In this article
Paving season leaves no slack. Bids stack up in spring, trucks get booked weeks out, and a mill that shows up a day late can push an entire parking lot into next week, which is why so much of the season's stress ends up on whoever is running the office.
At a lot of paving companies, that office still runs on spreadsheets.
Paving contractors keep rental yards busy from the first warm week to the last, so at Moab we see paving season from the equipment side every year. The contractors who stay ahead of it usually have their bids and schedules in a system built for how paving works.
We compared 6 paving software platforms, using what each vendor publishes about its own product, to show which one fits which kind of paving business.
- 1OneCrewBest overall, for commercial asphalt and concrete paversRead review
- 2HCSSBest for heavy civil and DOT pavingRead review
- 3STACKBest for standalone plan takeoffsRead review
- 4PlantDemandBest for contractors that run their own asphalt plantRead review
- 5BitumioBest for asphalt crews that want month-to-month billingRead review
- 6JobberBest for home-service businesses that take on some pavingRead review
Paving software compared
| Platform | Best for | Estimating | Job costing | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OneCrew | Commercial asphalt and concrete pavers | Site mapping, tonnage, AI takeoffs | Yes | Seat-based, quoted in demo |
| HCSS | Heavy civil and DOT paving | HeavyBid | HeavyJob | Quote only |
| STACK | Standalone plan takeoffs | Takeoffs, estimates on Pro | No | Free plan; $299 to $349/user/mo billed annually |
| PlantDemand | Contractors with their own plant | No | No | Not published |
| Bitumio | Month-to-month asphalt crews | Map measurement, automated proposals | Yes | $149/user/mo, month to month |
| Jobber | Home-service businesses | General quoting | Grow plan | From $29/mo billed annually |
How we picked the best paving software
We looked at how well each platform handles the day-to-day work of a paving company, based on what each vendor publishes about its own product. These are the areas we weighted most:
- Estimating built for paving: measuring a site, working out tonnage and trucking, and turning it into a proposal.
- Scheduling and dispatch: getting won jobs onto crews and dates without a whiteboard.
- Job costing: comparing what a job was supposed to cost with what it cost.
- Fit: who the product is built for, whether that's a plant operator, a heavy civil contractor, or a small crew.
- Pricing clarity: how much you can learn before you get on a sales call.
Best overall paving software: OneCrew
OneCrew is an all-in-one platform built for asphalt and concrete paving businesses, covering overlays and new lots along with sealcoating, crack filling, and striping. It runs a job from the first lead all the way to the final invoice, which means a commercial paving contractor can retire the pile of disconnected tools that a lot of paving companies are still juggling.
Estimating is the part we'd point to first. An estimator maps a site on monthly satellite imagery, and OneCrew works out the area, perimeter, edges, tonnage, and materials, along with how many trucks the job will need.
If you'd rather not trace every lot by hand, Instant Takeoffs, powered by TruTec, uses AI to detect pavement areas, drive lanes, parking lots, curbs, and striping inside a boundary you draw. OneCrew reports a 75% reduction in estimating time, and more than $8 billion in projects have been proposed through the platform so far.
When a customer signs, the job drops into a scheduling queue where someone in the office can drag it onto a crew and a date. Labor hours come straight from the estimate, and OneCrew flags conflicts before anything saves. Out on site, crews pull up the schedule, site maps, and equipment assignments on their phones, clock in with GPS-verified time tracking, and submit their actuals against the original estimate, so the office knows how the job went without chasing anyone down.
Texas Parking Lots, a San Antonio asphalt, concrete, striping, and sweeping company, reports a 42% win rate on proposals with OneCrew, and 67% of its won projects come in above target profit margin, according to its OneCrew case study.
Key features
- Proposals that sell: Send proposals as a PDF or interactive link with e-signature, see who opened them, and set automated follow-ups.
- Job costing: Track actuals for labor, materials, and trucking on every service, with a Work-in-Progress report that updates on its own.
- Customer portal: Every project gets a portal where customers sign proposals, message the team, and pay invoices without installing anything.
- Invoicing: Bill in full, by deposit, or by milestone, accept card or ACH, and sync invoices and payments with QuickBooks in both directions.
What to consider
- Pricing is seat-based with feature add-ons and quoted during a demo, and Instant Takeoffs is credit-based.
- It's built around project-based paving work, so a general contractor whose paving is a small side line may want a broader construction platform.
Website: getonecrew.com
Best paving software for heavy civil and DOT work: HCSS
If you bid public highway work, you've almost certainly run into HCSS. It builds software for self-performing civil and infrastructure contractors, and it's been the default at the top of that market for a long time, with 43 of the ENR top 50 heavy civil contractors and 17 of the ENR top 20 transportation contractors using its products.
