AI takeoff shouldn't cost AI-startup prices.
Togal's one-click detection is genuinely impressive on clean commercial sets, and large GCs use it. It is also browser-only, billed yearly only, and there is no estimating layer underneath the AI.
Choose Togal.AI if your work is high-volume area and space takeoff on clean commercial drawing sets and one-click detection is most of the job. Choose Groundwork Takeoff if you want AI on every seat with a human-review step, plus volumes, assemblies and a live estimate grid underneath it, in native apps that keep working offline.
| Checked September 20, 2026 | Groundwork Takeoff | Togal.AI Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Price, per seat, per year — checked September 20, 2026 | ||
| What the vendor publishes | $590 a year or $59 a month, every feature on it | Growth $299/user/mo billed yearly |
| Cheapest tier that does what one Groundwork seat does | $590 — there is only one tier | $3,588 — Growth — Business is custom-quoted, 4+ users |
| Volume discount | 3+ seats −15%, 5+ seats −25%, applied at checkout | Not published on the vendor's pricing page |
| Perpetual license | $2,500 once, first year of updates included; $295/yr after that gates new versions, never access | Subscription only |
| AI takeoff included | Every seat, including trial seats | Included |
| Native Mac app | Apple silicon and Intel | Browser only |
| Platforms | ||
| Native desktop app | Mac and Windows | Browser only |
| Works offline | Offline-first, 14-day grace period | No offline mode |
| Takeoff & estimating | ||
| Measuring tools | 6 measuring tools — Linear, Segment, Perimeter, Area, Volume, Count | Areas, linear and counts |
| Assemblies — material, labor, waste | Library, Assembly Builder, materials catalog | Quantities export to Excel or an estimating tool |
| Estimate grid in the same window | Live grid and formula evaluator | No estimating layer |
| Where Togal is ahead | ||
| One-click space and wall detection | AI Detect proposes; a human approves before it commits | The Togal Button is the best one-click detection in the category |
| Plan chat | Not built | Togal.CHAT, and it is genuinely useful |
| Independent time-savings study | None published — we will not claim a percentage we have not measured | A University of Kansas study, on one user and one drawing set |
Competitor figures are read off that vendor's own pricing page on September 20, 2026; the sources are listed at the foot of this page. A vendor who publishes no price gets no number here — the empty cell is the finding.
$2,998 per seat, per year. That is Togal.AI's cheapest comparable tier — Growth — Business is custom-quoted, 4+ users at $3,588 — less a Groundwork annual seat at $590. Not against their entry tier: against the cheapest tier that does what one Groundwork seat does.
A measuring tool is not an estimate
This is the whole argument, and it is not a criticism of Togal's AI — which is good — but of where the product stops. Togal detects spaces and walls and hands you quantities. What happens next is Excel, or an estimating tool you bought separately: there are no assemblies, no labor, no waste factors and no pricing layer. Reviewers working in concrete have reported that volumes, rebar and structural takeoff are not feasible in it, which follows from the same boundary.
Groundwork prices the takeoff in the same window. You draw, the armed assembly expands into material, labor and waste, and the estimate grid updates while you are still on the sheet.
The second boundary is the browser. There is no offline mode and no native app, so a jobsite with no signal is a jobsite with no takeoff.
On accuracy claims, including ours
Togal publishes an accuracy figure of up to 98% on its best inputs, and an independent review measured roughly 85% on clean residential floors and closer to 60% on a retail podium level — with over-capture that had to be cleaned up. Both of those are worth reading, and the gap between them is the real story about AI takeoff generally: it is excellent on the sets it was built for and needs a human on everything else.
Which is why Groundwork's AI is a suggestion rather than an answer. AI Detect proposes counts and measurements and a person approves them before anything reaches a quantity. We publish no time-savings percentage of our own, because we have not measured one we would be willing to defend.
On a clean commercial set, the Togal Button is the best one-click detection in the category
Spaces and walls detected to AIA standards, in one pass, faster than anyone draws them by hand. Togal.CHAT is a legitimately useful plan chat and we have nothing like it. It also has something rare in this market — a University of Kansas time-savings study, which is one novice user on one drawing set, but is a real independent study rather than a vendor graph. Coastal, DPR and Clark using it is not nothing either.
Sources
Tier price and billing terms: togal.ai/pricing, read September 20, 2026 — Growth is published at $299 per user per month billed yearly, and the Business tier is custom-quoted at four or more users. The accuracy figures are Togal's own published claim and an independent review at bidicontracting.com (2026); the scope limitation on concrete and structural work is from Trustpilot reviews of the product. The time-savings study is the University of Kansas study cited on togal.ai.
Togal.AI® is a trademark of Togal.AI. Check current details with the vendor.
Check it against your own set.
The fastest way to settle a comparison page is to open your own plans in both. Ours takes a week and no card.