Autodesk Build vs. iTWO costX

Plangrid is well suited for companies (that are not currently using a different SaaS construction package) to make their construction document management more collaborative and mobile friendly. Companies requiring/wanting their subs and owners to collaborate with them as part of the life of a construction project will find Plangrid very helpful in fulfilling this goal. On the negative side, companies that are fully entrenched in using other construction suites will struggle to fully use Plangrid to its potential as pre-built integration between Plangrid and other packages is limited

Incentivized

We are not aware of another software that has fully integrated take-off, subcontractor comparison, estimating and reporting besides CostX.

Incentivized

• Very easy to use, and training takes less than a few hours for field staff.
• Connects office to field quickly and efficiently.
• Uploading , naming, and tagging sheet is the best in the business.
• Sheet and document manager always display most current information and also gives you the ability to look back at previous versions for changes.

Incentivized

• Allows multiple users to work on the same estimate at once. This is huge!! Not only can we team up on a project that has a quick deadline but we can also simultaneously collaborate on database updates.
• Performs your takeoff on CAD drawings or vector PDFs. Your typical takeoff software does takeoff on an unintelligent PDF. I say unintelligent because the process you go through is simply to trace the boundaries of your shape. This is time-consuming and can lead to mistakes. With CostX your cursor will stick to the line lines and takeoff the exact measurement. This has cut our takeoff time by 75%. The best part is that this is done in the same software as your estimating software. There are a few software's that have takeoff and estimating in one but CostX is the only one the provides CAD smart takeoff.
• CostX is a lot like Excel. You have the flexibility to set up your workbooks the way your project team thinks. For example, ours is set up to evaluate labor in two ways; productivity (man-hours per widget) or crew hours (3 guys for two days for a given activity).
• Reports are very flexible and the report writers is much easier than Crystal reports.
• If you subscribe to the full version of CostX this provides the most powerful feature of them all......Auto-Revisioning. This function will compare two sets of drawings, identify the changes on a color coded drawing, ask for you to approve the changes and then update your estimate and takeoff. You can even use this to produce custom print outs for RFI's show your design team what changed.
• Your estimating workbooks are live-linked to your takeoff. As you make adjustments to your takeoff your estimate updates accordingly. The workbook has color coded text to hep your team understand whats behind your estimate; Black = manually input, Blue = rates linked to database, and Green = quantity linked to take-off.
• Full integrated subcontractor comparison. We use to do this in excel to compare multiple bidders across every division.
• This is also color coded for a streamlined review process; green = quote, blue = estimate, purple = plug, and orange = other.
• Built in error checking notifies you if you forgot to normalize an item on your subcontractor comparison.
• In the near future the software will be available online allowing you to use remotely.

Incentivized

• It'd be nice to have access to upload and edit documents from the app. Only for certain users.
• A small business billing option that addresses multiple users of a single account would make managing access simpler. Being able to load unlimited sheets, but only access a specific limit on your team's devices.
• Allow users to integrate their own RFI templates into the app, so RFIs can be generated in your own format right from the field, immediately ready to ship.

Incentivized

• iTwo Costx has 3D features that may require enhancement in terms of Look and feel perspective.
• The eye Function section view feature may require enhancement. But I am not sure how much more we can bring it to scale
• Not seen Cloud base service. So that easy to use from any where.

Incentivized

We are at the point where we have shown our teams what is possible with this software. We cannot take it away and go back to the way we used to do things. I think that they would push back on us to give them access to something electronic. It is a good program that we will continue to use

Incentivized

Hard to get the hang of this software, but with time it become very repetitive and easier to navigate. I have used this software for over a year now and the constant updates by Autodesk have made the software better and better to use at work. This allows me to use this tool more effectively

Incentivized

Online chat during business hours is extremely helpful. The Plangrid staff has gone above and beyond many times to help us. One time they even offered to completely rebuild our 900+ sheet project so I could slip sheet a few old drawing revisions! This undoubtedly would have taken hours on Plangrid's end. They are always responsive and are continually improving, listening to user feedback.

Incentivized

Procore and PlanGrid are the most direct competitors. The pricing structures are very dynamically different between PlanGrid and Procore. Procore tends to succeed better in the "project management" realm, while PlanGrid succeeds far beyond Procore in its ability to deal with project documentation (plans and specs). Bim360 is a great product, but it is limited in its use due to the modeling requirement; while PlanGrid bridges that gap and plays in both 2D and 3D spaces. Buildertrend has some aspects of plan distribution, but it is limited in functionality.

Incentivized

iTwo CostX is one stop for all needs. Either is Bill of Quantity, Design creation or modification, auto-update. Split Screen during the Bill of Quantity Verification against to section of drawing/Design Eye view feature to look at the cross-section of the drawing.

Incentivized

• Positive: Syncing drawings. As I said, keeping an up-to-date set of drawings is seamless on ProCore, as compared to a traditional server or even the cloud. The software is designed to see and mark-up drawings. Though markup tools aren't as robust as, say, Bluebeam Revu (I wouldn't expect all of that from a web app, anyway), it's very nice to easily see all the newest drawings.
• Positive: Saved time. Documents are updated at the same time, across all devices, with only one upload.
• Positive: Punch list is easy. ProCore punch lists are quite complicated. In PlanGrid, with 1-tap we can add items and give a brief description. When doing a walk-thru, it should be easy to jot down notes. These can be detailed once you're sitting at a desk, and PlanGrid allows for that. But for field personnel, punch lists are an easy and efficient use of time.
• Negative: Photo management. For us, there should be a way to just upload photos, and not require to use the photo tool within the app.

Incentivized

• Easy to Collaborate Between the Team members. Saves a lot of work
• Integrate with multiple types of data drawing which saves efforts in converting the design.
• Bill of Quantity export can be done based on the Design section and can share with contractors for Quotes. Instead of just downloading the whole report and then editing for the required pack.

Incentivized