Takeoff & estimating for mechanical contractors
Capture the drawing. Build the estimate.
MEPture takes off duct, pipe, fittings and assemblies as real trade objects — sized, specified, and linked live to the estimate. Built for the people who have to defend the number.
Pre-release · early access opening to a small number of mechanical contractors
AI made counting cheap. It made trust the expensive part.
A black box that's 95% right is worse than a manual process you can inspect — because you can't find the 5%. Every estimator who has been burned by a bad count knows this, which is why the tool that wins won't be the fastest one. It'll be the one that can prove its number.
The AI proposes.
The engine verifies.
The estimator decides.
How it fits
The takeoff is the database.
Every estimate is the most complete record of a job a shop ever produces — and it usually dies in a PDF markup and a spreadsheet the day the bid goes out. MEPture keeps it alive: the estimate, the bid board, and the revision all read from the takeoff instead of re-typing it.
Take it off as trade objects
Duct, pipe, fittings and assemblies with real geometry. 3D is how you check the count, not a deliverable.
Status · working
Quantities to dollars, live
Conditions carry the takeoff into labor and material. Change a size upstream and the number moves — no re-entry.
Status · working
One place the company reads from
Jobs, bid board, lifecycle, revisions. Every estimator's work lands where management can see it — and where the field can read it after award.
Status · in development
What it does
Mechanical-native, not a generic shape tool
Most takeoff software gives you rectangles and a color legend, then leaves the trade knowledge in your head. MEPture puts it in the object.
Duct and pipe as real objects
Duct carries size, gauge and pressure class. Pipe carries its spec. Fittings populate from the run instead of being counted one at a time.
Assemblies with real presence
Valve packs, equipment connections, typical details — modeled, not count-only BOM kits stapled to a symbol.
Conditions linked to the estimate
Quantities move into pricing without a re-key or an export step. Change the takeoff, the estimate follows.
3D as a proof surface
The model is reconstructed from your 2D takeoff, so it's a way to check the work — not a separate deliverable you have to maintain.
Scope fence
Define what's out before anything gets quantified. Exclusions get written down while you still remember why they're exclusions.
Learnable in days
The trade incumbents are deep and they ask for about a year to become proficient. That's a real cost. This isn't built that way.
Fit
Built for a narrow pond, on purpose
Software that claims every trade usually serves none of them well. Here is the honest boundary.
Built for
- US commercial mechanical and sheet-metal contractors
- Roughly 2–10 estimating seats
- Plan-and-spec bid work, not design-build only
- Spec-heavy verticals — healthcare, pharma, industrial
- Shops running Bluebeam and Excel, or an aging incumbent lease
Not built for
- General contractors doing architectural takeoff
- Residential and service shops
- Electrical-first contractors
Why now
Each remaining estimator has to produce more
Projected change in US cost-estimator employment, 2024–2034, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics — against roughly 16,900 openings a year, most of them retirements.
Of contractors report more design changes than five years ago. Addenda cluster in the final week before a bid is due.
Unfilled construction jobs in 2026. The work isn't shrinking. The people who price it are.
Early access
Start with a job you already know.
Run a job you've already built, and compare the quantities to what you actually bought. You'll know inside an hour whether this is worth your time — which is more than any demo video can tell you.
Early access is opening to a small number of mechanical contractors.