Comparison
Wave vs Encircle: Documentation Platform or the Estimate Itself
Encircle documents the loss. Xactimate prices it. Wave does both in one tool. An operator's look at real monthly costs and the 2026 AI push.
Encircle documents. Wave estimates.
Encircle is a field documentation platform for restoration contractors. Photos, videos, notes, moisture readings, drying logs, floor plans, contents inventories. They've been doing it since 2013. In 2025 and 2026 they started bolting AI tools on top.
Wave is the estimate. You describe the job. Wave writes it. No documentation layer required to produce the bill.
Different products, different eras, different outputs.
The core difference
Encircle has been around since 2013, and while they've added AI tools in 2025 and 2026, the underlying product reflects its documentation-era origins. The workflow was built for the restoration industry's old way of working: capture everything in the field, sync it to the office, hand it off to an estimator who writes the final estimate in Xactimate. It's a documentation tool that sits at the front of a workflow that still ends somewhere else.
Every new Encircle product reinforces that pattern. Encircle Scope, their AI scoping engine launched in 2026, produces a scope document their own marketing says is meant for use "before you ever open Xactimate." Encircle Edge, the ROM estimating tool they acquired in November 2025, produces rough-order-of-magnitude numbers for early decisioning, not the priced carrier-compliant estimate the adjuster signs. Encircle Floor Plan has a paid Xactimate import integration that costs $10 per data request.
The pattern is clear. Encircle accelerates the handoff to Xactimate. It doesn't replace it.
Wave is the opposite. Built AI-native from day one, voice-first, designed so the technician on site writes the complete estimate without a handoff to anyone. No documentation layer required. No Xactimate seat required. No scope-to-estimate transfer step. Just the estimate.
At a glance
| Wave | Encircle | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary product | Estimating tool | Documentation platform |
| Output | Complete priced estimate | Scope, floor plan, drying logs, ROM |
| Priced carrier-compliant estimate | Yes, produced by Wave | No, written in Xactimate after handoff |
| Xactimate seat required | No | Yes, for the actual estimate |
| AI origin | Native from day one | Added 2025-2026 on top of legacy workflow |
| AI output | The estimate itself | A scope document that feeds into Xactimate |
| Hardware | Any phone | Any phone |
| Pricing | $199 to $495/month flat | $270 to $650/month, plus add-ons, plus Xactimate |
| Real monthly cost | Starts at $199 | Starts at $409 ($270 Encircle + $139 Xactimate) |
| Per-import fees | None | $10 per Xactimate floor plan import |
| Ideal user | Any operator or adjuster | Teams with a dedicated Xactimate estimator |
How Wave actually works
Open Wave. One chat box. Short greeting.
You type or speak what you see on site. Customer name, address, loss category, cause of loss, rooms affected. Wave pulls the scope out of natural language and asks multiple-choice follow-ups to fill in what's missing.
When Wave has enough information, it generates the complete priced estimate. Line items grouped by room. Equipment sized to IICRC drying science. PPE kit scaled to loss category. Every line item auto-documented with justification notes.
Edit inline. Talk to Wave to revise. Export a professional PDF with your company letterhead.
Total time on site: 10 to 20 minutes. The technician wrote the estimate. No office handoff. No Xactimate required. Done.
How Encircle works
Encircle is a mobile-first documentation platform. Technicians capture photos, videos, notes, moisture readings, drying logs, floor plans, and contents inventories from the job site. That documentation syncs to the office in real time.
From there, Encircle offers several paths to get to an estimate. None of them end with Encircle producing the priced estimate.
Path 1: Documentation → Xactimate. The traditional Encircle workflow. Your field team captures the loss in Encircle. Your estimator opens the file, reviews photos and notes, and writes the estimate in Xactimate. Encircle Floor Plan can be imported into Xactimate as a sketch for $10 per successful data request.
