Attentive.ai, a San Jose company that sells AI takeoff and estimating software under the Beam AI name, announced on November 12, 2026 that its self-serve takeoff workflow now covers seven trades. Concrete-rebar, electrical, landscaping and paving join HVAC, plumbing and steel. The same release says Attentive.ai bought Takeoff Monkey, a landscaping takeoff business, and added in-app estimates for more trades. The change affects the estimator who measures quantities off bid drawings and then prices them.
What it does
Beam AI runs two workflows. In Do It Yourself (DIY), the estimator uploads the plans and gets an AI takeoff back right away, then reviews the quantities in the software. In Done For You (DFY), Attentive.ai’s own team runs the takeoff and checks it before delivery, which the company says takes 24 to 72 hours and covers more than 15 trades.
The DFY steps on Attentive.ai’s site follow the order of the work. The estimator uploads PDF plans, specs, legends and supporting documents, confirms which quantities are needed and adds project instructions. The AI extracts the quantities, a QA reviewer checks them, and the contractor receives an estimate built to its own pricing. The pricing page says the output comes as an Excel estimate.
Before the release, the four new trades were available through DFY, which the pricing page lists for all trades. Now an electrical or concrete-rebar estimator can run the first pass alone. The review is the estimator’s job in DIY, since no QA team sits between the AI and the bid.
In-app estimates let the estimator go from takeoff to estimate inside Beam AI, according to the release. It does not list which trades gained estimates.
Takeoff Monkey measured landscaping jobs by hand for its customers. Its founder and CEO, Tommy Lather, said in the release that the work took hours per job and that “Attentive.ai’s model does that in minutes.” The release gives no deal terms. Attentive.ai already sells DFY takeoffs from aerial images for landscaping, snow, paving and striping work.
Evidence so far
The evidence so far is Attentive.ai’s announcement, its product and pricing pages, and testimonials from named customers on its website. These claims come from Attentive.ai:
| Claim | Figure | Who reported it |
|---|---|---|
| Contractors using Beam AI in the US and Canada | More than 1,300 | Attentive.ai press release |
| Jobs priced on the platform | More than 500,000 | Attentive.ai press release |
| Value of construction bids priced on the platform | $500 billion | Attentive.ai press release |
| Done For You turnaround | 24 to 72 hours | Attentive.ai press release and pricing page |
| Done For You accuracy | 99%+ | Attentive.ai pricing page |
| Time saved per project | Over 15 hours | Strack Inc. vice president of preconstruction, on Attentive.ai's website |
| Time saved per week | 16 hours | Axion Specialty Contracting account executive, on Attentive.ai's website |
| Time saved per week | 2 days of work | Senior estimator at a steel stair company, on Attentive.ai's website |
The $500 billion is the value of the bids contractors priced on the platform. The release does not say how much of that work they won. The 99% accuracy figure is attached to the DFY service, which includes human review. Accuracy for the four trades just added to DIY, and the method behind the 99% figure, are not yet public.
The customer figures are self-reported time savings from specialty contractors, and each one covers a single firm. The vice president of preconstruction at Strack Inc. puts the savings at more than 15 hours per project, and an account executive at Axion Specialty Contracting puts it at 16 hours a week.
How to measure it on your projects
Track takeoff hours per bid, by trade. Start the clock when the estimator opens the drawing set and stop it when the quantities are ready to price. Count the AI run and the review as one number, since the review time decides whether the tool saves hours.
Capture the baseline before the pilot:
- Pick five recent bids in one trade, such as electrical or concrete-rebar, with similar sheet counts.
- Record the takeoff hours for each from timesheets or the estimator’s own log.
- For two of those bids, keep the final manual quantities for a handful of line items, such as linear feet of conduit or tons of rebar.
During the pilot, run the same two drawing sets through DIY and compare the AI quantities line by line with the manual ones. Log the percent difference on each line and the hours the estimator spent correcting it. A trade where corrections eat most of the saved time is a poor fit for the self-serve path.
A first step on one job is to pull the takeoff file from your last electrical bid and write down how many hours it took and how many sheets it covered.
Availability and cost
The release says DIY now covers the seven trades. Beam AI sells annual licenses. The pricing page lists DIY from $8,000 a year per trade and DFY for construction plans from $25,000 a year, set by trade and volume. As of November 14, that page still listed DIY for HVAC, plumbing and steel, so the price for the four added trades goes through a demo request. Enterprise plans are priced by quote.
Related reading: Quotr raises $4 million for AI takeoff software that it says cut 20-hour takeoffs to 1 to 2 hours and Togal.AI’s takeoff benchmark scores the best general AI model at 34.0 out of 100 on 33 drawing tasks.