ChatGPTTL;DR
- A drywall bid is linear feet of wall multiplied into board, studs, track and finishing. The tool that matters is the one holding your assemblies. Every price here was read on the vendor's page on November 6, 2026.
- Plan-set takeoff: PlanSwift Essential $2,000 a year plus a $149 Drywall and Framing Starter Pack. Kreo from $100 a user a month, STACK and Togal at $299.
- Drywall bid tools: BuzzBID Advanced $1,750 a year, from the team that built On-Screen Takeoff. On-Screen Takeoff with Quick Bid and The EDGE print no price.
- Small residential hang-and-finish: Joist from $12, Jobber from $29 and Housecall Pro from $59 a month. FocusedQ has a free drywall quote template.
- Togal Assemblies is drywall-only. It turns measured walls into studs, track and board, and asked whether it gives a total project cost, Togal answers "Not yet."
- Skip a $3,588 AI seat if you bid a few plan sets a quarter. PlanSwift with the drywall pack holds the assemblies for $2,149.
A drywall bid starts as one number, the linear feet of wall, and everything else is multiplied off it.
We build websites and run marketing for contractors. We do not sell estimating software for drywall contractors, and nothing below pays us. Every price was read on the vendor's own page on November 6, 2026.
The parent post, best estimating software for contractors, covers every trade. This is the drywall cut, grouped by how a drywall contractor actually bids:
- plan-set takeoff that counts board, studs, track and mud from PDF drawings
- drywall-specific bid tools with wall assemblies and labor built in
- general field apps for the small residential hang-and-finish job
- an honest look at what AI takeoff does for this trade
A drywall bid is a wall count, and the assembly does the multiplying
A takeoff is the count of materials measured off a drawing. For drywall it starts with linear feet of wall, split by wall type, and square feet of ceiling.
An assembly is the recipe behind one wall type, listing every material and the labor for each foot of it. Build it once and every wall you trace on the drawing prices itself.
Take one interior partition 100 feet long and 9 feet high, boarded both sides, with studs at 16 inches on center:
- 200 linear feet of track, top and bottom
- 76 studs
- 1,800 square feet of board before waste, or 38 sheets of 4 by 12
- mud, tape and corner bead priced off that square footage and the corner count
- labor per square foot hung and per square foot finished, which only your own jobs can supply
Now multiply that by forty wall types on a school. The tool that holds the recipe does it in one click. A tool without assemblies leaves you doing it in a spreadsheet at eleven at night.
in one 100-foot partition at 16 inches on center, plus 200 feet of track and 1,800 square feet of board. An assembly counts all of it from the single line you trace.
Plan-set takeoff from PDFs: PlanSwift's $149 drywall pack puts the assemblies in the box
Commercial drywall subs bid from a plan set, the PDF drawings for the job. These tools measure walls and ceilings on screen. The difference between them is whether the board and studs come out the other end or just the footage.
| Tool | Price as printed (November 6, 2026) | What it does for drywall | Trial and term |
|---|---|---|---|
| PlanSwift | Essential $2,000, Core $3,000 a year, 1 seat each; Drywall and Framing Starter Pack $149 a year on top | The pack is "Over 600 starter templates, parts, and assemblies for Drywall & Framing"; Essential has Auto Count, Auto Scale and Auto Bookmark; Core adds Auto Takeoff in the Takeoff BOOST suite | 14 days of everything, no card; the pack's trial is by phone; extra seats "discounted," unpriced |
| STACK Takeoff & Estimate | Free $0; Premium $299, Pro $349 a user a month billed annually | Measures walls and ceilings "while excluding windows, doorways, and openings"; a library of pre-built drywall supplies; assemblies add crew labor; AI Takeoffs on Premium; Pro adds the regional BNI cost library | Free plan with 7 days of Pro, then 1 active project a month; "All Takeoff & Estimate subscriptions are 12-month terms" |
| Togal.AI | Growth $299 a user a month billed yearly; Business custom at 4+ users | Measures "Wall and partition runs, by linear foot" and ceiling areas; Assemblies calculates studs and track, board, fasteners, insulation and labor hours. Full read in our Togal AI review | No trial printed; demo and a self-guided tour |
| Kreo | Essential $100, Pro $175, Business $250 a user a month, annual only | Custom assemblies and a shared cost database on every plan; Auto Measure and AI takeoff from Pro; Business starts at 5 seats, $15,000 a year | 7 days |
| Bluebeam | Basics $260, Core $330, Complete $440, Max $590 a user a year | Basics measures length and area only; Core adds counts and perimeters; Complete adds Quantity Link to Excel; no drywall assemblies | "Try It Free," length not printed |
| Verdict | PlanSwift Essential plus the $149 drywall pack, $2,149 a year, for the one-estimator sub who wants assemblies in the box. Kreo Pro at $175 a month for AI measuring and costs in one seat for less than STACK. STACK or Togal at $299 only with an estimator bidding plan sets every week. Bluebeam Basics for reading the GC's markups, not for the bid. | ||
PlanSwift's drywall pack is the line most roundups miss. It is $149 a year on top of the seat, and it is why the estimators on Reddit keep naming PlanSwift as the cheaper road off On-Screen Takeoff. The pack page lists a template count and little else, so open the trial and check its wall types against yours.
