Commercial and multi-family bidding is a different beast from retail work. You get a 200-page plan set, a scope of work written by someone who has never swung a hammer, and 10 days to submit. Bid Packages is a new Kraken Ops add-on that changes how contractors handle that process. The AI reads the plans, you approve the scope, and the takeoff worksheet builds itself.
Most residential contractors who take on commercial or multi-family work spend 8 to 20 hours per bid just reading the plan set and extracting scope. That means:
For a contractor who submits 10 commercial bids per month, that is 80 to 200 hours of pre-bid labor, most of it on jobs that do not win. The hit rate on commercial bids for small contractors is often 10 to 15%. That means 85 to 90% of that time is spent on jobs you will never do.
Bid Packages compresses the plan reading and scope extraction step from days to hours. Here is how it works.
Drop in the invitation to bid package: plan set PDFs, specification sections, addenda, and any drawings included. The system accepts multi-file uploads and handles plan sets up to hundreds of pages. You tag the bid with the project name, due date, and trade scope, and the AI starts reading.
The AI analyzes every page of every uploaded document, identifies your trade's relevant sheets and spec sections, and extracts a preliminary scope of work. It reads plan notes, detail callouts, specification paragraphs, and general conditions for scope language that affects your bid. It flags pages where scope is ambiguous or where two documents conflict.
For roofing and siding contractors, the AI is specifically trained to identify roofing assembly requirements, insulation specifications, flashing details, substrate requirements, and exterior cladding schedules. It reads the legends, the keynotes, and the finish schedules, not just the drawings themselves.
You get a structured scope summary with every identified item, its source document and page, and any flagged conflicts or ambiguities. Conflicts are highlighted in red: items where the specifications and the drawings disagree, or where a general note conflicts with a specific detail. You review, accept, modify, or remove each item before the takeoff builds.
This review step is intentional. The AI surfaces what it found. You make the judgment calls. The system does not auto-accept scope items without your sign-off.
Once you approve the scope, the system generates a takeoff worksheet pre-populated with every scope item you accepted. For items where dimensions are available in the plan set, the AI provides a starting quantity that you verify and adjust. For items that require field verification or cannot be measured from the plans, the worksheet marks them as needs-input.
From the approved worksheet, Kraken Ops builds your estimate using your item library and margins. The estimate flows into your standard proposal workflow. The bid narrative draft is generated from the approved scope list. What used to take two to three days takes a few hours.
Bid Packages also includes a chat interface for each uploaded plan set. You can ask questions in plain English: "What substrate is specified under the TPO on sheet R-3?" or "Is there a provision for alternates in this spec?" or "What is the R-value requirement for the roof insulation?" The AI answers from the documents, cites the source page, and lets you follow up.
This is useful during scope review when you hit an ambiguous detail and want to check whether the spec has an answer before submitting an RFI.
Bid Packages is built for roofing and siding contractors who are either:
It is not designed to replace estimating expertise. It is designed to eliminate the hours of administrative work that precede that expertise. The estimator still makes the margin decisions, scope judgments, and bid strategy calls. The AI does the reading.
Bid Packages is in active development and targeted for release in late 2026 as a paid add-on. It will be available to Kraken Ops subscribers on any plan.
If you work in commercial or multi-family and want to be part of the early access program, reach out at hello@kraken-ops.com or sign up below. We are building the early cohort now and looking for contractors who can give us real ITB packages to test against.
Start your Kraken Ops trial now and join the early access list for Bid Packages when it launches later this year.
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