Makeoff reads the full plan set, flags contradictions and buried requirements, and traces every finding back to the source sheet, before the estimate goes out.
Where scope hides
Under deadline, even a strong estimating team gets one pass through two hundred sheets. The scope that sinks a job is rarely on the riser diagram. It hides in places like these.
Take a package hiding 20 scope items: buried Division 0 clauses, code requirements, gaps in vendor quotes. Each block below is one of them. Here's the same job, both ways.
Page-by-page review, by hand
~9 of 20
9 priced into the bid11 surface after award
Scope items surfaced before bid
The other 11 are still in the contract. They come back as change-order fights and free work; think of the one-line Division 0 note that puts all change orders at NECA-1 labor. One sentence like that can erase a job's margin.
With Makeoff
~17 of 20
17 on a ranked risk list at takeoff time
Scope items surfaced before bid
Ranked by dollar impact, every flag traced to the note, sheet, or spec section it came from. On top of the Accubid or ConEst you already run, under 10 minutes a job. Your estimator weeds out the non-issues and prices what's real.
How it works
You upload the documents, we read all of them, and you get a sourced list of what's going to cost you. Your takeoff software, your bid day process, your people. None of it changes.
Why estimating teams switch
Find the gap Tuesday and it's an RFI. Two weeks later it's money you already promised.
E-601 · LS-1 · SPEC 26 51 13When the GC pushes back on a line item, you send the page.
Review done before day oneThe set is read before your estimators open it. Their hours go into pricing.
Before bid, not after award
Makeoff reads the plans, specs, general notes, and addenda, then checks all of it against the takeoff you already built. Anything that lives in the documents but never made it into your numbers comes back as a finding, with the sheet it came from and what it's likely worth.You decide how to price it.
Makeoff makes sure you saw it while there's still time.
Page 257 says furnish and install the whole access-control system. Page 89 hands the devices to the security contractor. Page 298 says conduit and j-box only. Makeoff finds the conflict, puts every page that speaks to that scope side by side, and shows what the swing is worth.
You still make the call, by RFI or by picking a bid basis. Makeoff makes sure you know what each answer costs.
A BSL-3 lab needs every conduit and device box sealed gas-tight. No sheet in the set says that. NEC 300.7(A) and the containment standard do, and the labor shows up in your cost whether or not anyone drew it.
Makeoff reads the drawings against the code that governs them and flags the work nobody put on a plan, with the section number attached.
"It's a checkpoint. It's another me going through, looking at our estimates and projects and pointing out the things that can be very costly if missed."
Chief Electrical Estimator, multi-trade specialty contractor, Upper Midwest
Customer story
An electrical estimating group ran Makeoff bid review on live competitive bids for eight weeks and confirmed five catches their own review had not surfaced. The estimator who owned each project verified every one before pricing closed. Two of the five were sitting in addenda that contradicted a drawing note the team had already priced against.
Chief Electrical Estimator, multi-trade specialty contractor, Upper Midwest
Read the story
No setup · Runs on your live bid
Send us a current plan set. We'll run the review and walk your team through every finding it surfaces.
