Enormous Buildings
Summary
Waiting three weeks for a quantity surveyor to come back with a number that is already wrong because the spec changed on day two — that is the gap Enormous Buildings exists to close.
Upload dimensioned drawings, pick a country and currency, and the engine returns a trade-by-trade, line-item Bill of Quantities with source-cited unit rates — the vendor states typical analysis runs around five minutes. Coverage spans 190+ countries with localised pricing, which means a feasibility number in Harare or Helsinki does not require hunting down a local QS first. The output is exportable to PDF and saved to your account for re-download. The ceiling appears when drawings are undimensioned or when a project requires the kind of specification-level judgement calls — material substitutions, site-condition adjustments — that a human QS would flag in a meeting. At that point teams treat the output as a first-draft baseline, not a submission-ready document.
Bottom line: Use this to get a defensible budget number into a feasibility deck before the client meeting; expect to hand the output to a QS for review before it goes into a tender package.
Pricing Plans
Usage-Based- Price
- 1% of building cost per analysis
Usage-based
1% of total building cost per BoQ analysis; no subscription or minimums
- Priced BoQ with source citations
- Country/currency selection
- PDF and spreadsheet export
- Account storage for re-download
View full pricing on enormousbuildings.com →
Pricing may have changed since last verified. Check the official site for current plans.
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Pros
Sign in to edit- Source citation on every unit rate, so a QS or contractor reviewing the output can check individual line items against their own data rather than rejecting the whole document on sight.
- 190+ country coverage with localised currency and unit rates, which means international feasibility estimates do not require sourcing a regional QS just to get a number into a deck.
- Upload-to-BoQ in approximately five minutes per the vendor, so a specification change mid-design does not mean a two-week wait before the budget is updated.
- Trade-by-trade, line-item output grouped to the same structure a QS would use, so the document can move directly into contractor review or tender comparison without reformatting.
- Flat 1% of building cost pricing with no subscription layer, which means low-volume users and one-off projects are not subsidising a seat they use twice a year.
Cons
Sign in to edit- The engine requires dimensioned drawings — plans, elevations, or sections with explicit measurements. Sketch layouts, concept drawings, or undimensioned PDFs return no usable quantities, so teams early in schematic design cannot use the tool until drawings reach a minimum level of completeness.
- Output is a starting-point document, not a submission-ready BoQ. Site-specific conditions — unusual ground, access constraints, specialist subcontractor rates — are not factors the engine can adjust for, so any project where those variables are material requires a QS to rework the figures before the document goes into a tender package.
- No API access and no self-hosted option means the tool cannot be embedded into an existing estimating or project management workflow; teams that need BoQ generation as a step inside a larger automated pipeline will reach this ceiling immediately and look elsewhere.
- A single pricing tier structure means teams that need iterative re-runs across multiple specification options — comparing timber frame against masonry for the same footprint, for example — pay the 1% fee each time, which adds up on high-iteration value-engineering exercises and pushes some teams toward manual take-off software with a flat licence cost.
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About
- Platforms
- Web
- API Available
- No
- Self-Hosted
- No
- Last Updated
- 2026-07-18T11:06:00.119Z
Best For
Who it's for
- Architects and developers needing fast budgets
- Contractors and self-builders preparing tenders
- Projects in 190+ countries with local pricing
What it does well
- Early-stage feasibility and budget setting
- Value-engineering and specification comparison
- Pre-tender estimates and sanity-checking contractor quotes
- International projects requiring local currency and standards
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Enormous Buildings free?
- Enormous Buildings is a paid tool (1% of building cost per analysis). No permanent free tier is offered.
- Is Enormous Buildings open source?
- No — Enormous Buildings is a closed-source tool. Source code is not publicly available.
- What platforms does Enormous Buildings support?
- Enormous Buildings is available on: Web.
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Getting a priced Bill of Quantities used to mean either waiting on a quantity surveyor’s availability or paying for software that assumes you already know how to run a take-off. Enormous Buildings compresses that into a four-step upload workflow: drag in dimensioned PDFs, PNGs, or JPGs (up to 25 MB each), configure country, currency, and pricing tier, let the engine extract quantities trade-by-trade and apply regional unit rates, then download a complete BoQ — viewable in-app and exportable to PDF. The vendor states the platform is built for architects, developers, contractors, and self-builders who need a budget number early, without the weeks a manual take-off requires.
The differentiating detail is source citation on every unit rate. Rather than returning a lump-sum estimate, the output attributes each line-item price to a vendor, rate handbook, or regional survey. That traceability means a contractor or QS reviewing the document can check individual rates against their own data rather than treating the whole BoQ as a black box — which is what makes it defensible in value-engineering conversations and useful for sanity-checking incoming contractor quotes.
The platform fits cleanly at the front end of a project: feasibility, budget setting, value-engineering comparisons, and pre-tender estimates. It covers 190+ countries with localised currency and unit rates, so international projects do not require assembling regional data manually. The wall appears when drawings are undimensioned — the engine cannot infer quantities from sketch layouts — or when a project’s scope requires site-specific judgement that changes rates materially. Teams in that position use the output as a structured first draft and pass it to a QS for adjustment rather than submitting it directly.