Path 2: Documentation → Encircle Scope → Xactimate. In 2026, Encircle launched Encircle Scope, an AI-powered scoping engine that converts field documentation into a scope document. Encircle's own marketing describes this as the step "before you ever open Xactimate." Encircle Scope does not export directly to Xactimate. Estimators read the scope and manually transfer it into Xactimate to write the priced estimate.
Path 3: Documentation → Encircle Edge. In November 2025, Encircle acquired The Edge, a ROM estimating tool, now integrated as Encircle Edge. Edge produces a rough-order-of-magnitude budget estimate based on production data. It's designed for early-stage decisioning on larger or more complex jobs where a ballpark number is needed before the full estimate is written. It's not a replacement for the carrier-compliant estimate.
In every path, the final priced estimate that goes to the adjuster is written in Xactimate. Encircle accelerates the handoff. Xactimate does the work.
The workflow thesis
Encircle is not an estimating tool. It is a documentation workflow that feeds into Xactimate. Even with their 2026 AI tools, the final priced estimate still gets written in Xactimate by a human estimator who transferred a scope document from Encircle.
Wave removes the handoff entirely. The field technician walks through the loss, talks to Wave, and walks out with the estimate. One tool. One person. One 20-minute conversation. The priced carrier-compliant estimate is the output.
This is the core difference. Encircle makes the documentation-to-estimate handoff faster. Wave is the estimate.
Why Wave wins
The estimate is the deliverable
Encircle outputs documentation, scope, and ROM numbers. Wave outputs the priced estimate that gets submitted to the carrier. Your adjuster doesn't pay you for the scope. They pay you for the estimate. Wave produces that directly. Encircle produces the inputs that get you there through a second tool.
Same 20 minutes, completely different deliverable
A technician spending 20 minutes with Encircle Scope or Encircle Edge walks away with a rough scope or ROM budget. Someone still has to turn that into a carrier-compliant priced estimate in Xactimate. That's another step, another tool, another set of billable time somewhere in the pipeline.
A technician spending 20 minutes with Wave walks away with the complete priced estimate. It's ready to export. It's ready to submit. No handoff, no second tool, no Xactimate seat, no pricing transfer.
Same time on site. Very different thing to show for it.
The real apples-to-apples cost
Encircle pricing starts at $270 per month for Small Shop, $455 for Medium Shop, $650 for Large Shop. All three are cheap on the surface. The catch: Encircle doesn't produce the priced estimate. To actually write the estimate, you need a Xactimate seat, which runs around $139 per user per month. Plus paid add-ons for Encircle Floor Plan and the Xactimate Sketch Integration. Plus $10 per floor plan data import.
Real monthly cost for an Encircle Small Shop user: $270 plus $139 for one Xactimate seat, minimum $409 per month, before any add-ons or import fees.
Wave Pro is $199 per month. Wave Growth is $299. Wave Ultra is $495 for unlimited estimates. Save two months when you pay annually. Everything is included. No separate pricing platform. No per-import fees. No Xactimate seat on top.
At every tier, Wave is less than the real cost of Encircle once you add the Xactimate seat Encircle requires to close the loop.
AI that writes the estimate, not AI that feeds into Xactimate
Encircle Scope is marketed as AI-powered mitigation scoping. It is. It's also explicitly scoped to produce a scope document for use before opening Xactimate. That positioning is Encircle's own. The AI accelerates the handoff.
Wave's AI produces the complete priced estimate. No handoff, no intermediate scope document, no Xactimate step. The technician talks, Wave writes, the estimate exports. The AI is the whole pipeline, not a layer inside someone else's pipeline.
No Xactimate dependency
Encircle's entire value proposition assumes you have Xactimate waiting at the end of the workflow to turn documentation into a priced estimate. Without Xactimate, Encircle's output is just documentation.
Wave has no such dependency. The estimate is produced inside Wave. Your adjuster accepts a Wave PDF. Your technician wrote it on site. You never opened Xactimate.
