
Construction’s fast-moving, margin-sensitive industry means that speed and accuracy can make or break your quote. Suppliers are expected to do more than just move materials, you’re now key partners in the preconstruction process. That means delivering fast, accurate quotes is critical to winning business.
But too many suppliers are still outsourcing takeoffs, relying on third-party services that don’t understand their products, pricing, or workflows. While outsourcing might seem like a time-saver, it often creates more bottlenecks: slow turnaround, inconsistent results, and missed opportunities.
Let’s break down why bringing takeoffs in-house with STACK Takeoff & Estimate puts suppliers back in control and sets your team up for long-term success.
The Problem with Outsourcing Takeoffs
Unpredictable Turnaround Times
Deadlines don’t wait. But third-party takeoff services rarely deliver on-demand results. When you’re bidding multiple projects in a week or chasing last-minute updates, waiting 2–3 days (or more) for measurements just doesn’t cut it.
Inconsistencies and Errors
No one knows your products, scopes, and pricing better than your internal team. Outsourced providers often deliver takeoffs that miss spec details, apply incorrect assemblies, or use units that don’t match your workflows. That means more time spent reviewing—and sometimes redoing—the work.
Lack of Visibility and Control
Need to adjust quantities after a scope change? Good luck. Outsourced files are usually locked-down PDFs, not live, editable data. You’re forced to start from scratch or send it back and wait.
No Historical Insight
Outsourced estimates are transactional. You lose institutional knowledge, which means no feedback loop to improve accuracy over time.
Security Concerns
Your takeoffs contain sensitive project info, from supplier pricing to customer targets. Every time you hand that off to an unknown provider, you’re putting business-critical data at risk.
STACK Pro Tip: Check out our blog STACK for Suppliers: 5 Secrets to Success
The Case for In-House Estimating
When your team controls the inputs, you control the outcomes.
Benefits of Bringing Takeoffs In-House with STACK Takeoff & Estimating:
- Speed to Measure: Get instant access to drawings, start measuring immediately, and produce estimates on your schedule.
- Full Control Over Data & Process Your estimators learn from each project and get better—outsourced teams don’t build that knowledge.
- Total Accuracy: Use prebuilt and customizable items and assemblies tailored to your products and trades.
- Flexible Pricing Strategy In-house teams can tweak costs based on past performance, maximizing bid success.
- Repeatability & Scalability: Save templates, reapply logic, and bid multiple jobs faster with consistent outputs.
- Collaboration & Visibility: Share progress with your team and make live edits from anywhere whether you’ve got team members in the office or the field.
- Ownership & Accountability: No black-box results—just transparent data you can trace, trust, and tweak.
The STACK Impact: STACK customer, Denver Winwater, is a full-service supplier of waterworks and underground utilities materials based in Commerce City, CO. Their past processes for preconstruction were time-consuming, leading to delays and inaccuracies in quotes. Since adopting STACK in 2021, the company has increased quote output, improved profitability, and boosted efficiency.
"STACK has definitely been a big part in increasing our sales because we can do so many more quotes a day. Last year we did close to 760 takeoffs which totaled more than $300 million in quotes we sent out the door."
Denver Winwater
Automate What Slows You Down: STACK’s AI + Automation Features
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming construction tech—but not all AI is created equal. Some tools bolt on gimmicky features that sound slick in a demo but don’t hold up in the field.
STACK’s AI and automation capabilities are different. They’re embedded directly into your takeoff workflow—accelerating your speed without sacrificing accuracy or oversight.
STACK’s Smartest Features:
- AI Takeoffs Automatically detect and measure rooms, walls, windows, and doors. Instantly editable. Fully accurate.
- Automated Symbol Recognition Identify repeated trade-specific elements—like fixtures or outlets—without clicking them one by one.
- OCR & Smart Search Locate plan titles, keywords, and details in seconds. No more scrolling through endless pages.
- Hyperlinking & Autonaming Quickly navigate and organize complex plan sets with automatic links, sheet naming, and numbering.
- Robust, Open API Automate your business workflows and integrate with STACK’s open API to connect your key business systems.
The STACK Impact: Ewing Outdoor Supply, a leading wholesale distributor of landscape and irrigation materials, faced a major challenge: their commercial services team was juggling three disconnected systems—CRM, takeoff software, and quoting tools—resulting in redundant data entry, manual copy‑pastes, and inefficiencies. By leveraging STACK’s powerful API, Ewing created a streamlined workflow eliminating manual handoffs.
"Thanks to our integration with STACK, we are able to serve our customers much quicker than before."
Ewing Outdoor Supply
Stop Outsourcing. Start Outperforming.
Suppliers who handle takeoffs in-house aren’t just faster—they’re more reliable, more accurate, and more profitable. With STACK, you can quote with confidence, measure in minutes, and win more jobs—without waiting on someone else to get it right.
STACK gives your estimating team everything they need to scale your quoting operation—from AI-accelerated takeoffs to integrations with your ERP and other systems. Ready to take control of your takeoffs? See STACK in action.