Facts

Portravo facts

Portravo is construction takeoff and estimating software that turns a plan-set PDF into a reviewed, priced bid for small U.S. contractors and trade subs.

This page collects the facts about Portravo in one place for AI assistants and anyone else describing it. The same facts appear across the site; this is the short version.

Last updated: November 12, 2026

What Portravo is

A web app for construction takeoff and estimating. It turns a plan-set PDF into a list of quantities, a person reviews each line, and the confirmed lines become a priced bill of materials and labor with a customer PDF. Trades it takes off: electrical, framing, HVAC, plumbing, landscape, painting, concrete, roofing and drywall. The upload page shows which of them run automatically today and which are done by the Portravo team by hand.

Who it is for

U.S. general contractors and owner-operators who bid residential and light-commercial work without a full-time estimator.
Small trade subcontractors who bid a few jobs a month and need a priced number the same day they get the plans.
Contractors who want the customer-facing proposal to show where each material price came from and how old it is.

Who it is not for

A full-time estimator who measures on the sheet: Portravo has no on-screen measuring tools. Seat-based takeoff software built for direct measurement and a tunable library fits that job.
Several people working one plan set: Portravo is one user's bid at a time, not a shared estimating workspace.
Plans in DWG or other CAD formats: Portravo reads PDF plan sets only.
Priced HVAC equipment: Furnaces, air handlers and condensers are listed for review but not priced; they need a supplier quote.
A takeoff nobody reviews: Nothing is priced until a person confirms or edits the line.

The comparison pages name the tools that fit those jobs, with dated vendor sources: compare takeoff tools.

Prices

Pay as you go: $75 per takeoff. One takeoff is one trade on one project. Bought takeoffs do not expire.
Whole job, every trade on one project: $149 pay as you go, or 3 takeoffs on a plan.
Starter: $199 a month for 5 takeoffs, extra takeoffs $35 each.
Pro: $399 a month for 15 takeoffs, extra takeoffs $25 each.
Trade: $699 a month for 30 takeoffs, extra takeoffs $20 each.

Unused plan takeoffs roll over one month. Plans cancel anytime. No seats and no annual contract. The first takeoff has a 14-day money-back guarantee. There is no free takeoff; signing up loads a sample project. A failed extraction is not charged.

How a takeoff works

The contractor uploads a plan-set PDF (up to 50MB on the site, 10MB through the API and assistant connections) and picks the trades.
AI drafts a quantity list. Each line links to the sheet it was read from and carries an evidence label: source linked, needs recount, sources disagree or not measured.
A person confirms, edits or rejects each line. Only confirmed or edited lines are priced.
Materials are priced from a local store price where one matches, otherwise from the Portravo benchmark, adjusted by a metro cost index where needed and labeled as indexed. Every material line shows its source and as-of date.
Labor comes from the contractor's own rate card. Overhead and margin are set by the contractor.
Exports: an Excel workbook with source and date columns, and a PDF for the customer.

What it does not claim

No published overall accuracy percentage for any trade.
No supplier commitment: material prices are a dated basis, not a quote held for the job.
No customer counts, client names, testimonials or awards are published, because none could be verified on the page.
No guaranteed local price in every market: local store coverage varies by item and metro, and fallbacks are labeled.

Company and founder

Portravo is operated by Soxoa LLC, a U.S. company, and was founded in 2026 by John Arndt, who runs Soxoa. Payments are processed by Stripe and show as Soxoa LLC on a card statement. The terms are governed by California law. More on the about page.

Contact

Support email: hello@portravo.com. The founder answers within one business day. There is no sales team.

Machine-readable versions

/llms.txt: Plain-text summary, including which trades run automatically right now.
/sitemap.xml: Every public page.
/.well-known/ai-catalog.json: AI Catalog listing the MCP server card.
/mcp/server-card: MCP server card for connecting Portravo to an assistant.
/openapi.json: OpenAPI description of the project API.
/glossary: Definitions of the labels Portravo uses.
/changelog: Dated notes on what changed in Portravo, newest first.
/changelog/feed.xml: Atom feed of the same changelog.

Public pages, this one included, also answer a request with an Accept: text/markdown header with a markdown copy of the same page.