Including the ones with an inconvenient answer. If what you need is not here, the user guide is more detailed still, and you can always write to us.
On Windows, Mac or Linux: yes, a small one-time installer, the same as any other desktop app — download it, run it, and launch BillMate from your applications like anything else. There is no account and no sign-in, and once it's installed it never phones home.
On a phone or tablet: no installation at all — open BillMate straight in your browser and it works the same way. Either way, there is no server on our end holding your data — it stays on the device.
Everything except the AI assistant works with no connection at all — measuring, pricing, the rate library, exporting, backups. It is designed for a basement, a site cabin or a flight.
Your projects, your rate library and your API key are stored by your browser, on your device, and nothing else. We have no server and no account system, so there is nothing for us to see — even if we wanted to.
The single exception is the optional AI assistant: when you use it, your prompt goes directly from your device to Groq using your own API key. It does not pass through us.
Your work lives on the device, which is why backups matter. BillMate exports everything — every project and your whole rate library — as a single file, and it reminds you when your last backup is more than a fortnight old.
Get into the habit of backing up at the end of each session and keeping the file in your cloud drive. Restoring on a new device takes one click.
Separately, a lost device still counts as one of your licence's activated seats until it's cleared — email support with your licence key and we'll free it up for the replacement device.
No. BillMate has no on-screen takeoff — it will not let you click quantities off a PDF or an IFC model. That is what CostX, Cubit, PlanSwift and Bluebeam are for, and if drawing-led measurement is the core of your work you should use one of them.
BillMate covers everything after the measure: the dimension sheet, the pricing, the rate library and the issued document. Many surveyors happily use a takeoff tool alongside it. There is a fuller comparison here.
There are section templates and measurement conventions for RICS NRM1, RICS NRM2, ASAQS / SMM (South Africa), CPWD / DSR (India), CSI MasterFormat (US & Canada), plus general elemental and trade breakdowns. The standard you pick also instructs the AI on how to word and measure items, and it prints on the bill so a client's QS knows how to read your measurement.
Fourteen currencies — USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, INR, AED, SAR, SGD, ZAR, KES, GHS, NGN and KWD — each rendered and rounded to its own precision, so Kuwaiti dinar shows three decimals rather than two.
Six interface languages: English, Arabic (with a full right-to-left layout), French, Spanish, Hindi and Tamil. Professional terms of art stay in English by default, because most surveyors read them that way, but you can switch that off.
No. Projects live on the device that made them, so BillMate is a single-surveyor tool per project. A Team licence covers five devices, but each person works on their own projects and you move work between people with a backup file rather than editing the same bill simultaneously.
Yes, and you should. Import your existing schedule from a CSV or paste it straight out of Excel. From then on, one action prices a whole bill from your rates, and any rate you key can be captured back into the library for next time. Your library is also handed to the AI as the authoritative price basis, so even the items it fills in stay consistent with your own price level.
The rate library page covers this in detail.
Treat them as a starting point, never as a price you can issue. A language model is working from training data that is months to years out of date and rarely local enough, and construction pricing moves quickly.
This is precisely why the rate library exists, why AI rates are marked in amber on screen, why they are counted in the basis of estimate on your printed bill, and why you can generate quantities only and leave every rate blank.
Yes. It is off until you enter an API key, and removing the key switches it off again. With no key, BillMate never touches the network at all — which is also the simplest way to satisfy a client or employer who does not want project information going near a model.
It is a one-time payment. There is no renewal and no expiry, and the copy you download keeps working whatever we do later. If the price changes for new buyers, it does not change for you. The only limit tied to what you paid is how many devices the licence covers — one for an individual purchase, more if you bought extra seats.
An individual licence activates on one device. For a small firm or a site team, the Team pack is $199 for 5 seats — one shared licence key, everyone on the team enters the same key, and BillMate tracks how many of the 5 are in use. That works out to $39.80 a seat, a $96 saving over buying five individual licences, and it's still a one-time price, not a per-seat subscription. Need more than 5? Buy a second Team pack.
Verifying a key needs an internet connection the first time on each device; after that it works offline for 30 days at a stretch. Each project's own data still lives on that one device, so move projects between them with a backup file — export from one, restore on the other. Rate libraries merge rather than overwrite, so nothing is lost.
Use the free plan first — it is the complete tool on two projects, including the whole rate library, so you can price a real job before paying anything. If you buy and it turns out not to suit your work, write to us and we will refund you.
The free plan costs nothing and answers most of this faster than we can.