Works with your AI

Knack doesn't sell you an AI.
It makes the one you already pay for a good estimator.

Work the big job up in ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or the tools on your laptop — with your real catalogue, your rates, the drawings and the site in front of it — and the draft quote lands in Knack for you to read and send.

Start free — no card Set up your AI

On every plan, Starter included · Knack sends nothing to any AI provider · every answer is a draft

See it happen

One line in your AI. A draft quote on the job.

This is the live connection, start to finish. The session reads your pack, opens the drawing, searches your catalogue at your prices, and writes the draft into Knack — and it names every tool it reaches for as it happens, so nothing touches your job that you can't watch.

J-1043 · Airport tenancy — commercial kitchen fit-out Claude Code on a connector token · the same session works in ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Cursor or Codex

A contractor opens a working session on job J-1043 with one command. The AI calls Knack's tools in turn — it reads the working pack, opens sheet E-401, and searches the catalogue — asking about the supply and the maximum demand as it goes, and starting from the counts already made on the drawing in Knack. Once the contractor agrees the price, the session calls create_draft_quote and a draft quote appears on the job in Knack, lines linked to the contractor's catalogue, the sub-main left as a provisional sum and the fire-mode interlock left TBC, for the contractor to open in the builder and send themselves.

An illustration of a real session. The conversation is yours, on your own subscription — Knack sends nothing to any AI provider.

Three ways in

Whichever AI you use, there's a door.

The file works with anything that can read a document. The live connection works with the AI apps most contractors already hold, and with the tools on a laptop. All three land in the same place: a draft quote on the job.

Download the pack

Any AI, anywhere. From the job, download one plain file: your catalogue with its pack ids and prices, your rates and recipes, how you write, your standard terms, the questions a thorough estimate asks, and the shape of the handoff. Attach the drawings, have the session, paste the reply back. It becomes a draft quote, lines linked to your catalogue.

Connect it live

ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and their apps. Add Knack as a connector, sign in to Knack when it asks, press Allow. From then on a session reads the pack live, looks at the job's drawings and site photos itself, searches your catalogue, and writes the draft quote straight into Knack — and reads it back after you've edited it. Quoting something that isn't in Knack yet? It can set the customer and the job up first, fix what it got wrong, and add a part your price book was missing — so you never leave the chat to do data entry. It can't delete anything, and it never sends the quote: that's still you.

On your laptop

Claude Code, Grok CLI, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Claude Desktop. Create a token in Settings, paste the snippet Knack gives you, done. In Claude Code, /mcp__knack__quote J-1043 opens a whole session in one line — the pack, the first page of every drawing, the site photos.

What the session gets

Everything a good estimator would ask you for.

The reason an AI quote usually reads like an AI quote is that it never had the real numbers, the real drawings, or your way of putting things. Knack hands it all of that, and tells it the rules.

  • Your catalogue, live. Every item with its cost, markup and sell price, cited by a short pack id so a line lands on the right product — and a search for anything the pack left out.
  • Your rates and your recipes. The charge-out rate, so labour is priced by you and not guessed; the confirmed point recipes, so a downlight point brings its cable and its minutes.
  • How you write. The customer-facing words of the last quotes you sent, prices removed, so the introduction and the scope sound like you and not like a chatbot.
  • The job. Customer, site, the confirmed site facts, your notes — and, over the live connection, every drawing page by page with what you've already counted on it, and the site photos.
  • The draft as it stands. A continued session reads the quote back from Knack first, including what you changed in the builder, and leaves your edits alone.

What it can do in Knack

  • Read the working pack for a job, or for the whole account
  • Look at a drawing, a page at a time, and at the site photos
  • Search your catalogue and your suppliers' lists
  • Write the agreed quote as a draft on the job, with the story of how the price was reached kept beside it
  • Update that same draft as the session goes on, and read it back after you've edited it
  • Set up a customer, a job, or a price-book item the catalogue was missing — real records, so it searches first and reads the details back to you before writing one

Everything it writes into Knack is a draft you read, edit and send yourself. It cannot delete anything, it cannot send a quote, and it cannot see another account.

Where your data goes

  • Nowhere on this path, until you open the door. This connection does not send your quotes to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or xAI — your tool fetches with a credential you hold. Knack's own AI (voice notes, invoice reading, enquiry sorting) is a different door, named on the Subprocessors page.
  • Said plainly at the moment you connect. A connected AI can read this account's customers and sites, your drawings and site photos; every quote you have sent, line by line, with whether it was won; your recipes, symbol links, playbooks and templates; and your costs and margins. It can also add and correct customers and jobs, and set up and change your pricing — price-book items and their prices, your default markup and charge-out rate, recipes (including confirming their rates), symbol links, other names for items, playbooks and quote templates — when you ask it to. These are real changes, not drafts: a price it changes is what new quote lines use from then on. It can never delete anything, and never send a quote to your customer: you do that. Connect only tools you trust — a token or connection can be revoked at any time.
  • Where it goes next is your arrangement with your AI provider, under their terms — exactly as when you type the same details into it by hand.

The fences

A draft. Never a decision.

The session works the job up with you. It doesn't get to decide anything on its own, and Knack is built so that it can't.

  • You send it, not the AI. The draft lands in the quote builder with every line still yours. Nothing goes to a customer until you press Send, and the sense check only runs when you ask for it.
  • Your takeoff is the count of record. The AI can look at the plan, but the counts you made on the drawing in Knack are what it starts from, and it's told to ask before changing one. It never places a marker.
  • Owners and estimators only. The connection reads your costs and margins, so the roles that can't see cost can't connect an AI either.
  • No payments, ever. It can't see whether a customer has paid. Deposit talk goes into the quote as your own words.

Set up your AI

Pick yours. Two minutes, once.

Each guide is the whole setup for that tool, then how to start your first session.

Fair questions

Straight answers.

Which AI should I use?

Whichever you already pay for. This is built for the big jobs — a shop fit-out on an architect's electrical set, a commercial kitchen, a house-sized renovation — and on those the current frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI all read a drawing well and reason about gear, labour and supply well. Use the one whose chat you're already comfortable in.

Is it safe to give it my prices?

That's your call, and Knack makes sure it is a call. Nothing leaves Knack until you download a pack or connect a tool; both say, at that moment, exactly what the AI will be able to read. A pasted token or a connection can be revoked from Settings at any time, which stops future reads. What your provider keeps of a conversation is governed by their terms — the same as anything you've ever typed into it.

Will it count the plan for me?

It can look at the plan, and it will start from the counts you've already made on the drawing in Knack — those are the count of record, and it's told to ask before changing one. If you want the plan counted, mark it up in Knack: the takeoff seeds the quote from your own confirmed points, and the session builds on that.

Does it cost extra?

No. Working with your own AI is on every Knack plan, Starter included, on the same terms as the working pack. Your AI subscription is yours; Knack doesn't meter it or resell it.

Why can't my office admin connect it?

Because the connection reads your costs and margins, and in Knack the roles that can't see cost can't hold anything that does. Owners and estimators can connect an AI; the office can still read and send the draft it produces.

More questions answered on the features page →

Bring the next big one you have to price.

Thirty days, every plan feature, no credit card. Download a pack from the first job you make and see what your AI does with real numbers.

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