Concrete estimating software for footings, walls and slabs

Concrete estimating software measures footings, walls, piers, slabs and flatwork from the plans and turns them into cubic yards of concrete, square feet of forms and finish, and pounds or linear feet of reinforcing, then applies labor and material prices. STACK, PlanSwift and ScopeTakeoff all publish concrete assemblies that calculate yardage and rebar as you measure¹³⁵. Published prices run from STACK's free plan² and $100 per person per month for ScopeTakeoff⁶ to $2,000 to $3,000 per seat per year for PlanSwift⁴.

By Agustín Policano, founder of AmpCount, which makes electrical takeoff software. Facts about other products and statistics link to their source, checked November 3, 2026.

What a concrete takeoff measures

Item	Unit	What to watch
Continuous footings	LF, converted to CY	Measure along the centerline by footing type from the foundation plan and schedule. Width times depth comes from the detail, and steps add volume at grade changes.
Spread footings and pile caps	EA, converted to CY	Count by mark from the schedule. Each type has its own size and reinforcing.
Foundation and retaining walls	SF of wall, CY, SF of form (both faces)	Wall height changes along the run. Forms are measured on both faces; pilasters and brick ledges add volume.
Slab on grade	SF and CY	Thickened edges, turndowns and depressions add yardage beyond area times thickness. Vapor barrier, base and joints come from the same area.
Elevated slabs and decks	SF and CY	Beams and drop panels add volume; shoring and form area drive cost more than yardage does.
Reinforcing	LB, TON or LF by bar size	Bars, laps and dowels follow the concrete geometry. Mesh is measured by area with lap allowance.
Flatwork and site concrete	SF, LF for curb	Sidewalks, pads, aprons and curbs, each by thickness and finish.

How a concrete estimate is built

Read the structural general notes, foundation plan, schedules and details first, so footing marks, wall types and slab thicknesses are known before measuring.
Take off footings by type (continuous in LF, spread footings and caps as each), then walls, piers and columns, using assemblies that output CY, form area and reinforcing.
Measure slabs by thickness, then add thickened edges, turndowns, depressions and blockouts as separate items.
Add elevated slabs, beams, stairs and equipment pads, then site concrete and flatwork.
Apply waste by element type, add accessories (anchor bolts, embeds, joint material, vapor barrier, curing), and price pump time and testing.
Price labor by element (forming, placing, finishing, stripping), review cost per CY and per SF against history, and export to the bid.

What to look for in concrete software

Concrete assemblies

Draw a footing or a wall once and get concrete, forms, reinforcing and labor. Look for assemblies you can edit by element type so your company's crew logic lives in the template.

Units that match how you buy

Concrete is bought by the yard, rebar by weight and forms by area. The takeoff should convert to all three without a spreadsheet in between.

Plan comparison

Foundation and slab revisions are common before bid day. Overlaying revised sheets shows what moved so you only re-measure the changes.

Reusable templates

Most concrete subs bid the same element types over and over. Saved templates for foundations and flatwork are where speed comes from.

Software concrete estimators use

Tool	What it does for concrete	Price
STACK STACK Construction Technologies	Concrete takeoff types for poundage, linear feet or cubic yards, rebar calculated as you measure, labor costs from excavation to finishing, and a library of pre-built concrete materials.¹²	Free plan; Premium $299 and Pro $349 per user per month, billed annually
PlanSwift PlanSwift (ConstructConnect)	Measures and prices footings, slabs and formwork in one place, with assemblies that project rebar, membranes and labor, custom formulas for yardage and waste, and plan comparison.³⁴	$2,000 (Essential) or $3,000 (Core) per seat per year
ScopeTakeoff ScopeTakeoff	Concrete assembly libraries for flatwork, foundations, walls, rebar and forming, with schedule of values output for the GC.⁵⁶	$100 per person per month
Tekla Structures Trimble	Constructible 3D BIM used by concrete builders and reinforcement suppliers to model structures and produce quantities, schedules and drawings. A modeling tool rather than a quick 2D takeoff.⁷	Not published (subscription plans; 30-day free trial)
Bluebeam Bluebeam (Nemetschek)	PDF measurement for areas, lengths and counts on structural sheets, often used alongside a spreadsheet for yardage.⁸	$260 to $590 per user per year

As described on each vendor's own pages, checked November 3, 2026. Prices change; check with the vendor.