STACK's drywall page carries the customer quotes. Level 5 Drywall says "It saves me at least 12 hours every week!" and Ball Acoustics & Drywall says it can "bid more work without adding more resources." Both sit on the vendor's own page, so read them as a ceiling.
STACK's free plan is a fair test and a thin bid tool. It allows one active project a month, 300 plan pages and 50 measurements per project. Count the wall runs on your last bid before you plan to live on it.
The same pricing page contradicts itself on the annual discount. The toggle says annual billing saves 15 percent and the FAQ says 20 percent, and only the annual per-user price is printed.
Togal is the one built around this trade. Its drywall page says it "fits commercial drywall subcontractors and framing contractors," with multifamily work the best fit. Its Assemblies feature is covered in the AI section below.
Kreo is the cheap way into AI measuring. Auto Measure starts on Pro at $175 a user a month, which is $2,100 a year against $3,588 for a STACK Premium or Togal seat. Essential at $100 holds assemblies with no AI.
Faster bids only help if the invitations keep coming
Our free website audit is a 10-minute Loom and a written report inside 48 hours on why your drywall company's site does or does not turn GCs and homeowners into bid requests.
Drywall bid tools: BuzzBID is the only one that prints a price
These are the programs drywall estimators learned on. They carry wall and ceiling systems out of the box and labor rates that change with conditions. Two of the three will not tell you the price before a demo.
| Tool | Price as printed (November 6, 2026) | What it does for drywall | Trial and term |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-Screen Takeoff and Quick Bid (On Center, ConstructConnect) | No price printed on the walls and ceilings page | On-Screen Takeoff "Calculates wall and ceiling areas in linear and square footage" and takes off "both sides of interior walls in a single run"; Quick Bid holds the material list from board and studs to mud and tape and builds "reusable assemblies for common wall types and ceiling systems"; Takeoff Boost is the AI layer | "Free Trial" link, length not printed; "Book a Demo" |
| The EDGE (Estimating Edge) | No price printed | "includes systems for both rated and non-rated sheetrock walls"; linear feet for partitions and soffits, square feet for ceilings, counts for corner beads; Smart Labor varies labor rates "based upon parameters you set" | "SCHEDULE A DEMO"; the "No Credit Card Required" line applies to the demo |
| BuzzBID | Standard $100 a month or $1,050 a year; Advanced $250 or $1,750; FireShield $300 or $2,450 | "Built by the team that created On-Screen Takeoff and QuickBid"; Standard is "computer vision takeoff"; Advanced adds "assembly-based estimating" and names drywall, ACT, EIFS, plaster and coatings | No trial printed; demo; monthly or yearly with no long-term contract |
| Verdict | BuzzBID Advanced at $1,750 a year for the drywall and framing sub who wants Quick Bid-style assemblies at a printed price. On-Screen Takeoff and Quick Bid once you have a dedicated estimator and the rep will put the annual figure in writing. The EDGE on the same condition. | ||
BuzzBID is the find in this group. It comes from the team that built On-Screen Takeoff and Quick Bid, and it prints its price and bills month to month. The estimator who started the Reddit thread below wrote on June 7, 2026 that he had moved to it from PlanSwift.
ACT is acoustical ceiling tile, and EIFS is the foam-and-stucco exterior system. Only Advanced names them, so Standard at $1,050 is a takeoff seat and not a drywall bid tool.
On Center's AI layer is Takeoff Boost. Its April 15, 2026 article says it "automatically measures linear wall footage and splits out wall types from plan tags." The walls page claims it cuts measuring time "by up to 95%." Neither page says whether it costs extra.
What the r/estimators thread says
The Reddit thread that ranks for this search opened with an estimator who wanted something cheaper than On-Screen Takeoff. "OST is by far the best. I'm just looking for a less expensive alternative," he wrote on May 12, 2023.
