Drawer AI
Drawer AI is an AI electrical takeoff and estimating tool for electrical subcontractors. It reads PDF drawing sets to count devices, route branch circuits, size wire and export bid-ready quantities. Prices are not published: sales contact only.
What is Drawer AI?
Drawer AI is an electrical takeoff and estimating system built by Drawer Inc., a Texas company based in Austin. It takes PDF electrical drawing sets in and returns a priced takeoff, an annotated PDF and an Excel report, for electrical subcontractors working on commercial and industrial preconstruction.
Three product blocks do the work. Takeoff detects power devices, both typical and atypical, along with light fixtures and panel schedules on the PDF sheets, then links every device to its tags: panel name, circuit number, mounting height and device type such as GFCI. Routing generates the conduit runs from each panel to each device, sizes cable automatically with voltage drop and derating calculations against your NEC preferences, and outputs total conduit and cable length per circuit. Stitching merges multiple PDF sheets into a single continuous floor plan by reading column grids, which avoids double counting on overlap zones across sets of ten sheets or more. Above the detection sits the Takeoff Pad, a project-level table where the estimator reviews and edits quantities, with QA tools built in.
A second product, BIM Wizard, converts 2D PDF drawings into a native Revit 3D model with routed, clash-checked conduit that follows NEC rules. Its deliverables are the Revit model, PDF layouts and an Excel conduit schedule, announced within one to five days, and the output aligns with the customer's own Revit families and shared parameters.
The vendor claims more than 4 million devices detected on real projects, more than 240,000 drawings processed and more than 200 electrical subcontractors onboarded. The declared project scope is commercial and industrial work of any size, from retail, offices and hospitals to data centres, schools and industrial facilities, and the site also announces Security, Communication, Specialty and Fire Alarm scopes.
Two limits come from Drawer itself. The service accepts customer content in PDF format only, per section 5.1 of the terms of service. And the tool is deliberately narrow: it is presented as built exclusively for the electrical trade rather than as a general construction takeoff tool, on the grounds that it understands electrical symbols, reads panel schedules, routes branch circuits and sizes wire straight from the drawings.
What it does
- Count light fixtures and power devices across PDF drawing sets
- Read panel schedules and pull out breaker sizes and connected loads
- Generate conduit routing and size cable with voltage drop, derating and NEC preferences
- Stitch multiple PDF sheets into one continuous floor plan without double counting overlaps
- Export an Excel quantity report and an annotated, bid-ready PDF
- Convert 2D drawings into a coordinated Revit 3D model with the BIM Wizard product
When to use Drawer AI / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Drawer AI is the right fit.
When to use Drawer AI
- Electrical subcontractors doing commercial and industrial takeoff in the United States and Canada
- Overloaded estimating departments that want to bid more work without hiring more estimators
- Estimators handling large drawing sets, with thousands of devices spread over dozens of sheets
- Commercial lighting distributors quantifying and pricing fixture packages, as in the Illuminico case study
- Electrical BIM and VDC teams that need coordinated Revit models produced from PDF drawings
When not to use Drawer AI
- Trades other than electrical: the tool is explicitly dedicated to the electrical scope and does not present itself as a general takeoff product
- Users outside the United States and Canada: the terms of service and the privacy policy cover those two countries only
- Organisations subject to the GDPR or requiring EU hosting: hosting is on AWS in the United States and no GDPR framework is published
- Teams that need a contractual guarantee their drawings will never be used for model training, outside a negotiated Enterprise agreement
- Buyers who want a public price or self-service sign-up, small firms looking for a low-commitment monthly plan, or anyone whose drawings are not in PDF
How to use Drawer AI
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Try the public detection tool first if you want a look before talking to anyone: try.drawer.ai takes a one-page PDF of up to 10 MB, with no account, and shows how power device detection behaves
- Contact sales to get access, since there is no self-service sign-up; the commercial route runs through a sales conversation and an Order Document
- Go through onboarding and training, which are included: in-product video training, webinars and live sessions
- Step 01, Upload: drag and drop your PDF drawings into the web app; automatic preparation identifies plan types, separates the architectural background, and extracts panel schedules and fixture schedules
- Set your routing preferences to match the NEC code requirements you work to, before generating anything
- Step 02, AI Quantify: the AI reads the symbol legend, detects each device on each sheet and links it to its panel and circuit; use the QA tools for a fast review of the counts
- Step 03, AI Generate: circuits are grouped, home run positions optimised, and branch routing produced with cable sizing, voltage drop and derating
- Step 04, Download: export the full Excel file with quantities, device properties and cable lengths, plus the annotated routing PDF, described as bid-ready output
- For a BIM deliverable, request access to BIM Wizard: project creation and upload, takeoff and routing followed by a sync meeting to validate the routing, then Revit model generation and QA, delivery and iterations