Built for 2026, not documented into it
Encircle has been around since 2013. Most of the platform is 13 years of documentation workflow. The AI launched in 2025 and 2026 sits on top of that existing structure. It speeds things up, but the underlying model is still "capture in Encircle, write in Xactimate."
Wave started with the opposite question: if restoration estimates were built today, with AI at the foundation, what would that look like? The answer is the product. No documentation platform to feed. No estimator to hand off to. No Xactimate to integrate with. Just the estimate.
Where Encircle fits
Two honest scenarios.
You have a dedicated Xactimate estimator in your office and you want structured field documentation flowing to them. Encircle is built for that workflow. Your field team captures, your estimator writes. If that's your setup today and it works, Encircle does what it does.
You need drying logs, moisture readings, or mitigation documentation for claim defensibility. Encircle's drying log workflow is solid. Some teams will value that.
One practical note: nothing stops you from using both. Encircle for drying logs and field documentation, Wave for the estimate itself. Wave specializes in line items and the priced estimate, and some teams find the combination works for their specific documentation requirements. We're also building out our own drying log and moisture tracking tools in Wave, so the all-in-one path is coming.
Who should switch
Independent restoration contractors who've been paying for Encircle plus a Xactimate seat and wondering if there's a simpler path.
Small and mid-size operators whose entire team has to wait on one Xactimate estimator to finish writing estimates after Encircle documentation syncs.
Teams who like Encircle's field app but have realized the AI tools still hand off to Xactimate at the end.
Restoration operators who've looked at their monthly software stack and seen two subscriptions where one should do the job.
Anyone who has ever scoped a loss in Encircle, waited for the estimate, and thought "my technician already has the information. Why can't they just write it?"
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Encircle produce a priced estimate?
Not directly. Encircle Scope produces a scope document that an estimator transfers into Xactimate to write the priced estimate. Encircle Edge produces a ROM, which is a preliminary budget estimate based on production data, not a carrier-compliant line-item estimate. For the final priced estimate that goes to the adjuster, Encircle users still use Xactimate.
What is Encircle Scope?
Encircle Scope is an AI-powered scoping tool launched by Encircle in 2026. It uses field documentation to generate a mitigation scope with IICRC-backed justification. Their own product description positions it as the step "before you ever open Xactimate," which means the scope document is an input to estimating software, not a replacement for it.
What is Encircle Edge?
Encircle Edge is a ROM (rough order of magnitude) estimating tool. Encircle acquired it in November 2025 as part of their expansion into estimating. Edge produces preliminary budget estimates based on production data, intended for early-stage decisioning on larger or more complex jobs. It is not a carrier-compliant priced estimate.
What does Encircle actually cost?
Encircle publishes three tiers: Small Shop at $270 per month, Medium Shop at $455, and Large Shop at $650. All include unlimited users and data storage. Encircle Floor Plan and the Xactimate Sketch Integration are paid add-ons. Floor plan imports into Xactimate cost $10 per successful data request. Most Encircle users also pay for a Xactimate seat separately, around $139 per month, since Encircle itself does not produce the priced estimate.
Can I use Wave and Encircle together?
Yes. Some teams use Encircle for field documentation and drying logs while using Wave for the priced estimate. Wave specializes in line items and the complete carrier-compliant estimate. Encircle's documentation workflow can sit alongside it if your operation needs the specific documentation features Encircle offers.
Why would I choose Wave over Encircle plus Xactimate?
Because you get the estimate in one tool instead of two. Wave produces the priced carrier-compliant estimate directly, on site, in 10 to 20 minutes, from any phone. No separate documentation platform to feed, no Xactimate seat to maintain, no scope-to-estimate transfer step. And at every tier, Wave is less than the combined cost of Encircle plus a Xactimate seat.
Ready to estimate without the handoff?
Wave was built by a restoration operator for restoration operators. If you've ever paid for Encircle and Xactimate at the same time and wondered why your technicians can't just produce the estimate themselves, you already know why Wave exists.
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