The work splits across two products. HeavyBid handles estimating, where estimators build bids from historical data with automated calculations and error checks, pull subcontractor and vendor quotes into one place, and send finished bids straight to owners' bidding systems like AASHTOWare, Bid Express, PennDOT, and UDOT. On a joint venture, as many as 25 estimators can work on the same bid at once.
HeavyJob picks up once crews mobilize. Foremen log crew hours, equipment hours, and quantities on time cards, managers can see which cost codes are trending over budget, and the production data flows back into HeavyBid so the next estimate is grounded in what happened on the last one. It also works without an internet connection, which matters more than it sounds on a rural highway job.
E&B Paving, an Indiana highway and municipal paving contractor, runs HeavyBid and HeavyJob together alongside HCSS's equipment tools. On the back-office side, HeavyBid Desktop connects to 30+ accounting and DOT systems, including Vista, QuickBooks, and Sage 300.
What to consider
- Pricing is quote-only, and HeavyBid is available by demo, though HeavyJob offers a self-guided tour with sample data.
- Plan for a rollout period. HCSS says 95% of customers are fully operational within 90 days, which is easier to absorb for contractors bidding larger public and civil work.
Website: hcss.com
Best paving software for standalone plan takeoffs: STACK
STACK makes the most sense for estimators who mostly work from plan sets, want a fast measuring tool, and are happy to handle scheduling and job costing somewhere else. It's a cloud preconstruction platform used across many trades, and it has a dedicated paving page.
The paving tools cover area, linear, and volume measurements for asphalt, concrete, and gravel, and you can add tons of asphalt, labor hours, and equipment costs right into the estimate. STACK AI reads every sheet in a plan set, names the pages, flags revisions, and auto-counts symbols, while an overlay tool shows you what changed between drawing versions.
For lots without plans, the aerial image takeoff add-on imports auto-scaled images at $10 per address, with a 100-address minimum.
It's also the only tool on this list with a free plan that doesn't expire. The free plan gives you one active project a month, up to 300 plan pages, and 50 measurements per project, and it starts with 7 days of Pro features. Paid plans run on 12-month terms, with Premium at $299 per user per month and Pro, which adds worksheet-style estimating, a regional cost library, and native proposals, at $349 per user per month, both billed annually.
What to consider
- It doesn't schedule crews or track job costs, so you'll pair it with other tools for the rest of the job.
Website: stackct.com
Best paving software for contractors that run their own asphalt plant: PlantDemand
PlantDemand is a different kind of tool from everything else on this list. It's online scheduling software for asphalt, ready-mix, and aggregate plants, so it fits paving contractors that own or run a plant, and its site shows logos from producers such as Granite Construction, Vulcan Materials, and Teichert.
The center of it is an order calendar showing what each plant has to produce on a given day, with overbooking and material types color-coded so a plant manager can read the day at a glance. That matters because, by PlantDemand's own count, an asphalt order changes about 6 times on average before it ships. Sales, production, and inventory forecasts help spot run-outs or surpluses before they happen, and an API connects it to ERP, dispatch, and dashboard tools.
Contractors who buy from the plant can use a customer portal to see which days it's running and request the dates, shifts, and tonnage they need, without seeing anyone else's orders.
Pricing isn't published, but there's a 30-day free trial. Keep in mind that it only covers plant orders, so you'll still need separate tools for estimating, crews, and job costing, and the mobile app is for iPhone and iPad.
Website: plantdemand.com
Best paving software for asphalt crews that want month-to-month billing: Bitumio
Bitumio is estimating and scheduling software for asphalt crews, and its pricing is about as simple as it gets: $149 per user per month on a month-to-month plan, with crew members who only use the mobile app counted as free users. Yearly pricing is available if you ask.
The proposal builder does a lot of the math for you. It calculates travel time, job time, materials, labor, equipment, and trucking time from your crew's production rates, the job location, and the job size, and estimators can measure areas and lengths on a built-in map from a desktop, tablet, or phone. Those measurements carry straight into the proposal and the work order.
Andersen Asphalt, an asphalt contractor, credits Bitumio with cutting its estimate creation time by 50%.
Key features
- Work orders: Scheduling a job generates a work order and pushes the details to the crew's app, and customers get notified when jobs are scheduled, started, and completed.
- Sales automation: Email triggers follow up on proposals automatically.
- Job costing: Compare estimated and actual equipment, labor, material, and subcontractor costs.
