PlanSwift Alternatives Now That Perpetual Licenses Are Gone

If you are shopping for a PlanSwift alternative because you wanted to buy software and found only an annual bill, the problem is bigger than one vendor. Here's what actually happened to the perpetual license in takeoff software, the contract language you should demand from anyone who still offers one, and the alternatives — priced honestly.

What we can and can't verify

Start with the part we're sure of. Go to planswift.com/pricing today and there are two products for sale: Essential at $2,000 per seat per year and Core at $3,000 per seat per year (checked 2026-09-20). There is no perpetual license on that page. PlanSwift sold one for most of its life; it doesn't now. Bluebeam stopped selling new perpetual licenses on September 30, 2023. No browser-based takeoff tool — STACK, Togal, Kreo — has ever offered one. The option to own your takeoff software has effectively disappeared from the category.

Now the part we're not sure of, because it matters more than the rest of this article. A story circulates that in 2025 PlanSwift revoked existing perpetual licenses and told lifetime customers to start paying annually or lose access. We could not substantiate it. We looked for a primary source and did not find one. The only primary ConstructConnect page we could reach on the subject concerns a June 2026 authentication change and states that it "does not change your subscription tier, pricing, or require you to repurchase anything." The rest is secondhand review copy, much of it published by competitors.

So we're not going to run it. A claim that a company took back software its customers had paid for is a serious accusation, and it should rest on a document, not on a star rating. We sell a competing product; that is exactly why we hold ourselves to the document.

What survives that standard is still the thing you came here for: you can no longer buy PlanSwift, and the category mostly agrees with that decision.

Why this matters beyond PlanSwift

An estimating tool isn't an app you can casually swap. Your assemblies, your item costs, your muscle memory, and years of archived takeoffs live inside it. That switching cost is precisely what makes the annual model work: the vendor is betting that renewing is cheaper for you than rebuilding. Every year that bet pays off, the renewal price has a little more room to move.

That's not a conspiracy; it's just leverage. And leverage is answered with contract language, not cynicism. Which brings us to the practical part.

What to demand from any vendor before you buy "perpetual"

If a vendor does offer a perpetual license, ask these questions in writing and keep the answers:

• Is the license grant irrevocable? The word "perpetual" alone only describes duration. You want "perpetual, irrevocable" in the grant clause — otherwise the vendor may argue it can terminate the license at will.
• What exactly stops if I never pay maintenance? Acceptable answer: updates and support stop, the software keeps working. Unacceptable: the software deactivates, or "core functionality" gets redefined later.
• Does the app phone home to stay activated? If a license server must approve every launch, your perpetual license is only as durable as the vendor's willingness to keep that server answering. Ask what happens if the company shuts down or is acquired.
• Can the terms be changed unilaterally? Look for clauses letting the vendor "update these terms at any time." For a subscription that's annoying; for a perpetual license it's a trapdoor.
• Can I get my data out? Takeoffs, assemblies, and estimates should export to open formats (Excel/CSV at minimum) so the license question never becomes a hostage situation.
• Will you put it in the order form? Marketing pages change. An order form or license agreement with the irrevocability language survives the vendor's next pricing strategy meeting.

Rule of thumb: if a salesperson won't put "perpetual and irrevocable, software keeps functioning without maintenance" in writing, you are not buying a perpetual license. You're buying a subscription with an unusual billing schedule.

The alternatives, priced honestly

Vendor list prices, per seat per year, from each vendor's own pricing page, checked 2026-09-20.

Tool	List price	Perpetual option?	Notes
PlanSwift (stay)	$2,000 Essential / $3,000 Core	Not offered	Windows-only; full Takeoff BOOST auto-takeoff is the $3,000 Core tier
Bluebeam Revu	$260–$590	New sales ended Sept 30, 2023	Subscription only; perimeter and volume from Core ($330); AI only in Max ($590, an introductory price); no estimating layer
STACK	$2,988–$3,588	No	Browser-only, no offline mode; AI Takeoffs included from Premium; estimating from Pro
Togal.AI	$3,588	No	Browser-only AI takeoff, AI included in the price; no estimating underneath
Kreo	~$420 Lite to ~$2,100 Pro	No	Browser-only; AI measurement starts at Pro; reviews cite output needing reorganization
On-Screen Takeoff	Quote-only — ConstructConnect publishes no price	No	Windows-only; estimating requires separate Quick Bid
Drawboard Projects	$270–$370	No	Markup and review; length and area only — no counts, no estimating
Groundwork Takeoff	Published — see pricing	Yes, in writing	Native Mac + Windows, offline-first, takeoff + estimating in one, AI on every seat

Notice the column that matters for this article: of every serious takeoff tool on the market, exactly one still sells ownership. Head-to-head details are on our PlanSwift comparison page, and the broader field is covered in our alternatives roundup.

Why we still sell perpetual — and put no-revocation in writing

Groundwork Takeoff's perpetual license is $2,500 per seat, one time. Maintenance is optional in the real sense: skip it and you keep the version you have, fully working, forever — you just don't get new updates until you resume. The license grant is perpetual and irrevocable, and we put that language in the order form, because after September 2023 nobody should take a marketing page's word for it.

Why commit to this when the rest of the industry ran the other way? Partly conviction — an estimator's tool should be an asset, not a lease. Partly cold business logic: the value of being the one vendor a customer can still buy from compounds, and the value of converting them once does not. We'd rather charge $2,500 and still be recommendable in ten years.

And if you prefer subscription flexibility anyway, that exists too, with crew discounts by seat count. The point isn't which billing model you pick; it's that the choice is yours and stays yours. Full pricing is public, no quote call required.

Moving a PlanSwift workflow

Practical footnote for anyone switching: your plans are PDFs, so they open anywhere. The real migration work is rebuilding assemblies and cost items. Groundwork's assemblies carry material, labor, and waste per item and feed a live estimate grid as you measure, so most teams rebuild their top templates in an afternoon and fill in the long tail as bids come up.

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