Quantity takeoff
A quantity takeoff is the measurement of materials and work quantities from the drawings — square feet, linear feet, cubic yards, counts — that an estimate is built on.
Also written as takeoff, take-off, quantity survey.
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Reviewed by Eric Collin · President and Founder of Firmo Construction, 20+ years in preconstruction and bid evaluation
It is the input to pricing rather than pricing itself. The takeoff establishes how much there is; unit costs, labor rates, and markup turn that into money. Because everything downstream is multiplied by these figures, an error in the takeoff scales rather than cancels.
Two bidders taking off the same drawings will not arrive at identical quantities, and the differences are informative. A concrete bidder measuring materially more cubic yards than its competitors has either found something in the drawings the others missed or has measured incorrectly, and which one it is changes the award.
Takeoff is also where scope boundaries become visible. Whether the electrical bidder measured the equipment pads, or assumed concrete would, is a decision embedded in the quantities long before it appears in an exclusion. Comparing quantities across bidders surfaces boundary disagreements that comparing totals cannot.
It is distinct from the estimate as a whole. A takeoff can be perfect and the bid still wrong if the unit prices, productivity assumptions, or general conditions behind it are off.
- Cost per square foot
Cost per square foot, written $/SF, is a price divided by the building area it covers, used to compare projects and bids of different sizes.
- Unit price
A unit price is a rate per unit of measure — per cubic yard, per linear foot — used for work whose quantity cannot be known when the bid is submitted.
- Exclusions
Exclusions are the items a bidder states are not included in its price.
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