Markup that measures
Freehand, polyline, area fill, count and highlighter — each one a real quantity the moment it lands, not an annotation you tally up afterwards.
Now open to every construction team Draw on it.
Draw on it.
Datum prices it.
Upload a plan or photograph the site. Highlight what you are pricing, pin the tasks, and get a bill of quantities your client cannot argue with — because every figure links back to the mark that produced it.
No card required · Your whole team on the trial · Cancel in one click
Bill of quantities Auto-measured
- Blockwork, 200mm148.20 m²GHS 26,676
- Plaster, 2 coats296.40 m²GHS 14,820
- Screed & finishes84.50 m²GHS 11,830
TotalGHS 0
Most estimates are still assembled across four tools and a notebook. You measure in one, price in a spreadsheet, chase the site by WhatsApp, and re-type the whole thing into an invoice.
Datum is the one surface where all of that is the same document.
Four moves, one document
Nothing here is exported, re-keyed or handed to another tool. The drawing you mark up in step two is the same object the invoice is generated from.
- 01
Bring whatever you have
A stamped PDF, a phone photo of a wall, a sketch on the back of a delivery note. Drag a line along any dimension you know — one door width is enough to make the whole sheet measurable.
- 02
Draw and highlight
Trace walls, fill rooms, ring the section you are pricing. Everything snaps to the grid under it, so a line you draw by hand still measures like a line somebody drafted.
- 03
Let it price the work
Quantities come off the marks automatically and meet your own rate card — your suppliers, your labour rates, your currency. You review a bill, not a blank spreadsheet.
- 04
Assign it, send it, get paid
Give the work to anyone on the team — pinned to a wall on the drawing, or just a task on the board. When the client accepts, the same document becomes the invoice, and the receipt when the money lands.
Why anyone would switch
Every number traces back to the mark that made it.
Click a line in the bill and the drawing highlights the exact region it was measured from — the wall you ringed, the room you filled, the photo your foreman took. Nothing in the estimate is a figure somebody typed and nobody can explain.
That is what makes a price survive a client meeting. It is also what makes last year's estimate useful when you are pricing this year's job.
- Tap a quantity to see the marks it came from
- Every measurement carries who took it, and when
- Revisions keep the old marks, so a change is a change and not a rewrite
- Site photos attach to a point on the drawing, not to a folder
Blockwork, 200mmGHS 26,676
markupMaster bed, west wall62.40 m²
markupLiving, N + E walls85.80 m²
photoBlock delivery, 4 SepIMG_2214
rateYour rate cardGHS 180 / m²
Measured 4 Sep · Kwame A.
Built for the way the work actually arrives
Sometimes it is a stamped PDF. More often it is a photo of a wall and a client who wants a number by Friday.
Measure off a photograph
No drawing? Photograph the wall, drag a line along something you know the length of — a door, a block — and the whole photo becomes measurable.
A first pass, suggested
Ask the reader to go over a sheet and it proposes the rooms, walls and counts it can see, each with its own confidence. You accept, adjust or bin every one — it proposes, you measure.
A board the site actually uses
Drag work across to do, in progress, blocked and done. Give a task to anyone on the team — attached to a wall on the drawing, to a job, or to nothing at all. The person on site opens it on a phone.
Your rate card, your currency
Load your own supplier prices and labour rates once. Every estimate prices against them, and updating a rate shows you which open estimates move.
Bills of quantities that hold up
Sectioned, numbered, exportable, and defensible line by line — the same BOQ format a quantity surveyor is expecting to read.
Clients without accounts
Estimates, invoices and receipts get a QR-verified link. Your client opens it on a phone, no login, no app, no password reset at 9pm.
Not just the takeoff — the whole job
The measurement is where Datum starts. It is not where it stops: the same workspace carries the client, the job, the price, the bill, the payment and the paperwork behind all of it.
Take off and price it
From whatever the drawing arrived as, to a bill you can defend line by line.
- TakeoffFreehand, polyline, area, count and highlighter markup on a PDF or a photo, calibrated off any dimension you know.
- SuggestAsk it to read a sheet and propose the rooms, walls and counts it can see, each with a confidence you can accept or reject.