PlanSwift was the most common answer. The EDGE drew one ten-year fan and one unhappy twenty-year user, and one commenter said the On-Screen Takeoff rep had negotiated his license price down hard.
A deleted account later posted price figures for On Center and The EDGE. They are secondhand and appear on no vendor page, so none of them are in our tables.
If you do book the On Center or EDGE demo, go in with four questions written down:
- the annual total for your seat count, with Quick Bid or the labor module included
- whether Takeoff Boost, or any other AI feature, is billed on top
- the training and setup fee, if there is one
- whether the license is a subscription or a perpetual license with yearly maintenance
Small hang-and-finish jobs quote from a field app, from $12 a month
A residential drywall crew patching a basement or boarding an addition rarely sees a plan set. The owner measures the room with a tape, prices by the square foot or the sheet, and wants the quote signed before the next stop.
Annual-billing prices come first where the vendor prints both. Finish level, in the Jobber row, is the grade of finish on the wall surface, and a homeowner choosing between two of them wants both prices on one page.
| App | Price as printed (November 6, 2026) | What it does for a drywall quote | Trial and term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joist | Basics $12, Pro $17, Elite $32, Run $100 a month; annual billing gives two months free | Estimates to invoices; five documents a month on Basics, unlimited from Pro; no takeoff | 14 days, no card; "no setup fees" |
| FocusedQ | Starter $0, up to 5 quotes a month; Pro $29 a month; the page prints a second Pro column at $149 | A "Drywall & Plaster" quote template; annual billing to "save up to 17%," with no annual price shown | Free plan; no contract |
| Jobber | Core $29 a month billed annually, $39 on a one-year commitment, $49 with none; Grow $149; extra users $29 | Quotes on Core; optional line items on Grow, which is where a level 4 against level 5 finish choice lives. See the Jobber pricing guide | 14 days of Grow, no card |
| Housecall Pro | Basic $59 a month billed annually ($79 monthly), 1 user; Essentials $149, 5 users; Max $299, 8 users; $35 per extra user on Max | Price book from Basic; the Sales Proposal Tool with side-by-side options on Max | 14 days, no card |
| Buildxact | Foundation $169 a month billed annually ($2,030) or $199 monthly; Pro $339 or $399; unlimited users | PDF takeoff and estimating in one plan; its drywall page says assemblies or SKUs "convert square foot to rolls or linear foot of material" and claims "a drywall takeoff 80% faster" | 14 days; 12-month commitment on annual |
| Verdict | Joist Pro at $17 for the owner-operator who prices by the sheet and wants a signed estimate from the truck. FocusedQ's free Starter if five quotes a month covers you. Jobber Grow at $149 once the quote needs finish-level options. Buildxact Foundation at $169 the day a residential job arrives as a PDF and two people need to measure it. | ||
None of these apps but Buildxact measures a wall. That is fine for a crew that boards bathrooms and basements, because the room takes ten minutes with a tape and the price per square foot already lives in the owner's head.
Buildxact's drywall page prints a different set of plan names and prices from its pricing page. We used the pricing page, and you should ask which one applies before the trial ends.
The chart is one estimator on the lowest plan that does the job named under each bar. Jobber is there as the floor, and it does no takeoff. Every bar above it measures a PDF, and the top bar is what a per-seat AI takeoff tool costs at the top of the market.
AI takeoff measures the walls, and the assembly still does the drywall math
Drywall is where AI takeoff works best, because a wall on a floor plan is a line and a ceiling is an area. Every AI tool in this post measures one or both, and each makes its own claim:
- On Center's Takeoff Boost: "the first 80% of the heavy lifting on walls and ceilings," a draft in "as little as 30 seconds," and AKS Interior Systems saying "I did 3 projects in about 20 minutes with Boost."
- Togal: "Drywall takeoff software that's 4X faster," and "Up to 76% Faster" than On-Screen Takeoff in a University of Kansas test that, per our review, used one first-time user.
- STACK: AI Takeoffs on Premium, and an AI drywall page that promises "Complete takeoffs in minutes, not hours!" without saying what the AI detects.
- PlanSwift: Auto Count on Essential and Auto Takeoff on Core, with the drywall pack supplying the assemblies.
- Kreo: Auto Measure from the Pro plan up.
- Buildxact: the "80% faster" drywall claim, plus a Blu Takeoff Assistant add-on at $99 a month on Pro.
