Straight answers, including the awkward ones.

A Windows desktop application for construction PDF takeoff, measurement, markup and estimating. You open drawings, calibrate the scale, measure lengths, areas, counts and volumes, price them in a Takeoff table and export to Excel, CSV or PDF.

Kisheet is not released yet: there is no public download or checkout.

Estimators who bid work: independent estimators, trade subcontractors and general contractor precon teams. It is deliberately not a full project-management platform.

Length and polylength, area and perimeter, volume (area times depth), count with 13 symbol shapes, angle, diameter and radius, plus cutouts, Fill Area for bounded regions, wall height for wall surface area and slope or pitch such as 6/12. Scales can be calibrated, chosen from presets (imperial, engineering and metric), set separately in X and Y, and overridden per viewport.

No. Takeoff is point-and-click, sped up by tools such as Fill Area and Visual Search, which finds look-alike symbols for you to review and count. Batch tools and Script Flows are rule-based automation, not AI. We do not claim automatic, AI-measured quantities.

Today it is a measurement tool with a pricing layer: custom Takeoff table columns (including Currency and Formula columns), totals, grouping and Excel export. It does not yet include a cost database, labor modeling or built-in assemblies. Assemblies, an estimate exception checker and revision-impact tools are Planned. See the roadmap.

Windows desktop first. A browser edition is planned. There is no commitment to a Mac version. A browser edition is Planned: see Try it live.

Not yet. Kisheet in your browser is coming, and the Windows download opens at release. Leave your email and we will send you the link. Until then, see a sample bid, step by step, in real screenshots.

On your own computer or your own network. The core product has no cloud component and no server to upload to. Hosted services, if we ever offer them, are optional and priced separately.

Takeoff is saved inside the PDF as standard annotations with measurement information, so other PDF viewers that support those annotations can display the markups. App-specific features, such as custom Takeoff table columns, are best viewed in the app. We will document and test exactly what travels with a file before launch.

Yes. Everything runs on your PC, and a license is a signed file that Kisheet checks on your computer. A one-time license never needs the internet and never checks in. A subscription will check in online from time to time; if it lapses, Kisheet falls back to Kisheet Free (planned), so you can still open, read, mark up and sign your PDFs. A jobsite PC that never goes online can be activated from a request file you carry over on a USB stick. A one-time license is never switched off.

Open PDF drawings, and convert Office files (using Microsoft Office or LibreOffice installed on your PC), scans and images. Export:

• Takeoff to Excel (.xlsx) and CSV; set takeoff to Excel with one worksheet per document
• Summary report as PDF, HTML, XML or CSV
• Documents to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TXT, RTF or HTML
• Pages as PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF or BMP; markups as XFDF; flattened PDFs

Not in the current feature list. PDF is the working format. Export PDFs from your CAD or BIM tool and measure those.

Yes. You can calibrate on a scan, deskew pages and run OCR using the text-recognition engine built into Windows so search works. Results depend on scan quality, so check any text you rely on.

No. Kisheet never sends drawings or file names. Besides a subscription's check-in, only two things go online. Crash reports are on by default, and Kisheet asks before sending each one; they hold the version, the system and where in Kisheet the error happened, with paths and user and computer names taken out. Usage statistics are off unless you turn them on in the Welcome screen (the only place to turn them on), and only count which commands were used. Nothing else goes online. Usage statistics are for our use only. We never sell your data and never make money from it. Details are in the privacy policy.

Proposed plans: a Company license for a whole company, which you can buy once (a one-time, perpetual license) or subscribe to monthly or annually, and a planned Kisheet Free for reading, marking up and signing PDFs at no cost; measuring and takeoff are in Company. Independent estimators can ask us about independent pricing. Details are on pricing and company licensing.

Yes: company plans are priced per company and do not grow with headcount. The accounts system for inviting employees, groups and permissions is Planned; how employees activate the Company license will be spelled out before anyone is asked to pay.

You keep the version you buy and can keep using it offline; it never checks in. A purchase includes 12 months of updates, and you keep every version released in that time. Renewal pricing isn't set yet. See pricing.

Yes. It is intended for unrestricted commercial estimating by one person. It is a personal license and is not shared between people; teams use the company license. Final wording will appear in the terms (currently a draft).

No. Proposed pricing. Subject to change before launch. Anything labeled "proposed" may change before launch.

Yes: Kisheet Free is planned. It covers reading, marking up and signing plan sets, OCR, forms, redaction, and calibrated length and area measurements, at no cost and with no account. All of those tools work in Kisheet today; when the free edition comes out is not decided yet. Meanwhile, takeoffs and markups are saved in your PDFs as standard annotations, so anyone can see them in a free PDF reader.

At release there will be a 14-day trial with everything included, with no card and no account; after it, Kisheet becomes Kisheet Free. If you buy, you can get a full refund within 30 days of your first purchase, no questions asked. See the refund policy.

No. Add-ons on the add-ons page are planned or concept items with proposed prices. Nothing on the roadmap is for sale. Optional hosted services, if built, would be separately priced and never required.

Markups that follow PDF annotation standards should display, and edits are saved back as standard annotations. Because tools differ in the details, test with your own files and tell us what breaks.

The Tool palette supports tool sets with import and export, and Workspaces (Default, Estimating, Review, Viewing, or your own) can be shared, locked, imported and exported. Kisheet saves tool sets in its own files, and can build a tool set from an Excel or CSV list. It does not read other apps’ tool set files. For dated, sourced comparisons see compare.

Shortcuts are customizable under Preferences and can be imported and exported as XML. Panels can dock left or right, the Takeoff table can sit on top, and toolbars are customizable.

Export takeoff to Excel (.xlsx) or CSV, or use Live Link Quantities to Workbook to keep a spreadsheet connected. Because formulas live in the Takeoff table, you can price in either place.

If you have used PDF markup or takeoff tools, the layout will feel familiar: left panels, a right tool strip and a Takeoff table below. There is no training library or onboarding course yet.

Six pillars: an estimating Flow Board, a company document inbox, takeoff-to-bid intelligence (assemblies, exception checker, revision impact), a Theme Manager, company accounts and a browser-edition feasibility study. See the roadmap. It is not a commitment.

No. Local-first is a design principle. Hosted services such as a document exchange would be optional, separately priced and never required to use the product.

Yes, it is Planned. The aim is that heavy work runs on your own computer, with no drawings kept on our servers. There is no date yet; Try it live is where it will open.

Tell us what you would use, or take part in a research interview. Ideas move from Concept to Planned when working estimators tell us they would use them.

Because they do not exist yet. Planned means we intend to build it. Concept means it is an idea under evaluation. Images marked "Concept, not yet built" are design explorations, not screenshots.

Kisheet LLC, which builds and sells Kisheet and issues its licenses. See About and what changed lately.

Email hello@kisheet.com. There is no phone line or support desk yet, and no published response-time promise.

None are claimed. The local-first design means we hold little of your data. We will describe our practices plainly in the privacy policy before launch and will not display compliance badges we have not earned.

Use the contact form or email hello@kisheet.com. Please do not attach confidential drawings. Describe the steps and, if you can, a non-confidential sample sheet.