For tools that cover every trade on one plan set, see the construction takeoff software and construction estimating software guides.

Concrete takeoff vs concrete estimate

The takeoff answers how much: yards, form area, finish area and reinforcing by element. The estimate answers what it costs to build: crews, pour sequences, pump days, inspections, accessories and markup. Many concrete subcontractors keep both in one assembly-based tool because the same footing drives material and labor.

Rebar is the part concrete contractors most often hand off. If you furnish and install, you may price reinforcing from a fabricator's quote while still using your takeoff to check the tonnage. The rebar estimating software page covers how fabricators and detailers take off bars in detail.

Underslab conduit, floor boxes and embeds before the pour

Everything electrical that lives in or under a slab has to be set, inspected and protected before the concrete truck arrives: underslab feeders and branch conduits, floor boxes and poke-throughs, sleeves through grade beams, and stub-ups at every column line. That makes the pour schedule an electrical schedule too. The window between subgrade prep and vapor barrier is shared with underslab plumbing, so a concrete bid that assumes one clean day on each pour is guessing.

Two concrete items are easy to lose between the trades. Housekeeping pads under switchgear, transformers and generators are usually drawn on the electrical sheets but poured by the concrete sub, and the spec decides who carries them. The other is the footing electrode: in the 2020 NEC text of 250.52(A)(3), a concrete-encased electrode is at least 20 feet of 1/2 inch reinforcing bar or 4 AWG bare copper, encased in at least 2 inches of concrete in a footing or foundation in contact with the earth⁹. Once that footing is poured, the chance to use it as the building's grounding electrode is gone unless someone planned the connection.

Raceway under a building needs no minimum cover when it is in conduit, per NEC Table 300.5(A)¹⁰, so underslab conduit is priced on layout and support rather than depth. The electrical side checks underslab duct sizes with a conduit fill calculator, and floor box covers have to match the finish the flooring contractor installs. AmpCount counts the floor boxes on the electrical plans; it does not measure concrete.

Where concrete takeoffs go wrong

Slab yardage taken as area times thickness without thickened edges, turndowns and slab depressions, which can add a meaningful number of trucks on a large building.
Measuring wall forms on one face only, or missing bulkheads at pour breaks and brick ledges.
Using one waste factor for everything. Footings poured against earth and slabs on uneven base waste more concrete than formed walls.
Footing steps at grade changes and deepened footings at property lines that only appear in sections.
Leaving out pump time, cold or hot weather costs and testing, which follow the schedule rather than the quantity.

Trades that bid the same job

A concrete bid rarely stands alone. The trades next to it on the schedule read the same drawings and often share scope lines, so it pays to know how they take off too: rebar estimating software, masonry estimating software and sitework estimating software.

Where AmpCount fits

AmpCount only counts electrical devices and fixtures, so it does not measure concrete, forms or reinforcing. The overlap on a job is coordination: underslab conduit, floor boxes and embedded items in slabs are electrical scope, and the electrical contractor can count floor boxes and devices with AmpCount while the concrete estimator prices the slab.

How electrical takeoff software counts a plan set

Questions

What is the best concrete estimating software?

For subs bidding from PDFs, STACK, PlanSwift and ScopeTakeoff all offer concrete assemblies that produce yardage and rebar as you measure¹³⁵. Contractors working from 3D models use Tekla Structures⁷. Test each on a recent foundation plan you already know the numbers for.

How do you calculate concrete yardage from plans?

For each element, multiply length, width and depth in feet and divide by 27 to get cubic yards, then add thickened edges, turndowns and steps, and apply a waste factor based on how the concrete is placed.

Is there free concrete estimating software?

STACK has a free plan with limited features², and PlanSwift offers a 14-day free trial⁴. For quick checks, a spreadsheet with the length times width times depth divided by 27 formula works; see the guide to construction estimating with Excel.

Does concrete estimating software handle rebar?

STACK and PlanSwift both describe calculating rebar from concrete assemblies¹³, and ScopeTakeoff includes rebar assemblies⁵. Detailed bar-by-bar takeoff with hooks, laps and bending schedules is usually done in rebar-specific software.

Guides and tools for any trade

Sources

Product names are trademarks of their owners. AmpCount is not affiliated with any vendor on this page.