ScanToScopeStart freeArcSite alternative
An ArcSite alternative for when you are not the one in the room
ArcSite and this product agree about the thing most estimating software gets wrong, which is that the price should come out of your own catalog. They differ about one thing only: whether you have to be standing in the bathroom for any of it to start.
No card. Nothing for your customer to install.
The only two real pages here were written by ArcSite
Search this phrase and eight of the ten results are directories. AlternativeTo, Capterra twice, G2, GetApp, SoftwareSuggest and two thin comparison domains. The only two results with an actual argument in them both sit on arcsite.com, written by ArcSite, one aimed at mobile CAD apps and one at field service apps.
That is not a complaint. It is good defensive work and more vendors should do it. It does mean that if you are out looking for an ArcSite alternative, the only two people who have bothered to write you a proper page both arrive at the conclusion that you should stay on ArcSite.
So here is one from somebody who does not sell a drawing tool. We overlap with ArcSite in exactly one place and differ in exactly one place, and both are worth saying out loud.
What ArcSite does well, and it is not a short list
ArcSite calls itself field service software: drawings, bill of materials, proposals and payments. You sketch the job freehand on a tablet or a phone, or trace a satellite map, or use their AR Scan, which uses the LiDAR sensor on a recent Apple device to pick up walls and corners without a tape.
Then the good part. Every line you draw pulls your products, your prices and your quantities straight out of your own catalog. You set the catalog up once and the takeoff builds itself as you draw. Their own claim is that the plan is to scale and ready to turn into a takeoff and a proposal before you leave the site, and going by what their customers say, it does that.
They take card and ACH payments, offer financing, run on iOS, Android and Windows, and list fifty plus trades from fencing and concrete through gutters and pest control. Their Capterra listing averages 4.7 across more than a hundred and sixty reviews, with a visible cluster of complaints about crashes and lag on detailed drawings. Normal enough for a drawing app living on a tablet.
The question neither of their posts asks
Their mobile CAD post weighs ArcSite against AutoCAD Mobile, Shapr3D, Morpholio Trace, magicplan and Canvas. Their field service post weighs it against Jobber, Housecall Pro, Bluebeam, PlanSwift, STACK, ServiceTitan and Procore. Both are fair about fit, and both conclude ArcSite, which is what they are for.
What neither one asks, because ArcSite has no reason to ask it, is whether anybody has to be in the room. Their own wording settles that: ArcSite is designed for creating drawings and plans from scratch while you are on site. Even the AR Scan is LiDAR on your Apple device, in your hand, standing in the bathroom. All eleven products they measure themselves against share that assumption, and so do they.
That is the whole of the gap. Not accuracy, not price, not features. The unpaid hour of driving that happens before any of the software gets opened.
The tier you would actually be on
Their published tiers run Draw Basic at 15 dollars per user per month, Draw Pro at 30, Takeoff at 99 and Estimate at 129. The 15 dollar figure is the one every directory quotes at you. It draws. If you want the takeoff and the proposal, which is the part anybody is really buying, you are shopping at the top of that list, per user, with a paid admin seat on top of it according to their own reviewers.
Ours, for the record: two scans free with no card, then Solo at 79 a month for one user and 20 scans, Crew at 149 for five users and 60 scans, Shop at 349 for unlimited users and 200 scans. Extra scans are 4 dollars each and nothing locks when you run out. A job one of your own people captures on site is not metered at all, on any plan, which is what the seats are for.
These are not the same purchase, so holding the two monthly figures up against each other on their own would be daft. One is a drawing and takeoff tool sold by the seat. One is a measuring and scoping service metered by job. The only reason to put them side by side is that the cheap looking number is not the number either of us ends up charging you.
Same ending, different beginning
| ArcSite | ScanToScope | |
|---|---|---|
| Who is in the room | You, drawing on a tablet | The homeowner, with the phone in her pocket |
| How the dimensions arrive | You sketch them, or scan with LiDAR on your Apple device | LiDAR in her phone browser, or photos plus sizes she types in |
| Where the number comes from | Your own catalog, pulled in as you draw | Your own cost book, priced line by line |
| What you end up holding | A plan to scale, a bill of materials and a proposal | A scope brief and a priced quote |
| How it is billed | Per user per month, by tier | By scan, and never for a job your own crew captures |
ArcSite tiers and features read off their own site and their Capterra listing in October 2026.
What ArcSite does that we do not
No drawing. We do not produce a plan to scale, a bill of materials you can hand a supplier, or anything a crew can work off on site. ArcSite does all three, and if that is the hole in your week then buy ArcSite and ignore the rest of this page.
We take no payments, offer no financing and schedule nobody. What we do is get the room measured and the scope written down before you have decided whether the job is worth going out to, and price it against figures you loaded yourself.
The fair summary is that the two products agree on the thing that matters most, which is whose prices make the number, and disagree on one thing only, which is whose hour gets spent getting the dimensions.
Questions contractors ask
Is this a drawing tool?
No. If you need a plan to scale or a bill of materials, ArcSite makes both and we make neither. There is no version of this where we hand you a drawing.
Does ArcSite not already scan with LiDAR?
It does, on a LiDAR equipped Apple device, held by you, on site. Ours runs in your customer's phone browser, so the scan happens whether or not you are there.
Could I run both?
Easily, and some people should. Use the scan to work out whether the job is worth a visit, then draw it properly in ArcSite once you are going anyway. Neither one gets in the other's way.
What if the customer's phone has no LiDAR?
Then she photographs the room one shot at a time and types in the room sizes. You get her photographs and her numbers rather than a scan, and the quote shows you which is which.
Who loads the prices?
You do, the same way you would set up a catalog in ArcSite. The quote is arithmetic against your figures. No model writes the number.
Send it to one lead this week
Two scans free and no card. Pick the lead that lives furthest away and send her the link instead of booking the visit. Worst case you have learned something about your customers.