets priced accordingly — ours is +50%. Standard next-business-day delivery on single-trade sets carries no premium, so a day of lead time is free money.
Notice what isn't on that list: your location. Everything is digital, so there's no travel cost to recover and no reason for a sub in Ontario to pay more than one in BC.
What does SharpBid charge?
The whole schedule is published on the pricing page. The starting prices:
| Scope | From (CAD) |
|---|---|
| Single-trade finish takeoff — flooring, painting, drywall & steel stud | $450 |
| Acoustic ceiling (ACT) takeoff | $450 |
| Concrete & formwork — low-rise / small site | $500 |
| Concrete & formwork — high-rise cast-in-place, quoted per project | On request |
| Misc metals / Div 05 | $600 |
| Roofing & building envelope | $600 |
| Framing — wall & sheathing areas | $600 |
| Glazing — Div 08 | $900 |
| Framing — full lumber breakdown, quoted per project | $1,500 |
| Bid leveling / scope-gap analysis | $600 |
| Change-order & claim quantity checks | $150/hr · 3-hr min |
Add-ons are price placeholders at +15%, a quote template at +$150, and same-day rush at +50%. That's the complete list — no file fees, no setup fees, and no charge for the marked-up plans or the assumptions page, which come with every takeoff. Retainers start at $1,500 a month.
Why is there a minimum engagement?
Ours is $450, and the reason is worth stating plainly: below it, senior review can't add enough value to justify the money. A tiny scope on a clean set genuinely is better served by a cheap high-volume provider, and saying so costs less than taking the job and doing it badly. The work worth paying a senior estimator for is the work where getting quantities right changes whether you win and what you make.
When is outsourcing a takeoff worth it?
The arithmetic is simpler than it looks. A $450 takeoff on a $120,000 bid is under half a percent of the contract value. The question isn't whether that's affordable — it's whether it changes anything.
It's worth it when:
- You'd otherwise no-bid. A takeoff you can't get to is a job you can't win. This is the single strongest case, and it's most of why subs outsource at all.
- Several bids close in the same week. Peak bid periods are where in-house capacity breaks, and where a rushed takeoff does the most damage.
- The scope has expensive failure modes. Open allowances, contradictory schedules and assemblies that look identical on plan — the sort of thing in our bid traps list.
- You want a second opinion on your own numbers. Independent remeasure before a big bid is cheap protection against an expensive miss.
It isn't worth it when:
- The scope is genuinely tiny. Below the minimum, do it yourself or use a cheap mill.
- You've built this exact building three times. Repeat prototypes with a known material list don't need remeasuring.
- The drawings aren't ready. A takeoff off a 30% set is a budget exercise, not a bid document. Worth doing deliberately — not worth mistaking for the real thing.
- Your estimator has capacity. If nobody is turning down bids, the case is weaker. The longer version of that comparison is in outsourcing takeoffs versus an in-house estimator.
What should a takeoff include at any price?
Whoever you use, these are the things worth insisting on. They cost the provider effort, which is exactly why cheap quotes often leave them out:
- Marked-up plans showing every measured area, so any line can be checked against a sheet rather than taken on trust.
- A written basis of measurement — deduction rules, and the same rules applied everywhere.
- Waste stated separately rather than folded into quantities, so you can apply your own figures.
- Drawing conflicts flagged, with the sheets they came from, instead of silently resolved.
- Exclusions listed, not implied.
- A delivery date you can rely on. Ours carries a penalty — on time or 50% off — because a takeoff that arrives after the bid closes is worth nothing at any price.
A takeoff without those is a spreadsheet of numbers you can't defend in a scope meeting. That's the part worth paying for, and it's why comparing two quotes on price alone usually compares the wrong thing.