PlanSwift runs the bid side of construction work: point-and-click takeoff on PDF, DWG, JPG, and TIFF plans, drag-and-drop material and labour assemblies that price the estimate as you measure, custom formulas and reports, Excel export, and the Takeoff BOOST AI suite for Auto Count, Auto Scale, Auto Bookmark, and — on Core — Auto Takeoff. Essential and Core are annual desktop subscriptions with a 14-day free trial of full Core features. Reviewed public PlanSwift marketing, pricing, and features materials do not describe a native employee time clock, timesheets, GPS attendance, or a required second reviewer who must approve hours before they become a paycheck. Estimate labour hours in PlanSwift are costing inputs on assemblies, not a crew payroll attendance record. Keito is the layer crews add for the hours: AI-drafted time entries a crew member confirms, reviewed and approved by someone else, with any change reasoned and recorded, before the hours become a paycheck.
Illustrative review queue
Illustrative pay period
Hours reviewed
Entries confirmed
38
Crew reviewed
7
Jobs covered
14
Hours tied to each job
Crew member, job, and role on every entry
Reviewed before payroll runs
A separate reviewer confirms hours before the batch closes
Evidence behind payroll
Reviewed hours back the payroll run
PlanSwift estimators measure plans, apply assemblies, calculate material and labour cost, export to Excel, and — depending on Essential or Core — use Takeoff BOOST AI to speed counting, scaling, bookmarks, and first-pass Auto Takeoff. What reviewed public materials do not describe is a native employee time clock or a required second-approver payroll attendance workflow before crew hours become a paycheck. Keito answers the payroll question that leaves open: did each crew member confirm their hours, and did a separate reviewer approve them, before those hours became a paycheck.
Set up crew members, leads, and reviewers in Keito in days — PlanSwift keeps running takeoff, assemblies, estimating, reports, Excel export, and Takeoff BOOST exactly as it does today.
Keito drafts a time entry from the job a crew member worked, so they confirm hours instead of reconstructing attendance from calendars, texts, or estimate labour lines at payroll time.
A separate reviewer approves payroll status before the period closes, then hands the approved hours to payroll as evidence.
Takeoff labour cost is not a second-approver payroll gate
PlanSwift is published as construction takeoff and estimating software from ConstructConnect: digital measurement on common plan formats, trade-ready assemblies that calculate material and labour as you take off, custom formulas and reports, Excel integration, proposal-style outputs, and Takeoff BOOST AI tools (Auto Count, Auto Scale, Auto Bookmark, and on Core Auto Takeoff) so estimators spend less time on click-and-count work. Public pricing on PlanSwift’s pricing and features pages (verified 2026-10-01) lists a 14-day free trial of full PlanSwift Core at $0 USD with no credit card required; PlanSwift Essential about $2,000 USD/year for one seat with discounted additional seats (about $1,500 USD/year per seat on the published comparison); and PlanSwift Core about $3,000 USD/year for one seat (about $2,500 USD/year per seat for seats two and above). Essential includes desktop takeoff and estimating plus Auto Count, Auto Scale, and Auto Bookmark; Core adds the full Takeoff BOOST suite including Auto Takeoff. Annual plans cover software, updates, priority support, and training. Reviewed public PlanSwift product, pricing, and features materials do not document a native employee time clock, timesheets, GPS attendance, or a required second reviewer who must approve hours with a distinct payroll approval status before payday — and estimate labour hours remain costing inputs on assemblies, not crew attendance. Keito’s argument is not that contractors need a new takeoff or estimating app — PlanSwift already publishes that stack, and Keito makes no claim to takeoff, assemblies, bid reports, or Takeoff BOOST. It is that the hours behind a paycheck deserve AI-drafted entries a crew member confirms and a separate reviewer approves, rather than treating estimate labour lines, job calendars, or texted hours as payroll attendance. The boundary is deliberate: Keito has no takeoff, estimating, or bid tools, and it claims no native PlanSwift integration, automatic import, or synchronisation. PlanSwift keeps running takeoff-to-estimate; Keito is where crew hours get an independent review before payroll.
Choose PlanSwift when the contractor needs takeoff and estimating — measurements, assemblies, reports, Excel export, and optional Takeoff BOOST AI — purpose-built for construction bids
Choose Keito when the problem is independently reviewed payroll hours that PlanSwift estimating assemblies are not designed to replace as a second-approver gate
Prove it in one pay period: Keito runs alongside PlanSwift, reviewing hours without touching takeoff or estimates
Workflow fit
Keito keeps PlanSwift alternative connected to client, project, billable status, approval, and invoice context before the work reaches finance.
Choose PlanSwift when the contractor needs takeoff and estimating — measurements, assemblies, reports, Excel export, and optional Takeoff BOOST AI — purpose-built for construction bids
Choose Keito when the problem is independently reviewed payroll hours that PlanSwift estimating assemblies are not designed to replace as a second-approver gate
Prove it in one pay period: Keito runs alongside PlanSwift, reviewing hours without touching takeoff or estimates
Keito drafts a time entry from the job a crew member worked; they confirm and correct it instead of reconstructing attendance from calendars, texts, or estimate labour lines at payroll time.
