Earthwork estimating software
Six tools you will actually meet, what each one really does, and where — if anywhere — each one puts a price.
Last updated 29 September 2026Corrected 29 September 2026. The first version of this page said that not one of the four earthwork-takeoff tools publishes a price. That was wrong for AGTEK and InSite. It came from looking for a pricing page and finding none, when each vendor states its price somewhere else on its own site. The page, and the way absences are checked, have been changed. The change is recorded in the corrections log.
Every figure and feature below was read on the vendor’s own site on 29 September 2026. Nothing here is taken from a directory listing, a review aggregator or a search snippet, because those are where the wrong prices come from. Where a vendor does not state a price, this page says so rather than repeating a number somebody else printed.
Evidence level
- Vendor website read
- Vendor documentation read
- User sentiment researched
- Hands-on tested
- Expert workflow tested
Read on the vendors’ own sites, most recently on 29 September 2026. Calcumetryx has not used any of these products, so nothing here is a hands-on finding. How each label is earned is on how we review software.
These are two different jobs sold as one phrase
“Earthwork estimating” covers two pieces of work that are usually bought from different vendors. The first is takeoff: getting quantities out of a plan — existing and proposed surfaces, cut and fill, strip volumes, trench and utility quantities. The second is pricing: taking those quantities and turning them into a bid with crews, equipment hours, haul, disposal, overhead and markup.
A tool that is excellent at one is frequently absent at the other. AGTEK, InSite and Roctek are takeoff engines. HeavyBid is a bid assembly engine. Knowify manages the contract once the number exists. Knowing which half you are short of is most of the buying decision, and no comparison grid asks you.
The four built for earthwork
These surface consistently for US earthwork and excavation takeoff searches. Two of them put a price in public, though not on a pricing page; two do not.
Earthwork and sitework takeoff from PDF, CAD and drone imagery; 3D models that feed GPS machine control; production tracking and reporting.
The vendor states that a shared key used among multiple users, with training and support, starts around $650 per month on a one-year subscription, and that the price rises with system capacity and modules. It has no pricing page, and offers a customised quote.
Earthwork and utility takeoff from PDF, CAD and drone/GPS data; a cut-and-fill contour map and grid for validating quantities; exports triangulated surfaces to Topcon, Trimble, CAT, Leica and Komatsu machine control.
The vendor publishes an Elevation Pro subscription price sheet as a PDF, linked from its Price Sheet page and from its Cloud Licensing page. The sheet was downloaded and read in full on 29 September 2026. It prints one price: $3900, billed annually, for one concurrent user with installation on up to two machines. It is dated on its face, “Price effective 10.17.24”, and whether that is still the price today was not checked anywhere else. The first year is billed annually, and the sheet states that renewal may be billed monthly or annually at the current published rate. Elevation Pro price sheet (PDF, on the vendor’s site).
Earthwork and excavation takeoff quantities. The company states it has developed takeoff software in-house since 1985 and offers a trial.
No price on the pages read. Its Annual Maintenance Plan page lists what a customer gets and states no figure.
Heavy-civil and DOT estimating — bid assembly, unit-price bidding, markup and pricing, bid risk and error detection. Aimed at the bid, not at the takeoff.
A pricing page exists at /pricing/ and contains no prices: it opens a “custom quote” form and a demo request.
A pricing page with no prices on it is worth noticing rather than shrugging at. HCSS publishes one; it opens a custom-quote form. That is a deliberate commercial choice, and it tells you the quote will be built around your company size before you see it.
The two that print every price
Both of these print every plan and its price on a public page. Neither site describes earthwork takeoff, which is the trade-off: the two products with a complete price table are the two that describe no way to get your quantities off a drawing.