- Rate cardYour supplier prices and labour rates, in your currency. Change a rate and see which open estimates move.
- Build-upsSave an assembly once — blockwork, render, paint — and price it as one line instead of rebuilding it each time.
- EstimatesSectioned, numbered bills of quantities. Revise them, export to CSV, send them, turn an accepted one into an invoice.
Bill it and get paid
The estimate becomes the invoice becomes the receipt. Nothing is re-typed.
- InvoicesRaised from an accepted estimate or from scratch, with lines you can still edit and a running balance.
- Payment schedulesSet your default terms once — deposit, stages, retention — and every new document starts from them.
- ReceiptsRecord payments against an invoice, keep the reference, and void a mistake without losing the audit history.
- Client linksEstimates, invoices and receipts open on a QR-verified link as a PDF. No account, no app, no password reset at 9pm.
Run the job
One place per job, so nobody has to ask which WhatsApp thread it was in.
- ProjectsDrawings, estimates, invoices, receipts and a full activity trail for one site, on one page.
- Task boardTo do, in progress, blocked, done. Assign to anyone, filter by person or job, attach to a drawing or leave it standalone.
- ClientsA contact record per client with their jobs and balances. Import your existing list from CSV, export it whenever you like.
- CommunicationsLog the emails and messages that went out, so the paper trail survives the person who sent them.
Run the business
The settings that make documents look like yours, and the numbers that tell you how it is going.
- Team and rolesInvite by email. Admin, estimator, finance officer, viewer or site worker — each sees only what their job needs.
- ReportsSaved management and finance snapshots you can filter, reopen and export to CSV.
- Document numberingYour own prefixes and sequences, so an estimate number means the same thing this year as last.
- Your brandingCompany profile, logo and sender identity on every estimate, invoice and receipt that leaves the building.
- One workspace per companyYour data is scoped to your organisation. Nobody outside it can reach a record of yours, by any route.
The good tools each do one part of this
Bluebeam is the standard for marking up a PDF. Togal.AI reads a CAD drawing better than anyone. STACK joins takeoff to pricing. Buildertrend runs the schedule. All of them are good, and all of them assume you already have the thing before them.
Bluebeam RevuThe standard for PDF markup and calibrated measurement
Assumes a drawing exists as a PDF, and stops at the measurement — pricing, tasks and invoicing happen somewhere else.
Togal.AIAutomatic element detection off architectural drawings
Extremely strong when you have proper CAD-quality plans. Most renovation and small-contractor work never has them.
STACKCloud takeoff joined to estimating
Takeoff and pricing in one place, priced and shaped for larger North American contractors.
BuildertrendRunning the project once it is won
Schedules, selections and client comms — the estimate arrives having been produced elsewhere.
DatumCapture → markup → price → assign → invoice
Starts from whatever you have — a plan, a photo, a sketch on paper — keeps the measurement joined to the mark that produced it, prices it against your own rate card in your own currency, and ends at an invoice your client opens without an account.
One workspace per organisation
Your clients, projects, rate card and documents live in your workspace and nobody else's. Every plan includes the full estimating surface — the tiers differ on seats and volume, never on capability.
Starter
GHS 290/ month
A working estimator and a couple of colleagues.
- 3 seats
- Unlimited clients and projects
- 20 takeoffs a month
- Rate card, BOQ, invoices, receipts
- QR-verified client links
Professional Most teams
GHS 890/ month
A firm running several jobs and a site team at once.
- 15 seats
- Unlimited takeoffs
- Photo estimating and site capture
- Task assignment and field sync
- Custom branding on every document
- Email and SMS delivery
Enterprise
Let's talk
Multiple offices, or a rate card the whole group shares.
- Unlimited seats
- Shared group rate cards
- Single sign-on
- Data export and API access
- Named support
Prices in Ghana cedis, billed monthly, VAT where applicable. Working in another currency? Your workspace can be set to any of them — the rate card and every document follow.
Price your next job on it.
Set your workspace up in about two minutes — your trades, your rates, your team. The first estimate is usually done before the trial is.