BillMate can draft a whole bill from a description of the works. It will not pretend the rates it produced are market evidence — it marks them, counts them, and prints the count on the document your client reads.
All three sit behind the Pro licence and need a Groq API key that you create and hold yourself. We do not resell tokens and we do not mark them up, and Groq sets its own pricing and account terms — check them directly before you rely on the feature. If you never set a key, the AI features simply are not there and everything else works exactly as it does.
When you use AI assistance, BillMate sends the relevant project context, selected market, currency, measurement standard, and available rate-library information directly to Groq for processing. AI requires an internet connection. Generated descriptions, quantities, build-ups, and rates must be reviewed by a qualified professional.
That is the whole data flow, stated once. Nothing passes through a BillMate server, because we do not operate one — the request goes from your device to Groq under your own key. Privacy in full.
It is not a quotation. It is not a market survey. It is not evidence of a current price in your city. It is a plausible figure produced from training data of uncertain age and unknown local weighting — and a language model will produce it just as confidently when it has no basis at all.
Use it to keep working while you chase a real price. The failure mode to guard against is not a wrong number; it is a wrong number that becomes "our rate" through repetition, six months after anyone remembers where it came from. That is precisely why the marking is permanent until cleared.
| Item | Description | Unit | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.01 | Excavate to reduce levels, not exceeding 2.00 m deep; load, cart away and dispose off site | m³ | 420.00 | $18.50 | $7,770 |
| 1.02 | Plain concrete grade 15 blinding, 50 mm thick, to receive foundations | m² | 640.00 | $9.40 | $6,016 |
| 1.03 | Reinforced concrete grade 30 in isolated pad and strip foundations | m³ | 96.00 | $141.83 | $13,615.68 |
| 1.04 | High-yield steel reinforcement, cut, bent and fixed in position | t | 7.20 | $1,320 | $9,504 |
| 1.05 | Sawn formwork to vertical sides of foundations, height not exceeding 1.00 m | m² | 210.00 | $31.50 | $6,615 |
| 1.06 | Provisional sum for ground-improvement works, to be expended as directed | sum | 1 | $65,000 | $65,000 |
| Carried to collection | $108,520.68 | ||||
Your key is stored on the device only, and the AI is the one part of BillMate that needs a connection — measuring, pricing, the library and exporting all work with none.
One thing worth thinking about. Because project context is part of what is sent, a project whose descriptions are themselves confidential is not a project to use the AI on. That is a judgement call only you can make, which is why the data flow is set out plainly above rather than buried in a policy page.
Because every other estimating tool now claims to be AI-powered, and most of them are quiet about the one thing that matters: whether the number you are about to put in front of a client has been checked by anyone. A model that produces a confident rate and says nothing about its provenance is not saving you work — it is moving the risk from a place you can see to a place you cannot.
Our position is the boring one. The AI is a drafting assistant. It is genuinely good at structure, wording and recall, and it is not a source of market evidence. The surveyor's judgement is not being replaced, and any tool implying otherwise should worry you.
Taking-off, rate build-ups and the whole library are free on 2 projects, AI or no AI.