Why Roofaio
Built like an estimator thinks.
Trust, enforced
Scale before geometry.
The assistant reads the sheet's printed scale note, finds a labeled dimension in the text
layer, and checks one against the other — nobody draws anything. Hand-draw is the fallback
when no assistant is connected (there's an "or draw it myself" link if you want it). When
printed and measured disagree, you see both — 3/16" = 1'-0" struck through
against the measured 1/4" = 1'-0" — and by what percent. If a sheet lies to
you, you find out now, not in the field.
- The assistant reads the printed scale and checks it against a real dimension on the sheet
- Disagreement over 2% stops the page — it is never averaged away
- Unverified pages are excluded from the BOM, automatically
The rules engine
Every line shows its math.
The BOM isn't a black box. Each line carries its waste factor, coverage, rounding rule, and the exact derivation from measured geometry — so you can defend every number in a buyout meeting. Rules are versioned, so a spec change tells you exactly what moved.
- Membrane, insulation, cover board, fasteners, term bar — from one source of truth
- Edit any rule and watch the BOM recompute with the reason attached
- Export CSV or a branded report, straight into your estimate
From BOM to bid
It prices the job, not just the material list.
Import the Excel workbook you already estimate from and Roofaio prices every line against it. Labor the way you quote it — $/square on roofing, $/lf on metal, $/ea on counts, or hr/unit × your crew rate. Overhead, tax and margin roll up to a sell price. Your cost and your margin never leave your machine.
- Your own price sheet, imported — or hand it to the assistant and it tells you what it couldn't match
- Good / better / best, priced on the same roof
- A price library that follows you from job to job
The project manual, cover to cover
Roofaio reads every line of the spec book and updates your BOM, estimate, and proposal.
Point Roofaio at the project manual and it pulls every call-out that changes your number — system, membrane, insulation and R-value, screws versus adhesive, cover board, coping metal, deck, warranty — each cited to its sheet and section. Where the spec settles a number your BOM was guessing, the rule updates and the row says so. Where it contradicts your bid, you hear about it before you send it.
- Every call-out cited to its sheet and section
- BOM rules updated from the spec, marked "Updated from plan spec"
- Conflicts with your takeoff flagged, never quietly applied
Fabrication, built in
Stretch-out without the side spreadsheet.
Parapets and edges aren't just lines — they carry profiles. Pick a coping profile and Roofaio computes the stretch-out in coil inches alongside the run length. Edge metal, gutters, downspouts: fabrication quantities come out of the takeoff, not out of a second tool.
- Coping and edge profiles with automatic stretch-out to coil
- A profile library you can extend to match your shop
- Fabrication totals land in the same BOM as everything else
The assistant
Fully automated — until it needs your judgment.
Import the bid set and the assistant does the work: reads the title block, applies the printed scale, traces the roof, builds the BOM, estimate and proposal — typically in under ten minutes. Then it self-audits against the sheet's own printed dimensions, and every discrepancy it finds comes back to you as a prompt with options. Work through those, and you're still under thirty minutes from RFP to proposal.
It works through the same 50+ undoable commands you use — no privileged back door — and signs in with your Claude subscription, never an API key. Its calibrations are marked as its own and its report never hides a discrepancy — and every number it produces stays editable by you.
- First pass in under 10 minutes; conflicts resolved as guided prompts, not homework
- Self-audits against printed dimensions — flags, never guesses
- Same commands, same validation, same undo as a human — optional, always
Watch a full first pass
One sheet, start to finish, in 45 seconds.
A real 73-sheet bid set. The assistant verifies the scale, traces the roof, and self-audits against the printed dimensions — a 16-minute first pass, speed-ramped 22× so you can watch it end to end.
First pass: 16.7 min wall clock on sheet A1.1 — shown at 22×.
Key feature — revision compare
The addendum lands an hour before bid time. See exactly what moved.
Drop the revised sheets on the project and Roofaio diffs them against the revision you priced. Every moved wall, resized roof, and swapped detail is flagged on the sheet — and the BOM delta is already computed before you've finished reading the cloud.
The tools that offer any comparison at all use pixel overlays — they tint two drawings and leave the recounting to you. Most roofing-specific tools don't compare revisions at all. Roofaio's compare knows what a parapet is: it names the change and reprices it.
Depth where it counts.
Click inside the outline
Fill traces to the drawn linework; anything excluded is listed to click back in.
A BOM per roof
Tag geometry Roof A, Roof B — price each roof on its own.
Every wall's own height
Parapet heights typed off the wall section; membrane and adhesive price from that.
The whole bid set
PDFs, addenda, and the spec book drop into one page sequence.
Your numbers, once
System, prices, waste, coverages, margin set once — every project starts there.
Tapered sizing
Area, drains, slope in; run, thickness, board-feet, squares out.
The marked-up plan
Zones tinted, sides dimensioned, legend and totals — the PDF that goes out with the bid.
Versioned rules
Swap the manufacturer spec; the BOM recomputes with a record of what changed and why.
Offline by design
Portable .rooftk files — work offline for a week at a time.
DXF & raster import
CAD exports and scanned drawings alongside the PDF bid set.
Exports that land
BOM, estimate, QuickBooks-ready CSV, audit report, marked-up plan, branded proposal.
On-sheet legend
Plan pages that explain themselves to the PM and the crew.
QuickBooks CSV
Quantities flow straight into your accounting and estimating stack.