Knowify
Contract and service-work management: estimates and proposals, change orders, scheduling, time tracking, job costing, AIA billing, QuickBooks integration. Lists excavating among the trades it serves.
| Plan | Published price | Seats |
|---|---|---|
| Core | $99 / month | Includes 1 user |
| Advanced | $329 / month | Includes 10 users |
| Enterprise | Quote | Unlimited users; “talk to us” |
Service Pro add-on $99/month. Live equipment tracking from $25 per vehicle per month.
No earthwork takeoff is described on the vendor’s site. It prices and manages work whose quantities you arrived at somewhere else.
QuoteIQ
A field-service CRM: estimates, invoicing, scheduling and payments, with satellite property measurement.
| Plan | Published price | Seats |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $29.99 / month | 1 user |
| Beginner | $74.99 / month | 2 users |
| Pro | $149.99 / month | 4 users |
| Elite | $299 / month | 10 users |
| Max | $699 / month | Unlimited users |
14-day trial. Annual billing is charged upfront and advertised as two months free. Payment processing and usage are billed separately.
Positioned by the vendor as a home-service tool across 50+ industries, not as construction takeoff. Its measurement works on satellite imagery of a property, not on a grading plan.
What to ask on the demo, since you have to book one
Most of these will only give the real figure after a call, and even the two takeoff vendors that state a price present it as a starting point. That call is worth preparing for, because the questions that separate these tools are about method, and a demo will not volunteer them. These are the ones that change the number on your bid:
- How is volume between two surfaces computed? The grid method, average end area and the prismoidal formula do not agree. On a shape that tapers — most pits and most batters — average end area overstates. Ask which one runs, and whether you can see it.
- Are cut and fill reported separately or netted? A site that nets to zero can still need a thousand yards moved and paid for. A tool that shows you one net figure has hidden the job.
- Are swell and shrinkage separate inputs? They are different factors for the same soil, and published tables disagree by tens of points. A tool with a single hard-coded factor is making a decision that belongs to you — see our guide on the published disagreement.
- Can you export the working, not just the total? When an owner disputes a quantity, the answer is the method and the numbers that went into it. A total is not a defence.
- Which machine-control formats does it write? If the model has to reach a dozer, ask for the specific systems by name. InSite names Topcon, Trimble, CAT, Leica and Komatsu; make the others be equally specific.
- What does the price include at your size? Seats, modules, support tier, training and annual maintenance are priced separately by most vendors in this category. The first number quoted is rarely the whole one.
Where free tools stop and paid software starts
Worth being plain, since this site gives its calculators away. A calculator answers one bounded question with the numbers you type into it: this pit, this trench, this haul. It has no plan reader, no surfaces, no project file and no memory of last week’s job.
Software of the kind above earns its price when quantities have to come off a drawing rather than a tape, when a model has to reach a machine, or when bids, crews and costs have to live together across many jobs. If what you actually need is a defensible volume and an honest cost breakdown for one job, the tools on this site do that, and they do it without a sales call.
Disclosure. Calcumetryx has a commercial interest in construction estimating software beyond this website. No vendor on this page has paid for inclusion, placement or wording, no link here is an affiliate link, and no product connected to this site’s owners is listed, recommended or compared on this page.
- AGTEK — product pages — AGTEK
- How Much Does an AGTEK System Cost? — AGTEK — AGTEK
- InSite Elevation Pro — product pages — InSite Elevation Pro
- Price Sheet — InSite Software — InSite Elevation Pro
- Elevation Pro price sheet (PDF) — InSite Software — InSite Elevation Pro
- Roctek — product pages — Roctek
- Annual Maintenance Plan — Roctek — Roctek
- HCSS HeavyBid — product pages — HCSS HeavyBid
- Software Pricing — HCSS — HCSS HeavyBid
- Knowify — product pages — Knowify
- Knowify — published pricing page — Knowify
- QuoteIQ — product pages — QuoteIQ
- QuoteIQ — published pricing page — QuoteIQ
Do the quantities first
All earthwork calculators →Before a demo is worth booking, it helps to know the size of the job you are trying to price. These four are free, need no account, and show every step of the arithmetic.