Residential builders live and die by their quotes. Arrive a day late or a dollar short and the client is already signing with someone else. A CountBricks notch quote—our term for a fast, detailed, and profit-protected proposal—gives you the edge. By pairing live voice capture with AI-driven material pricing and blueprint takeoffs, CountBricks eliminates the lag between the site visit and the signed contract.
Speed, specificity, and certainty. Clients want to see numbers quickly, understand exactly what they’re paying for, and feel confident costs won’t balloon. The CountBricks platform was built around these three pillars.
• Speed: Voice-to-estimate in real time—talk through the scope on site and watch tasks populate instantly.
• Specificity: Itemized labour, plant, and material allowances down to the last box of screws.
• Certainty: Live pricing feeds paired with markup guardrails protect both margin and client trust.
Open the CountBricks mobile app, hit record, and walk the property with the client. As you dictate—“frame a 6 m internal wall, R2.7 insulation”—the AI converts speech into structured line items.
Upload PDFs or photos to CountBricks.com/takeoffs. Our computer-vision engine recognises walls, openings, slabs, and fixtures, assigning dimensions and counts within seconds. No manual tracing, no missed lintel.
CountBricks links directly to leading merchants’ APIs and your own preferred supplier lists. Lumber, plumbing fittings, and even skip-bin hire rates update the moment you click “refresh.” Regional labour rates are pre-loaded, or you can import your crews’ charge-out sheets.
Use sliders to set markup, contingency, and allowances for PC items. The system highlights low-margin tasks in amber and zero-margin tasks in red so you can fix leaks before they sink the job.
With one tap, generate a polished PDF containing scope narrative, inclusions, exclusions, payment schedule, and terms. The document carries your logo and colours but is powered by CountBricks formatting standards that clients recognise as professional and transparent.
• Win rate boost: Builders using CountBricks report a 23 % increase in accepted offers after switching from spreadsheet quoting.
• Higher profit per job: Margin-guard alerts stop under-quoting, adding an average 2.1 % net profit back onto each contract.
• Fewer variations: Detailed line items reduce “Oh, that wasn’t included?” conversations that erode goodwill.
• Time reclaimed: Estimators save roughly six hours per full-house quote—time that can be reinvested in site supervision or new leads.
Group frequent assemblies—wall framing, subfloor prep—so the system cost-loads them at once. Adjust quantities, not formulas.
CountBricks hosts template libraries tuned for metro, coastal, and alpine builds. Start with a template that mirrors your climate zone and tweak instead of building from scratch.
• Activate price-lock flags for high-risk items like structural timber.
• Automatically insert escalation clauses into the proposal when timber or steel exceeds your threshold.
• Get weekly commodity reports via CountBricks.com/services to stay ahead of spikes.
North Shore Homes, a boutique builder in Auckland, shifted to CountBricks after losing two extensions to slower competitors. Using the notch quote method, they captured the client brief on a Friday afternoon and emailed a branded proposal that evening. The client signed Monday. The builder now turns out three detailed quotes per week, all with less than 2 % variation drift.
• Sync your supplier accounts once to enable real-time pricing on every estimate
• Record voice notes in short, distinct phrases—this improves AI parsing accuracy
• Tag uncertain scope items as “clarify” so they appear in a dedicated RFI section
• Use the optional client portal so homeowners can approve selections online
• Export accepted quotes directly into CountBricks invoicing to maintain cost lineage
Ready to turn your next bid into a CountBricks notch quote? Explore feature demos at CountBricks.com/services or book a live walkthrough with our estimating team. Spend less time calculating and more time building.
Traditional takeoffs are a spreadsheet minefield—manual counts, forgotten lintels, and mis-typed dimensions drain profit before the first nail is driven. CountBricks replaces that pain with machine-vision accuracy.
1. Upload plans in PDF, DWG, or even smartphone photos.
2. Choose the scale or let CountBricks auto-detect from the title block.
3. The engine scans walls, slabs, openings, joists, and fixtures, tagging each element with dimensions.
4. Review the overlay, adjust any atypical assemblies, and approve. Quantities push straight into your estimate lines.
• No missed components: The AI flags incomplete walls and unframed openings so you never under-order studs or lintels.
• Uniform costing: Every plan goes through the same logic, removing guesswork between estimators.
• Rapid alternates: Need an option with T2 treated framing instead of LVL? Duplicate the takeoff, switch the assembly, and regenerate the quote in minutes.
Southland Renovations used CountBricks takeoffs to re-quote a 1920s villa retrofit after discovering hidden rot. The updated notch quote, generated on-site via tablet, recalculated lining, insulation, and cladding while the owner watched. Approval was secured before demo resumed, saving a full day of downtime.
CountBricks is continuously training its models on new residential components—from SIPs panels to hybrid heat-pump systems. Every update lands automatically, so your next notch quote always reflects current building methods and costs without extra effort.
Ready to see blueprint AI in action? Visit CountBricks.com/portfolio for sample overlays or contact our team for a bespoke demo. The fastest way to better margins is a better takeoff—and that starts with CountBricks.
