Trace pipe runs directly on the PDF drawing. Lengths are measured as you go, elbows are counted from the turn geometry, and the whole bill of quantities exports to Excel. No CAD, no installation, and your drawings never leave your computer.
Piping takeoff is the process of measuring pipe runs and counting fittings from a drawing so the quantities can be priced. The output is a bill of quantities: pipe length by size, material and service, plus counts of elbows, tees, valves and flanges.
It sits at the front of the tender. Everything downstream — material cost, labour hours, the margin you carry, the number you submit — is built on top of it. Which is why a quiet 8% error in the takeoff is not an 8% problem. It is the difference between winning a job at a loss and not winning it at all.
Most small and mid-sized MEP contractors still do this with a scale ruler, a printed drawing, a highlighter and a spreadsheet. That workflow has three structural problems:
Digital takeoff fixes the first and third directly. Good piping-specific takeoff software fixes the second as well, because it derives fitting counts from the geometry instead of asking you to remember.
Five steps, start to finish. On a typical sheet this is 30–60 minutes of work rather than half a day.
Open the PDF straight in the browser. Nothing to install, no CAD licence, and no waiting for IT to approve software on the estimating machine.
Click two points across a dimension you already know — a grid spacing, a room width, a printed dimension line — and type in the real distance. Every measurement afterwards is calibrated to that sheet. Because scale comes from points you choose rather than PDF metadata, scanned and photographed drawings work exactly the same way.
Click along each pipe run as a polyline. Every segment is measured and annotated as you go, so you can see on screen what has been picked up and what has not. Snap and ortho keep runs clean on orthogonal drawings.
Every change of direction in the polyline is a turn. Those turns are counted as elbows automatically, with your multiplier applied. The tally you used to keep on paper stops existing.
Excel export with a page-by-page breakdown and a summary sheet, plus an annotated PDF that shows precisely what was measured — useful when a client or your own QS asks where a number came from.
Generic takeoff tools measure lines and areas. That covers civil and architectural work reasonably well, but it leaves the MEP-specific work — fittings, insulation area, service separation — sitting on the estimator.
Polyline tracing on any PDF or image drawing, with per-segment annotation. Multipliers for repeated runs and manual length entries live in the same specification.
Elbows detected from turn geometry as you draw, multiplier-aware. No manual tally, and no fitting counts quietly drifting on long runs.
Round and rectangular ducts drawn as double lines in the MEP convention, tracking run length and surface area at the same time — the figure insulation is billed on.
Detailed Excel with page-by-page breakdown and summary sheet, auto-counted elbows included. Annotated PDF for client review and site submission.
Load every drawing in the project as separate tabs. One session file holds the lot. Copy and paste pipe runs across pages, with 50 states of undo.
Everything runs in your browser. Tender drawings are never transmitted to us or to any third party — there is no server-side copy to leak or breach.
Whichever tool you land on — ours or someone else's — these are the questions that actually separate them. Most vendor feature lists will not answer them directly.
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Does it count fittings, or just measure lines? | This is the difference between piping takeoff software and a PDF measuring tool. Manual elbow counting is where most of the time and most of the errors go. |
| Where do my drawings go? | Cloud tools upload your tender set to a third party. Ask directly, and get it in writing if you are bidding competitively or handling government work. |
| Does it handle scanned drawings? | Tools that read scale from PDF metadata fail on scans and photos. Tools that calibrate from two points you pick do not. |
| Can it do duct surface area? | If you price insulation or lagging, length alone is not enough. Getting area in the same pass saves doing the job twice. |
| What is the real cost in year two? | Watch for implementation fees, per-seat minimums, mandatory training and support renewals that do not appear on the pricing page. |
| How long until someone is productive? | A tool needing two weeks of training has a real cost far above its licence fee — and it will not get used during a busy tender period. |
| Does it run on what you own? | Several established tools are Windows-desktop only. That is a problem if your estimators are on Mac or working off an iPad on site. |
Be honest about scope. If you need assemblies, labour units and a priced material database, you are shopping for an estimating system, not a takeoff tool — expect four figures a year and a real implementation.
TitanBQ produces quantities, not a priced bid. For a lot of subcontractors that is exactly the gap, because the pricing already lives in a spreadsheet they trust. If it is not your gap, buy the bigger thing.
If your workflow depends on assemblies with embedded labour units, integration with an ERP, or full estimating and bid management in one system, TitanBQ will feel thin. That is a deliberate scope choice, not a roadmap gap. Buy PlanSwift, STACK or a trade-specific mechanical estimating system instead — and see our PlanSwift comparison for an honest read on where each fits.
Measuring pipe runs and counting fittings from a drawing so the quantities can be priced. The output is a bill of quantities listing pipe length by size, material and service, along with elbow, tee and valve counts. It is the input to a tender price, so an error carries straight through to the bid.
No. TitanBQ works on the PDF drawing, not a CAD model — there is no CAD file to open and no CAD software required. Set the scale by clicking two points on a known dimension, then trace with the mouse.
As you trace a pipe run as a polyline, every change of direction is a turn in the geometry. Those turns are detected and counted as elbows, with any multiplier on the run applied. It replaces the paper tally estimators normally keep while measuring.
Yes, as long as the drawing is legible and you can find a known dimension to calibrate against. Scale comes from two points you pick rather than from PDF metadata, so scans and photos behave the same as vector PDFs.
No. Processing happens entirely inside your browser on your own machine. No drawing data reaches TitanBQ servers or any third party.
There is a 60-day free trial with no credit card. After that, Pro is a single seat and Business is a 5-seat team licence — current pricing is on the pricing section of the homepage, shown in your local currency.
That is the test we would recommend. Take a sheet you have already taken off by hand, run it through, and compare the numbers. The trial is 60 days precisely so you can use it on a real tender rather than a toy drawing.
Take a sheet you have taken off by hand and run it through. If the numbers do not reconcile, you have lost twenty minutes and learned something.