Where your plans go: offline, on-premise takeoff on your own Windows PC (and what to do on a Mac)

The plans stay on the PC

Counting runs on the estimator's own machine. A plan set is opened from the PC, kept in an encrypted local database on that PC, and never uploaded for processing. A count itself needs no internet connection. Nothing about the drawing, the symbols or the counts leaves the building unless you export a file and send it.

The one network call

The standard licence is checked once, at launch, over HTTPS. That is the only thing that needs the internet, and nothing after launch depends on it. For sites where even that is not allowed, a fully offline build with no licence check exists for air-gapped environments, on request. For firms that want one shared install, SimplyCount can run on a server inside the firm's own firewall, with estimators connecting over the local network.

Why there is no cloud version

Because the answer to "where do the plans go" would change. Most takeoff tools are cloud-only: the set is uploaded, counted on someone else's machine, and kept there. SimplyCount is built the other way round so that the plan set, which is often under a bid's confidentiality terms, is handled like any other file on your PC.

Windows only, and what that means on a Mac

The desktop application runs on 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11. There is no macOS or Linux build, and this page does not promise one. On a Mac you need a Windows machine to count on, whether that is a Windows PC on the desk or a Windows environment you already run; we have not published a tested Mac-hosted configuration, so treat that as your own setup to verify against the requirements rather than something we support. The system requirements page lists the hardware and the firewall rules for IT.

What to hand to IT

The requirements page is written to be forwarded as-is: 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, 4 or more CPU cores, 16 GB of RAM as the minimum, no graphics card required, the install locations, the single outbound HTTPS call, and the data-handling notes. The trust page states the security posture without certifications we do not hold.