- Keep the team up to speed with the demo video library, the weekly webinar every Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific, Q&A sessions and the online academy knowledge base
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Built for one trade only: it handles electrical symbols, panel schedules and circuits rather than acting as a generic construction takeoff tool
- Covers the whole chain in a single product, from takeoff to routing, cable sizing and export, with a second product, BIM Wizard, delivering a native Revit model
- Time savings documented by named customers: Intermountain Electric reports 15-hour days cut to a few hours, around 90%, Starr Electric 76% on a 300,000 SF cancer centre, and WTC Electric 70% with no additional hires
- Quantified track record: more than 4 million devices detected, 240,000 drawings processed and 200 electrical subcontractors onboarded, with founders from the trade and $5M raised from construction-focused funds
- Output you can actually work from: Excel with quantities, device properties and cable lengths, plus an annotated PDF, with built-in QA tools to check counts before submitting a price
- Onboarding and training are included, backed by weekly webinars, Q&A sessions, an academy knowledge base and priority support on Enterprise
- A 30-day money-back guarantee, and a free public detection tool needing no account, so the AI can be judged on one of your own sheets before any commitment
Cons
- No public price at all: both plans lead to a Contact Sales button, so the cost cannot be compared without going through a sales conversation
- No free plan and no free trial of the service; the terms of service state that access requires a paid subscription, and the FAQ describes annual subscriptions with no monthly option announced
- Customer content is used to train the models by default, and the opt-out is open to Enterprise customers only and must be requested in writing
- Retention is indefinite by default: deleting in the interface is only a soft delete, and permanent deletion requires a written request
- Contractual scope stops at the United States and Canada, with no GDPR framework published and no data residency option outside the United States
- PDF is the only accepted input format, there is no public API documentation and no mobile app: the product is a web app only
- SOC 2 Type II is only in progress, started in May 2026, and several expected capabilities such as multi-user workspace, SSO/SAML and admin controls sit on a Q4 roadmap, with a company symbol library not planned before 2027
Pricing & Plans
No price is published. Drawer AI presents two plans, Starter and Enterprise, and both carry the same call to action, Contact Sales. The website FAQ describes them as annual subscriptions tailored to team size and project volume, and the terms of service state that access to the service requires a paid subscription or another commercial arrangement, with prices, billing cycles, renewal and refunds governed by the Order Document or the ULA. There is no free plan and no free trial. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and onboarding and training are presented as included at no extra cost. On termination, prepaid amounts are not refunded unless the Order Document says otherwise; if Drawer terminates for convenience, a pro-rata refund applies. BIM Wizard has no published price and is obtained through a Request Access form.
- symbol and tag detection
- Takeoff Pad
- QA tools
- Excel and PDF export
- circuit grouping
- branch routing and automated stitching. Announced on the roadmap
- not delivered: Smart Text Search (Q3) and Keynotes AI Detection (Q4). No published price
- the button reads Contact Sales
- multi-user workspace
- SSO/SAML and admin controls (Q4)
- company symbol library and LLM agents (2027). Enterprise customers are given direct access to the roadmap. No published price
- the button reads Contact Sales
- access is granted on request through a form
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Drawer AI handles your data.
GDPR overview
There is no mention of the GDPR anywhere on the site: no European legal basis, no Article 27 representative, no standard contractual clauses, no European data processing framework. The privacy policy states explicitly that it applies to users located in the United States, including California, and Canada, including Quebec. The frameworks actually addressed are American and Canadian: CCPA/CPRA, VCDPA, CPA, CTDPA, TDPSA and other state laws, COPPA, plus PIPEDA, Quebec's Law 25, the Alberta and British Columbia PIPA and CASL. Rights offered include access, deletion, correction, opt-out of sale or sharing, sensitive data limitation, withdrawal of consent, portability and de-indexation, with a 10-business-day acknowledgement and 45-day response under CCPA/CPRA and 30 days under PIPEDA and Law 25. GDPR compliance is therefore absent by silence and scope, not by an explicit refusal. Privacy contact: privacy@drawer.ai.
Who owns the data?
The customer keeps everything. Section 5.2 of the terms of service states that, as between Drawer and the customer, the customer retains all right, title and interest in its Customer Content, including intellectual property rights, and that the terms transfer no ownership to Drawer. In exchange the customer grants Drawer a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to run the service, improve it (QA, debugging, evaluation, model improvement, AI system development), produce aggregated data and meet legal obligations. For personal data contained in the drawings, the customer is the data controller and Drawer the processor. The customer warrants it holds the rights to the drawings it uploads and indemnifies Drawer, which does not verify those rights.
