It’s late in the afternoon. You’ve just finished a job site walkthrough and are finally getting around to reviewing a stack of bid invitations a city street upgrade, a commercial lot, and a retail center resurfacing. All are promising projects, and all have tight deadlines.

As you open the plans, you know what’s coming: hours spent manually tracing pavement outlines, calculating asphalt quantities, zooming in to check curbs, and double-checking every detail against the specs.

Meanwhile, your competitors are already wrapping up their bids and moving on to the next opportunity.

Now, there is. More contractors are turning to AI-based paving takeoff software to streamline the process and stay ahead.

What Is a Paving Takeoff?

A paving takeoff is the process of determining the exact quantities of materials needed for a paving project by analyzing construction drawings. It’s an essential part of the estimating phase for projects like roads, parking lots, sidewalks, and driveways.

What Does It Include?

During a paving takeoff, estimators typically measure and calculate:

• Surface area to be paved (in square feet or meters)

• Volume of materials such as asphalt or concrete

• Lengths of curbs, gutters, and joints

• Material layers and thicknesses (base, binder, surface courses)

• Subbase and aggregate requirements
  
  

Why It Matters

Accurate takeoffs help contractors:

• Submit precise and competitive bids

• Avoid overordering or running short on materials

• Minimize waste and maximize profits

• Plan labor and equipment needs more effectively

How Beam AI Helps in Doing Paving Takeoffs?

Beam AI makes paving takeoffs faster, easier, and more accurate so you can stop flipping through endless plan sheets. Its intelligent engine reads notes, specs, and design updates directly from the blueprints, instantly reflecting changes in your takeoff data.

1. Fully Automated Takeoffs

Upload your project drawings, set the scope, and hit submit. Beam AI handles the rest delivering accurate quantities for asphalt, subbase, concrete curbs, sidewalks, striping, and more. Before it reaches you, a quality assurance team reviews everything to ensure precision. The result? You save hours for more strategic work.

2. Smart Editing Toolbar

Need to tweak an area or update a quantity? Beam’s intuitive tools let you split zones, add or exclude items, adjust dimensions, or reclassify surfaces as the project evolves all without starting from scratch.

3. Group & Tag Quantities

With Beam AI, your takeoff data stays organized. Use tags to group quantities by paving phase, surface type, or zone. The “Detailed Report” feature gives you flexible filters and custom views so you get the insights you need without digging.

Whether you're handling concrete takeoffs, Beam AI acts as your AI blueprint takeoff software, cutting your estimating time and increasing bid accuracy so you can move faster and win more work.

Final Thoughts

Paving takeoffs go beyond just measuring surface areas they’re the backbone of accurate bids and efficient job execution. Beam AI automates the entire process, keeping your takeoffs accurate and up to date by detecting changes in project plans in real time.

For paving contractors and estimators, this means faster estimates, fewer manual errors, and more time to focus on job planning, pricing strategy, and coordination with suppliers and crews.

With Beam AI, you can cut takeoff time by up to 90% and increase your bidding capacity by as much as 2x giving your team the speed and precision needed to stay ahead of the competition.

Ready to modernize your estimating workflow? See how Beam AI can transform your paving takeoffs and help you win more work with less effort. Book a personalized demo and get your first AI-powered takeoff on us.