- Shop and fleet: Crews log shop tasks and daily vehicle inspections from the field.
What to consider
- Its public integration details are thin beyond QuickBooks.
Website: bitumio.com
Best paving software for home-service businesses that take on some paving: Jobber
Jobber is all-in-one software for home-service businesses, used by more than 400,000 home service pros, and it has a dedicated paving page. It's the right fit for a service-based business built around recurring visits that takes on the occasional paving job.
It handles quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and client communication well. Customers can approve quotes, request changes, pay deposits, and sign online, and through the Client Hub they can request work, confirm appointments, and pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or ACH.
On the crew side, Jobber plans routes for crews, its mobile app gives teams schedules, work orders, and turn-by-turn directions, and an integration with Responsibid lets customers get estimates through your website.
Plans are priced by team size. Core costs $49 per month, or $29 per month billed annually, for a single user, and a 14-day free trial includes the Grow plan, which is where job costing starts. QuickBooks Online sync starts on the Connect plan, Zapier connects 2,000+ other tools, and every plan comes with phone, email, and chat support plus 1-on-1 product coaching.
What to consider
- Its paving page doesn't mention site measurement, tonnage, or trucking, so paving-heavy companies will feel the gap at the estimating stage.
Website: getjobber.com
How to choose paving software
Start with the work you bid. Commercial lots, overlays, and multi-service jobs need estimating that understands tonnage, trucking, and site maps, while public highway work leans on DOT bid integrations and years of historical data.
Then count how many systems you're running today. A separate takeoff tool, scheduling board, and accounting package can work, but every handoff between them is a spot where hours or invoices go missing, and the busier the season gets, the more of those handoffs you'll feel. An all-in-one platform takes them out. A point solution makes more sense when there's only one step you need to fix.
When you get to demos, ask each vendor to run one of your real jobs, from measuring the site all the way to comparing estimated and actual costs. And check pricing against your real headcount, because per-user and quote-based pricing can land very differently once your estimators, office staff, and foremen are all counted.
Plan your equipment around the schedule
Equipment is one of the easiest places for a paving job to lose margin. A mill or roller that arrives late leaves a whole crew standing around, and one that sits on site two extra days eats into the job's numbers just as surely. When your paving software ties accepted proposals to crews, dates, and equipment assignments, you can see what you'll need and when, and book rentals early in the season.
It helps to work with rental companies that can keep up, too. Rental houses running modern platforms like Moab can quote faster and confirm availability across branches, which makes it easier to lock in machines for the dates on your schedule.
Build your season on the right platform
The best paving software depends on the work you do. For commercial asphalt and concrete pavers who want one system from the first estimate to the final invoice, OneCrew is our top pick.
HCSS is the go-to for heavy civil and DOT contractors, and STACK and PlantDemand each solve one specific job well. Bitumio suits asphalt crews that want month-to-month billing, and Jobber fits home-service businesses that pave on the side. Whichever way you go, the fewer handoffs there are between your estimate, your schedule, and your job costs, the less slips through in the busiest weeks of the year.
FAQs
What is the best paving software?
OneCrew is the best overall paving software for commercial asphalt and concrete contractors, because it runs mapping, estimating, scheduling, job costing, and invoicing in one platform built for asphalt and concrete paving businesses. Heavy civil and DOT contractors often choose HCSS, and teams that only need takeoffs can start with STACK.
How much does paving software cost?
Pricing varies widely. OneCrew and HCSS quote pricing in a demo, Bitumio costs $149 per user per month, STACK’s paid plans run $299 to $349 per user per month billed annually with a free plan available, Jobber starts at $29 per month billed annually for one user, and PlantDemand doesn’t publish pricing but offers a 30-day free trial.
What features should paving software have?
Look for site measurement and tonnage calculations, proposals with e-signature, crew scheduling, a mobile app for foremen, job costing that compares estimates with actuals, and invoicing that syncs with your accounting system.
Is there paving software with AI takeoffs?
Yes. OneCrew’s Instant Takeoffs, powered by TruTec, detects pavement areas, drive lanes, parking lots, curbs, and striping inside a boundary you draw on aerial imagery. STACK also offers AI takeoffs, along with an aerial image add-on, and its AI reads plan sets and auto-counts symbols.
Can paving software help manage rented equipment?
Yes, it helps you plan rentals. OneCrew assigns equipment to individual services on the schedule, so you can see which days a job needs a mill or roller and book rentals ahead of time.
Product names and logos are trademarks of their owners, used here only to identify their products. Features and pricing change, so confirm them with each vendor before you decide.