Estimark and Bluebeam Revu, compared for UK contractors

Everybody on a construction project who issues, marks up or measures a PDF drawing: main contractors, quantity surveyors, architects and the trades bidding to them.

• A contractor bidding to main contractors often has a seat because the main contractor has one.
• Its wider job is document sets, the issue-and-revision workflow, and live sessions where several parties mark up the same sheet.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.

Quantities are measured on the PDF and pushed into a quote, against a price book and labour rates that are already there.

• Measurements land as quote lines carrying a unit and a rate, not as a number to retype.
• Drawings sit in a register with revision codes, supersede and reinstate, and a stamp on the superseded sheet.
• Markup carries over from one revision to the next, so what was measured on the old sheet is visible against the new one.
• There is a second take-off route that is not a drawing at all: a parametric model of an extension, where changing a wall height from 2.4m to 2.7m re-prices the quantities with nothing redrawn.
• The price book behind the rates holds 25,000+ merchant products with price history, and assemblies that read their components live rather than storing a cost snapshot.

NoteOnly PDF and image files can be drawn on and measured. A DXF or an IFC can be stored in the register and not measured, and a DWG or an RVT gets no preview at all.

Bluebeam lists Revu Basics at £264 per user a year and Core at £330 per user a year on its UK pricing page, read on 15 September 2026, and marks both tax-inclusive. Solo is £39 a month +VAT, and the take-off is in it.

• Bluebeam bills per named user a year. There is no monthly option, and no perpetual licence any more.
• Only the /uk/ path on Bluebeam’s site prices in sterling. The address without it serves dollars to a UK visitor, and UK resellers discount below list, so what a firm actually pays may not be the list figure.
• Estimating is commonly sold as a separate licence or a tier up. Estimark puts no plan gate on the take-off, the price book, the labour rates or the assemblies.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.

It handles the four obligations a UK contractor is judged on: CIS deduction, the VAT domestic reverse charge, Construction Act payment timing, and the safety records that go with them.

• CIS deducted on labour only, excluding materials, VAT and plant hire, on 6th-to-5th tax months, with HMRC verification when connected and the CIS300 recorded with both statutory declarations.
• VAT domestic reverse charge under section 55A: the statutory wording on the invoice, nil VAT, controlled per client.
• Payment applications with Construction Act dates, the pay less deadline calculated, and retention tracked to release.
• RAMS with operative sign-off, inductions, permits and a live muster roll, plus EIC, EICR, Minor Works, PAT and CP12 certificates with typed test results.

NoteEstimark records the CIS300 and locks it to its tax period. It does not file the return to HMRC on your behalf.

The document-control half of Bluebeam, and native CAD. Check both before a trial rather than after one.

• There is no live session where several parties mark up the same sheet at the same time.
• There is no document-set issue-and-revision workflow of the kind a main contractor runs a project on.
• A DWG or an RVT cannot be measured, because there is no reliable open renderer for either. A contractor taking off from native CAD files cannot drop Bluebeam for Estimark.
• Estimark holds no security certification: no ISO 27001, no SOC 2, no Cyber Essentials.
• It does not file a CIS300 to HMRC on your behalf, and it does not take card payments from your customer on your behalf.

When the drawings arrive as DWG or RVT, when the work is issuing and reviewing document sets, or when the main contractor runs the review in it.

• A platform named in a contract settles the question before any feature comparison starts.
• A firm whose day is marking up and issuing other people’s drawings is buying document control, not a job ledger.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.