At a glance
| Ground Truth Estimator | Methvin | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free during early access, no project limit | Free plan (estimating limited to 5 projects); paid plans from $79/month |
| Drawing takeoff | PDF — length, area and count, with a scale for each page | PDF, DWG and DXF — count, length, area, wall area, volume and end-area, with formulas |
| First-principles build-up | Labour, plant, material and subcontract from your own rate library | Yes |
| Risk | Built in: probabilistic register with 3-point estimates and a simulated price range, plus automatic weather, soil, flood, seismic and market checks for the site | @RISK (a separate Palisade product) is listed as an integration partner |
| Scheduling | Programme with predecessors and lag; Primavera P6 import | Gantt scheduler |
| Cost control | Actuals ledgers, positions and Earned Value | Job costing; earned value reports |
| Accounting link | Not yet | Xero, SAP and JDE on paid plans |
Methvin details are taken from its own pricing, takeoff and integration partners pages, checked on 27 September 2026. Prices and features change — check Methvin's site for the latest.
Where Ground Truth Estimator fits better
- Contingency you can defend, built in. Every risk has a probability and a cost impact — or a min/most-likely/max range — and the register simulates thousands of outcomes to give a best, expected and worst-case price, with no separate risk product to buy. How the risk register works
- Site checks built in. Enter the site once and get weather, soil, flood, seismic and market-escalation checks that suggest risk items for you.
- No project limit while it's free. Estimate as many jobs as you like during early access.
- Takeoff to Earned Value in one place. Measure off the drawing, build the rate up, price the risk, then track actuals and Earned Value against the same estimate.
- Your drawings stay with you. PDF drawings are never uploaded — only their measurements and scales are saved online.
On our roadmap
We build what our users ask for. These are next in line, in the order our users need them:
- Takeoff straight from CAD files (DWG and DXF), with points that snap to the drawing's own lines.
- Volume, end-area and wall-area measurements, with formulas for waste and compaction factors.
- A Xero and MYOB link, so supplier bills flow into actual costs without re-typing.
If your team needs one of these, tell us — early adopters can agree pricing with us as we build it. Create a free workspace and use Feedback in the app to get in touch.
Roadmap items are planned, not promised; what we build and when depends on demand.
Who Ground Truth Estimator is for
Estimators, QS teams and project managers at civil contractors — roads, drainage, earthworks and site works — who want every rate built up from first principles, every contingency backed by named risks, and one place to see how the job is tracking against its tender.