Togal Assemblies is the piece built for this trade. It launched in September 2026, and today's Assemblies page says "Assemblies is built for drywall. More trades to come." You define the studs, board and labor behind a wall type once, and every classified wall calculates them.
Its FAQ is plain about the limit. Asked "Will this give me total project cost?" it answers "Not yet." Pricing, markup, overhead and tax "stay in your existing estimating process," so a Togal seat still needs a bid tool or a spreadsheet behind it.
The useful customer number is a small one. Orillia Drywall, a three-person office in Togal's case studies, says "Roughly two weeks of estimating can now be completed in about two days," with quantities "within 5 to 10% of actual requirements." That margin is the part to plan around.
Ceilings are where the speed claims thin out. In the Kansas test the gain fell to 22 to 23 percent on a reflected ceiling plan, the sheet that shows the ceiling grid and lights, because the plan was dense. Test any AI tool on your busiest ceiling sheet, not your cleanest floor plan.
The AI estimating software post traces every one of these claims across trades. For drywall the short version holds: AI draws the walls, you check the wall types and heights, and the assembly counts the studs.
A chat window has a smaller job. ChatGPT or Claude can draft the scope letter and check that 1,800 square feet is 38 sheets of 4 by 12. Keep the takeoff in a tool that shows every line it measured.
Three things to skip
- A $3,588 AI seat for a few bids a quarter. STACK Premium and Togal Growth both run $299 a user a month on yearly terms. If you bid a plan set twice a month, PlanSwift Essential with the drywall pack holds the assemblies for $2,149 a year, and BuzzBID Advanced does it for $1,750.
- Bluebeam as the bid tool. It is the program GCs send drawings in, and Basics at $260 a year measures length and area only. It holds no wall assemblies, so the studs and track still get multiplied by hand.
- A demo before you have a number. On-Screen Takeoff and The EDGE print no price, and the Reddit thread says the rep negotiates. Price BuzzBID and PlanSwift first, then walk into the demo asking for the annual total in writing.
If your crew also paints, the painting estimating post covers that side of the job, and the remodeling estimating post covers the tools a GC uses when drywall is one line in a bigger bid.
More walls to bid?
We build the websites and run the search work that keep a drywall company's bid calendar full. A 30-minute intro call is free.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best drywall estimating software?
For a commercial sub with one estimator, PlanSwift Essential at $2,000 a year plus the $149 Drywall and Framing Starter Pack, or BuzzBID Advanced at $1,750 a year from the team that built On-Screen Takeoff. With a full-time estimator bidding weekly, STACK or Togal at $299 a user a month. For small residential jobs, Joist Pro at $17 or Jobber Core at $29. Prices are the vendor pages on November 6, 2026.
How much does drywall estimating software cost?
Field apps for small jobs run $12 to $59 a month at Joist, Jobber and Housecall Pro, and FocusedQ has a free plan. Plan-set takeoff runs from $260 a year for Bluebeam Basics to $349 a user a month for STACK Pro. BuzzBID runs $1,050 to $2,450 a year. On-Screen Takeoff, Quick Bid and The EDGE print no price at all.
How much does On-Screen Takeoff cost?
On Center prints no price. Its walls and ceilings page offers a free trial and a demo, with no trial length or plan figure on the page we read on November 6, 2026. In a 2023 Reddit thread an estimator says the rep negotiated his license down, so ask for the annual total in writing and compare it with BuzzBID Advanced, from the same original team, at $1,750 a year.
Does Togal do drywall assemblies?
Yes, and only drywall for now. Togal Assemblies calculates studs and track, board, fasteners, insulation and labor hours from each classified wall, and its page says "Assemblies is built for drywall. More trades to come." It does not price the job: asked about total project cost, Togal answers "Not yet." A Growth seat is $299 a user a month billed yearly.
Is there free drywall estimating software?
STACK has a permanent free plan, limited to one active project a month after seven days of Pro. FocusedQ's free Starter plan includes a drywall and plaster quote template and five quotes a month. PlanSwift, Joist, Jobber, Housecall Pro and Buildxact run 14-day trials, and Kreo runs seven days. Nothing free holds a full set of drywall wall assemblies.
Can AI do a drywall takeoff?
It can measure most of one. On Center says Takeoff Boost does "the first 80% of the heavy lifting on walls and ceilings," and Togal's drywall page claims "4X faster." Orillia Drywall reports Togal quantities within 5 to 10 percent of actual. The estimator still checks wall types and heights and prices the bid, so use AI to measure and an assembly to count.