PlanSwift takeoffs, assemblies, and bid reports surface preconstruction cost; Keito’s reviewer settles payroll status for every entry before the period closes.
Reviewers approve crew hours and hand the evidence to payroll for labour-cost review, through exports the team designs and tests itself.
The difference is not just recording time. It is whether the record can support billing, project decisions, and client conversations.
Product shape
A standalone workspace for reviewed, payroll-ready hours and labour-cost evidence.
PlanSwift publishes construction takeoff and estimating — digital measurement, assemblies, reports, Excel export, and Takeoff BOOST AI by plan tier.
How time is captured
AI drafts a job-specific entry from the time worked; the crew member confirms it, and a separate reviewer approves before it becomes a paycheck.
PlanSwift focuses on takeoff quantities and estimate labour costing; reviewed public materials do not document a native employee time clock or required second-approver payroll attendance workflow.
Correction and review
Every reviewed hour carries a reviewer, an approval state, and a reasoned record of any change, tracked from the first draft.
PlanSwift reports and estimate audits help estimators see bid progress; they are not documented as a second-approver payroll attendance gate.
Review before payroll
A reviewer distinct from the crew member settles payroll status per entry before the period closes.
PlanSwift keeps the takeoff and estimating source of truth; payroll-grade attendance review is commonly handled outside the core platform.
Pricing and adoption
Published flat pricing (Solo from $19 USD/month; Team from $49 USD/month) and a setup measured in days, run alongside PlanSwift.
PlanSwift presents Essential and Core annual plans (public list prices about $2,000 USD/year Essential and about $3,000 USD/year Core for one seat, with discounted multi-seat pricing on the published comparison), plus a 14-day free trial of full Core with no credit card.
Data movement
Team-designed, tested exports and API handoffs moved in deliberate stages.
PlanSwift’s own Excel export, assemblies, and Takeoff BOOST workflows belong to its platform; connecting reviewed-hours data to outside payroll tools is not an assumed automatic sync with Keito.
It is software a contractor or estimator adopts instead of, or alongside, PlanSwift, which runs construction takeoff, estimating, assemblies, reports, Excel export, and optional Takeoff BOOST AI. Because PlanSwift already covers that much of preconstruction bidding, an alternative rarely replaces all of it at once. Keito is the alternative for independently reviewed crew hours: AI-drafted entries a crew member confirms, approved by a separate reviewer before those hours become a paycheck.
PlanSwift manages takeoff, estimating, material and labour assemblies, reports, and Takeoff BOOST AI tools. Reviewed public PlanSwift marketing, pricing, and features materials do not document a native employee time clock, timesheets, GPS attendance, or a required second-approver payroll attendance workflow before hours become a paycheck. Labour hours inside PlanSwift assemblies are estimate costing inputs, not a crew attendance record for payroll.
The gap is payroll attendance review, not takeoff or estimating. PlanSwift already owns measurements, assemblies, bid reports, Excel export, and Takeoff BOOST. Keito adds the hours layer: it drafts a time entry from the job worked, the crew member confirms it, and a separate reviewer settles payroll status before the hours become evidence. PlanSwift still owns the takeoff and the estimate; Keito owns the independently reviewed hours record.
Choose PlanSwift when the business needs construction takeoff and estimating — digital measurements, assemblies, reports, Excel export, and optional Takeoff BOOST AI — on one desktop platform for bids. Keito does not reproduce any of it: no takeoff tools, no assemblies, no bid reports, no Auto Takeoff. It is the wrong choice if the immediate need is estimating software rather than an independently reviewed record of crew hours.
Each reviewed record keeps the crew member, role, job, duration, description, payroll status, reviewer, approval state, and pay period, tied to the hours worked rather than an estimate labour line or schedule block alone. That package backs the payroll run and gives an office manager a reviewed answer when a crew member’s hours are questioned.
No. Keito claims no native PlanSwift integration, automatic import, or two-way synchronisation — PlanSwift’s own takeoff, estimating, Excel, and Takeoff BOOST workflows belong to its platform, not Keito’s. Capture in Keito is its own workflow: AI-drafted, typed, timed, and manually entered records that pass review before becoming payroll evidence. A contractor can keep PlanSwift for takeoff and estimating and run Keito alongside it as the independent review layer for crew hours, with any transfer between them designed and tested by the team.
Solo includes 1 licensed user, unlimited AI agents, Mac, Windows, and iOS apps, Stripe payments, and standard CSV and Excel exports. Pro adds your team. Business adds integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
1 licensed user
For independent consultants, freelancers, and small studios running work with AI agents.
Flat workspace price for 1 licensed user
Team collaboration
For teams that need shared workspaces, approvals, and team-level project visibility.
Flat workspace price with no per-user fees
Advanced operations
For organizations that need integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
Flat workspace price with no per-user fees
Optional Business add-on: Microsoft Entra SSO.
View add-on and pricingAI agents do not require licenses on any plan.
Solo, Pro, and Business can use API keys for agent workflows.
Solo, Pro, and Business include standard CSV and Excel data export.
Start with Solo, add people on Pro when you need reviewers or collaborators, and see how Keito turns tracked effort into clearer reports.
