Groundplan

Groundplan is a cloud-based takeoff and estimating platform designed for trade businesses that work from construction plans. Users upload PDF, JPG, PNG, or TIFF plan files, then use on-screen measuring tools to count points, measure lengths, and calculate areas. The software generates bills of quantities with material costs, labour, and profit margins, which can be exported as quotes or pushed directly to integrated job management platforms.

Core features include linear, area, and count measurement tools, custom formulas, takeoff templates for repeatable measurements, plan markup and annotation tools, and a title block system for branded output. The Count Assist add-on automates symbol counting for trades like electrical, security, and fire, which is a significant time-saver on large plans. Everything runs in the browser with no software to install, and multiple team members can collaborate on estimates in real time.

Groundplan offers monthly subscription pricing starting from around $75/month with no lock-in contracts. There's a 7-day free trial with full access to all features and no credit card required upfront. Payment is accepted via Visa, Mastercard, and AMEX. If you cancel, your data is retained for 30 days before deletion.

The Count Assist feature, which automates symbol counting for electrical and similar trades, is available as a paid add-on. Detailed tier breakdowns aren't publicly listed on their website, so you'll need to contact them or sign up for the trial to see current pricing for your team size.

Vendor lock-in risk is moderate. Your takeoff data, measurements, and estimates live within Groundplan's system, and there's no API to extract them programmatically. You can export individual projects to Excel or CSV, but a full account migration would be tedious and manual. Your original plan files (PDFs, images) can be downloaded, so you won't lose the source documents.

The 30-day data retention after cancellation is worth noting. If you cancel and change your mind after that window, your data is gone. The pre-built integrations help by keeping copies of your estimates in connected platforms like simPRO or Xero, which reduces the risk of data being trapped solely in Groundplan.

For most small trades businesses, this level of lock-in is acceptable. You're unlikely to switch takeoff tools frequently, and the export-to-Excel option covers basic needs. But if data sovereignty or automated data extraction matters to your business, the lack of API access is a real constraint.

Groundplan was founded in 2013 by Rex Redden, Nathan Muir, and Frederico Carvalho, all of whom had prior software development experience in the trade industry. The company is headquartered in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, and has grown from the original three founders to over twenty staff based across Australia and New Zealand.

The platform now serves over 8,650 active users who have completed more than 412,700 projects and estimated over 6.2 million plans. Groundplan is privately held with no publicly known external investors or parent company. The company is founder-led, which typically signals stability and long-term commitment rather than growth-at-all-costs venture dynamics. For a niche vertical tool, twenty-plus employees and steady growth across 10 countries over 13 years is a healthy trajectory.

Groundplan does not have a public API. There is no way to programmatically access your data, trigger workflows, or build custom integrations. This is the single biggest limitation from an integration standpoint.

What Groundplan offers instead is a set of pre-built integrations with popular job management and accounting platforms: simPRO, AroFlo, Fergus, ServiceM8, Ascora, Xero, and QuickBooks Online. These integrations let you push completed estimates into those systems, avoiding double entry. If your tech stack includes one of these platforms, the integration is straightforward. If it doesn't, you're limited to manual CSV or Excel exports.

For a niche takeoff tool serving small trade businesses, the lack of an API is understandable but limits what's possible for businesses with more complex automation needs.

No webhooks are available. Groundplan has no public API or webhook system. All integrations are pre-built, point-to-point connections with supported platforms.

Data portability is adequate but manual. You can export your bill of quantities and takeoff results to Excel or CSV, and you can download your plans with or without markups. The pre-built integrations also allow pushing estimates to connected job management or accounting platforms.

On the import side, you can bring in measurement data via CSV following a specific format, and upload plans in PDF, JPG, PNG, or TIFF formats. Takeoff templates can be imported and shared across projects.

The limitation is that there's no bulk data export of your entire account, and no API to pull data programmatically. If you've been using Groundplan for years and want to migrate to another platform, you'd need to export project-by-project. Your plan files are yours to download, but the takeoff data sits within Groundplan's system. After cancellation, data is retained for 30 days before deletion.

There isn't really a developer experience to speak of. Groundplan has no public API, no developer documentation, no SDKs, and no sandbox environment. From a developer's perspective, this is a closed system.

That said, the end-user documentation is solid. Groundplan maintains a comprehensive help guide at help.groundplan.com covering setup, measurement tools, integrations, templates, and more. They also offer a Groundplan Academy with structured learning courses. For the pre-built integrations (simPRO, AroFlo, etc.), there are step-by-step setup guides in the help centre.

If you're a developer looking to integrate with Groundplan beyond the pre-built options, your only path is exporting data manually via CSV/Excel and ingesting it into your target system. Not ideal, but workable for low-frequency data movement.