Takeoff you can
put a number on.
Forgecast reads your structural and piping drawings the way an estimator does — off the actual CAD geometry and the tables on the sheet, not a blurry guess. Every takeoff comes back graded, so you know at a glance which numbers are ready to bid and which need a look.
Send us a drawing.
We’ll send back the takeoff.
Pick a set you’ve already estimated by hand — structural, piping, or both. We run it through Forgecast and send you the graded takeoff, reconciled against your own numbers. No cost, no commitment.
From drawings to a graded takeoff
No training data, no black box. Forgecast reads what’s actually on the sheet and shows its work.
Drop in the drawings
Load the PDF set — framing plans, piping isometrics, a steel schedule, an estimator’s MTO, or a fabricated-part package. Structural and piping both.
It reads the CAD, not a picture
On a native drawing it takes members off the drawn geometry — exact lengths and size callouts, weighed from the AISC table. Where the sheet prints a schedule, BOM or weight table, it reads that straight in.
Graded & ready to check
Every number comes with a grade — Bid, Budget, or Low — plus a line-by-line reconcile against your own estimate that flags every difference: over, under, missing, or a size mismatch.
Accuracy by drawing type
The honest part: accuracy is set by the drawing. Forgecast grades each takeoff for exactly that reason — a clean plan is bid-grade, a scanned detail sheet is flagged for review, and it never dresses one up as the other.
| Drawing type | How it’s read | Typical accuracy | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean framing plansize callouts, not grating-heavy | Reads the CAD line geometry — exact endpoints, lengths and callouts — and weighs from the AISC table. Deterministic; repeatable to the pound. | within ~1% | Bid-grade |
| Steel schedule / KSL list | Transcribes the stated weights / dead-load table directly. | within ~5% | Bid-grade |
| Printed weight tablesteel & pipe on one sheetNew | Reads the drawing’s own engineered weight table — structural steel and fabricated pipework — as the authoritative number. | the stated weight | Bid-grade |
| Estimator / EPC MTO | Reads the provided material-takeoff table (size, length, weight) straight into the reconcile. | the provided quantities | Bid-grade |
| Piping isometricswith a bill of materials | Transcribes each isometric’s BOM — pipe, fittings, flanges, valves, welds. | within ~8% | Bid-grade |
| Tank / vessel lista vessel schedule, not a drawingNew | Reads the vessel schedule — diameter, length, design pressure — and computes the ASME VIII shell & head steel weight per vessel. Shell/head only — nozzles, internals & skirts are added by hand. | within ~15% | Budget-grade |
| Grated platformdense grating, multi-sheet | Same deterministic reader, but dense grating inflates the member count — so it flags the platform and drops the grade on purpose. Reconcile the members to firm it up. | within ~15–20% | Budget-grade |
| Design plan, no BOM/ outlined-text drawings | Visual read; footage is a floor to confirm against the isometrics or details. | within ~20%, review | Budget-grade |
| Detail-only or scannedno framing plan to count fromNew | No plan and no CAD data to trust — flagged for a manual look rather than handed back as a false number. | review required | Low — flagged |
Read from the geometry or a stated table, not a visual guess. Solid enough to price and send.
Good for budgeting and go/no-go. Reconcile the members before a firm bid — the tool tells you where to look.
A hard input — a scan, or details with no framing plan. Use only after a manual review; never mistaken for a bid.
What makes it different
Built by a steel & pipe fabricator, for the way a bid actually gets put together.
Reads the CAD, not a picture
On native PDFs it takes members off the actual drawn geometry — exact lengths and callouts — so a clean framing plan lands within about a percent. No training data, no eyeballing, repeatable to the pound every run.
Every takeoff is graded
Bid, Budget, or Low — the tool tells you how much to trust each number and why. A detail sheet with no framing plan gets flagged, not dressed up as a bid.
Reconciles against your estimate
Paste your member list or upload your MTO and Forgecast compares it line by line — over, under, missing, or a size mismatch. In testing it caught a real ~$10k estimate error (a beam the drawings sized heavier than the quote carried).
The parts that get missed
Measures bar-grating area and estimates its support steel, reads printed weight tables for steel and pipe, ingests an EPC’s MTO, takes off fabricated-part packages, weighs tanks and vessels from a vessel list, and flags primary girders shown only in a section so a heavy member never slips the bid.
What it saves you
A takeoff is the slow, error-prone front of every bid. Forgecast turns days of scaling and counting into minutes — graded, and cross-checked against your own numbers.
How that’s figured: estimator time saved versus a manual takeoff — about 8 hours for a typical ~20-page set — valued at a $65/hr loaded rate. That’s before the value of an error caught before it leaves the door.
Built for your shop
Forgecast starts from a proven core — bid-grade structural and pipe takeoff, graded and reconciled — then we tailor it to how you actually work. A one-time setup makes it yours, and Enterprise runs fully white-labeled.
Plans that scale with the work
Every plan includes unlimited users. Tiers are sized by estimates a month — a typical drawing set runs about 20 pages — and metered by the page underneath, so one large package just draws down more of your month. And it never stops on you: run past your allowance and estimating keeps going.
- Unlimited users
- Full structural & piping
- Grading & reconcile
- Unlimited users
- Everything in Starter
- Best-fit for regular bidding
- Unlimited users
- Everything in Pro
- Volume page rate
- Best per-page rate
- Dedicated support
- White-label option
A typical estimate is ~20 pages; large packages just use more of the month. Reach out and we’ll size the right plan with you.
Where it draws the line — on purpose
The grading is the product. Forgecast is built to tell you the truth about a number, which means being just as clear about what it won’t do.
From the field
How the tool actually performs, and how it reads a drawing — written for estimators.
We put our AI takeoff head-to-head with a senior estimator
Same real package, priced by hand and by Forgecast. Where they matched within ~1%, the plate it missed, and the $10k the reconcile caught.
Read the story →How to take a steel takeoff off a PDF
Two ways software reads a drawing — one repeatable to the pound, one a confident guess. Plus a 10-second test on your own PDF.
Read the explainer →Piping takeoff from isometrics
An iso isn’t to scale — but its BOM is exact. Read the bill of materials, count welds by size, split shop from field, price it at your rates.
Read the explainer →See it on your own drawings.
Send us a set — structural, piping, or both — and we’ll show you the graded takeoff and how it reconciles against your estimate.
Contact for pricing or email team@burkesintelligence.com