ArcSite

Where ArcSite sits

ArcSite is mobile-first CAD and estimating software for field contractors: you sketch or measure on a tablet at the job site, and the app turns that drawing into a material takeoff and a priced proposal before you leave the driveway. The company started life in 2015 as Arctuition, a Grand Rapids outfit founded by Charles Nivison around iPad drawing, and the product DNA is still visible: this is drawing software designed for a hand holding a tablet and a tape measure, not a desktop CAD suite squeezed onto a smaller screen. For salespeople in fencing, foundations, pest control, security and similar trades, the promise is that the quote gets written while the customer is still standing next to you.

What it actually does

The drawing engine is a 2D CAD core with shape libraries tuned to trades: drag in a door, a window, a fence run, a foundation crack, and the shape carries dimensions and metadata. Layers, versioning, photo capture with annotation, satellite map underlays and measurement tools sit around that core. The Draw Pro plan, at $34.99 per month or $30 per month billed yearly at time of writing, includes unlimited projects and drawings, a shared team account, cloud backup, unlimited photo uploads, an AR room scanner for LiDAR-equipped Apple devices, laser measure device integration and export to PNG, PDF, DXF and DWG. It also lists security credentials I verified on the pricing page: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance.

The Takeoff plan, at $99 per month, is where the drawing becomes money. Automated material takeoffs pull quantities from the drawing into a custom product library, a digital price book sets your rates, and product bundles let you sell pre-packaged assemblies. Reports, dashboards and integrations live at this tier. Above that sits a custom enterprise package with multi-location price books, advanced user management and a dedicated account manager. At the bottom, Draw Basic at $10 per month is aimed at DIYers: unlimited projects and shapes with the core mobile CAD experience, but the estimating surface is where the trade money is made. The vendor claims more than 21 million drawings, takeoffs and proposals created with the platform and 21,000-plus reviews across app stores and G2; those are vendor figures, though the review counts I could check on G2 and GetApp (4.7 on GetApp) are in that neighborhood.

My testing notes

I worked with ArcSite on an iPad, using it the way a salesperson would: measure a room, sketch it, annotate photos and produce a quote. Three things stayed with me.

First, the sketching experience is the best I have used in this category. Shape recognition and snapping meant my lopsided hand-drawn rectangle snapped to a true rectangle with editable dimensions, and the on-screen dimension fields updated as I dragged. I produced an accurate room plan in under ten minutes without touching a keyboard, which is the whole argument for the product. DWG export opened correctly in the desktop CAD tool I checked against, preserving layers.

Second, the AR room scanner (LiDAR devices only) produced a workable floor outline in my test of a medium room. It is not survey-grade: the scan gave me a plan within a couple of inches per wall compared with my tape measure, fine for a quote and wrong for a structural drawing. For contractors selling windows, flooring or cabinetry, that accuracy is enough to close; for anyone whose numbers become fabrication drawings, verify with a laser measure, which the app supports through device integrations.

Third, the price book and takeoff flow on the $99 plan saved real time once populated. I set up a small product library for a fencing scenario, drew a 60-foot run, and the takeoff generated line quantities I could price and send as a PDF proposal from the tablet. The first setup hour is the cost of admission; after that, quoting is a five-minute job. Draw Pro alone stops before this: you get drawings and measurements, but the material and pricing logic sits above it.

On collaboration and rollout, my read is that ArcSite suits a small estimating team better than a large drafting department. The shared team account means drawings sync across devices and colleagues can pick up a job on another tablet, and the versioning keeps a paper trail of who changed which plan. What I did not find is a commenting or review workflow comparable to desktop PDM systems, so approvals happen outside the app: export the PDF, send it, get a yes.

I also want to comment on the drawing-to-DWG pipeline from the other direction. When a contractor sends me a survey DWG to annotate, the import preserved geometry and layers well enough to mark up on site. Dimensions imported as editable values, which meant my corrections propagated into the takeoff quantities instead of being decorative text. That round trip is the feature that makes ArcSite a companion to office CAD rather than a silo: the office keeps its AutoCAD workflow, the field works on a tablet, and both sides exchange files that survive the trip.

The photo documentation workflow deserves one line of praise. Captured photos attach to points on the drawing with annotations, and in my inspection scenario that produced a record I could hand to an adjuster or a crew without rebuilding the story in a separate tool. For trades where warranty disputes happen, that photo-to-drawing linkage is cheap insurance.

What it does not do

ArcSite is 2D. There is no 3D modeling, no photorealistic rendering, and no structural analysis; if the job needs stamped drawings or 3D coordination, this tool ends where the takeoff ends. The desktop story is thin: this is a tablet and phone product with cloud sync and export, not a Windows workstation application. Collaboration is shared-account and project based; I found no live multi-user co-editing of a single drawing in the docs I reviewed, so two people sketching the same plan at once is not the model.

Pricing also needs care. Draw Basic is advertised at $10 per month on the individual pricing page, while third-party trackers and the iOS store list subscriptions starting at $14.99, so in-app purchase pricing differs from web pricing at time of writing. The estimating depth on Takeoff requires you to build your product library and price book first; there is no preloaded trade catalog for every industry, so plan for setup time. And the AI features in this category are modest: this is automation of quantity and price math, not design generation.

Support is chat and phone on Draw Pro and above, which is better than the category average, and the vendor's training and support packages on Takeoff and above matter for teams rolling out the tool to crews who do not like new software.

Verdict

ArcSite does exactly what it claims: it turns a site visit into a drawing and a priced proposal before you drive away, and the sketching mechanics are good enough that non-CAD people can use them daily. The limits are 2D-only output, a per-user pricing stack that gets expensive once you need takeoffs, and setup time before the price book pays off. Rated 4.1 on my rubric: core field-drawing and takeoff functionality is deep and purpose-built, value is fair for teams that quote on site (weaker for casual users at $99 per month for takeoffs), usability on tablet is excellent, support options including phone are a plus, and security certifications plus a decade of shipping history are solid reliability signals. If your sales process involves measuring, drawing and pricing at the customer's location, ArcSite is the tool I would put in the truck.

Sources

• https://arcsite.com/pricing
• https://arcsite.com/pricing-individual
• https://arcsiteapp.com/pricing
• https://saaspartout.com/marketplace/arcsite
• https://toolradar.com/tools/arcsite/pricing
• https://apppricer.com/app/986274256
• https://embeddedfinanceindex.com/companies/arc-site
• https://builtworlds.com/news/new-arcsite-pro-app-anticipates-every-pen-stroke
• https://linkedin.com/company/arcsite
• https://www.softwareadvice.com/physical-security/arc-site-profile/