Reuse rights
Drawer states that it uses Customer Content, including uploaded drawings and derived data, to improve its AI systems. Declared purposes are service delivery, product improvement, analytics, legal compliance and business operations. Product improvement covers model training, fine-tuning and evaluation, QA and output validation, debugging and error analysis, and feature development, and it can apply to raw drawings, extracted data, derived data, metadata and document excerpts. Human review by authorised staff and contractors, including DevOps, QA and data-labelling providers, is possible on a case-by-case basis under access controls. This training use is on by default. Only Enterprise customers may opt out, through a written data use restriction in their Order Document or by writing to legal@drawer.ai; without a written agreement, the default practices apply. Drawer says it does not sell personal information for direct marketing and does not use personal data from drawings for advertising. Only AWS and AWS Bedrock (Anthropic's Claude) are listed as subprocessors with access to Customer Content.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Data is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States, exclusively. Drawer states that customer content is not replicated outside AWS U.S. infrastructure under its current architecture, and that all data is encrypted in flight and at rest with modern encryption techniques. AI inference runs through AWS Bedrock, using Anthropic's Claude, within the same US AWS perimeter; AWS and AWS Bedrock are the only subprocessors listed with access to customer content. Canadian users' data crosses to the United States with explicit consent, and a privacy impact assessment was carried out for Quebec under Law 25. Enterprise customers with data residency requirements are asked to contact legal@drawer.ai before using the service. SOC 2 Type II certification is in progress, not obtained; a summary of security practices is available to Enterprise customers on written request. Breach notification follows US state laws, including Texas and California, and PIPEDA and Law 25 on the Canadian side. A public status page is published at status.drawer.ai.
Where Drawer AI works
Country-level availability.
Available in
Not available in
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Drawer AI.
- Training on your drawings is on by default: uploaded plans, extracted and derived data, metadata and document excerpts can feed model training, fine-tuning and evaluation. Drawer writes that it prioritises aggregated or anonymised data where technically feasible, but that complete de-identification cannot be guaranteed for all product improvement activities, and human review by staff, contractors and data-labelling providers is possible. Opting out is reserved for Enterprise customers and requires a written restriction
- Retention is indefinite by default, with no automatic deletion schedule for project data. Deleting in the interface is a soft delete: underlying data, derived data, cached files, QA copies and backups remain. Permanent deletion happens only on written request, and data already merged into aggregated sets can no longer be withdrawn
- Security posture is not certified: SOC 2 Type II is only in progress, engaged in May 2026, so the tool must not be treated as SOC 2 certified when answering a client security questionnaire
- No GDPR framework is published and the privacy policy is explicitly limited to the United States and Canada, which is a problem for any team handling drawings tied to European projects or European personal data
- You warrant that you hold the rights to the drawings you upload and you indemnify Drawer, which does not verify those rights. That is a real exposure when the drawings belong to the project owner or the architect rather than to you
- Contractual small print worth reading before signing: the marketing site shares data with Google Ads, Bing Ads and Meta, which may qualify as a sale or sharing under CCPA/CPRA; US users are bound to mandatory AAA arbitration in Austin, Texas; and after termination you have only 30 days to export your content
- The human risk is trusting the count. Drawer presents QA review as part of the workflow, not as optional, and a bid priced from unreviewed automated detection carries the error straight to the client. Speed makes skipping that review tempting, and an estimating team that stops reading its own drawings loses the judgement that catches what the model missed
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Technically light, commercially gated. It is a web app with nothing to install: you drag and drop PDF drawings. There is no self-service sign-up, so access runs through sales and an Order Document, and onboarding and training are included. The real prerequisite is trade knowledge rather than IT: routing preferences must be set against your NEC code requirements, and detections need a QA review before a price goes out, since the tool is presented as a copilot. BIM Wizard adds a request form, a sync meeting to validate routing, and a one to five day turnaround.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Drawer AI
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
How is Drawer AI different from other construction takeoff software?
How much time does it actually save?
What kinds of projects is it built for?
Which file formats can I upload?
Is there a BIM deliverable?
How much does Drawer AI cost?
Is there a free trial?
Are my drawings used to train the AI?
Where is my data hosted, and how long is it kept?
Is Drawer AI available in Europe?
Should you pick Drawer AI?
Drawer AI is a narrow tool backed by a company you can actually identify: Drawer Inc., Austin, Texas, described as founded in 2021, with $5M raised in October 2024 from Brick & Mortar Ventures and Base10 Partners, a published postal address, five named email addresses and dated legal documents. The substance is shown rather than merely announced, through demo videos, a public detection tool that needs no account, a 3D viewer of a real Revit deliverable, four named customer cases with figures, and detailed terms and privacy policy.
What is claimed and what is verified should be kept apart. The time savings, up to 90% less takeoff time, 76% on a 300,000 SF cancer centre, 15-hour days cut to a few hours, come from named customers but cannot be verified independently by Guidaio. The same applies to the volume figures.
The reservations concern declared practice, not whether the product exists. No price is public: both plans go through sales, on annual subscriptions, with a 30-day money-back guarantee as the only visible safety net. Customer drawings feed model training by default, and the opt-out is reserved for Enterprise customers and must be in writing. Retention is indefinite by default, and deleting in the interface is only a soft delete. SOC 2 Type II is in progress, not obtained. The contractual perimeter stops at the United States and Canada, and nothing about the GDPR is published.
The audience is therefore quite specific: electrical estimating and preconstruction teams in North America working commercial and industrial drawing sets, able to accept US hosting, default training on their documents and a sales-led purchase. Outside that profile, whether another trade, another continent or an organisation needing contractual guarantees on data use, the fit breaks down quickly.
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