The biggest release in our history. Live Wednesday 13 October 2026.
In short. SPEC Toolbox 3.0 rebuilds every calculator around how engineers actually work. Every supplier in a category now sits side by side, live, against your design. Every design becomes a versioned, shareable record. And SPEC Intelligence adds an advisory layer that helps you decide faster without ever producing a number itself. It is live from Wednesday 14 October 2026, and every calculator stays free.
Why now
We have had 1.0 and 2.0. Thousands of engineers have used them, and they have told us what they need. In that time mass timber has scaled globally, and the product ecosystem around it, connectors, fasteners, fire, acoustics and engineered wood, has scaled with it.
The engineering workflow has not kept pace. Supplier data sits in brochures, portals and single-brand tools. Every manufacturer ships its own calculator. And the firm that builds its own spreadsheet or in-house app hits a ceiling almost immediately: it cannot reach manufacturers’ product data by category, and even if it could, it cannot keep that data current or fast.
So the comparison that actually decides a specification, which product, from which supplier, at what utilisation, happens in an engineer’s head. Or it does not happen at all.
SPEC Toolbox already connects thousands of engineers designing mass timber globally with 40+ supplier partners across Australia and New Zealand, Europe and the UK, the United States and Canada. It is free for engineers and funded by suppliers, because the design session is where a product gets specified.
3.0 is the platform catching up with what it has become. Not a set of calculators. The specification infrastructure for an industry.
Every supplier in the category. Side by side. Live.
Take a screw connection. Comparing three suppliers today means entering the same load case three times, in three different tools, and holding the results in your head.
In 3.0 you enter it once. The Database View shows every certified product in that category, from every supplier on the platform, filtered live, ranked by percentage utilisation against your actual design. Pick one and it writes into the calculation and re-runs, with the governing clause behind it.
Database View: one load case, every screw supplier in the category, ranked by utilisation against the live design.
Real supplier data. Structured. Code-verified for your region.
That line is the reason this works at all. The products in that list are not scraped from PDFs. They are real supplier data, structured, held under commercial agreement, and code-verified for the region you are designing in, with the certification carried on every product and the region it is valid in. In a world of AI, structured supply chain data is the actual value proposition.
The screw calculator was the first module fully rebuilt on the 3.0 standard, so the Database View ranking is live there first, with every module on the new standard by the end of the year.
The fastest way to do your design
The old calculator page was a long scroll. Inputs at the top, outputs somewhere below, and the number you actually wanted three screens away. Change a value, scroll down, read, scroll back up. Finding the limiting factor was work in itself.
3.0 puts inputs on the left and outputs beside them, on one screen. Change a value and the utilisation moves while you watch. Every output is indexed, so one click takes you to the check that governs and the clause behind it. Controls are consistent across every module, and on a phone inputs and outputs stack. One home, too: drafts and company projects merged into a single My Projects list, with tags instead of folders.
The calculations themselves are cleaner to read. Every check is laid out the same way: the parameters that feed it, the formula, the clause it comes from, and the value. Utilisation is capacity against design force with the numerator and denominator visible. When a reviewer asks where a number came from, the answer is on the screen, not in a spreadsheet tab somewhere.
Every check laid out the same way: parameters, formula, clause and value. Utilisation is demand over capacity with both numbers visible.
For European engineers there is one more thing on the connection calculators. Second generation Eurocode 5 leads on connections in 3.0: you choose EN 1995:2004 or EN 1995:2025 as the design method, and the brittle failure checks the new code brings, row shear, block shear, net tensile and splitting, sit in the output beside the yielding checks, each with its formula and clause. Floors and beams stay on the current generation until 3.1.
A dowelled steel-to-timber connection on the 3.0 layout: EN 1995:2025 selected as the design method, with the brittle failure checks in the output panel beside the yielding resistance.
The point is not the interface. It is that engineers make better decisions quickly, and better decisions quickly mean more efficient and more sustainable designs. Less clicking, more engineering.
Your work becomes a record
Until now a calculation lived in one engineer’s browser. Design history was lost when a laptop died, when a colleague took over a project, or when a reviewer asked what changed between issue A and issue B. Sharing meant screenshots.
3.0 rebuilds projects, versions, groups and team access. Design iterations are tracked. Calculations are shared across a team. Drafts and company projects live together in one My Projects home, and the project PDF output moves to a 3.0 version.
The unified My Projects page: every project and calculator in one list, with who created it, who checked it, its status, and the ability to move work between projects.
Hand a project to a colleague and they get the versions, not a screenshot. Run the job in the platform instead of around it. Your work survives a laptop change or a handover. It is a shared, versioned record now, not a browser tab.
And your existing projects and calculations carry over. Nothing breaks.
SPEC Intelligence
SPEC Intelligence is live in 3.0, starting with screw connections.
It is not a chatbot. It is a reasoning layer that works on your live design and on SPEC’s structured supplier data. Ask it to fix a failing check and it finds the governing constraint and the clause, proposes the smallest change that resolves it, and the calculation engine re-runs to prove the result.
The starting point: an axial capacity check failing at 142%, with the formula, the clause and the governing value on screen.
A worked example. A connection fails on geometry at 140 per cent, with edge spacing below the EN 1995-1-1 clause 8.7.2 minimum. You ask, “Help me fix this.” Intelligence identifies the governing constraint and the clause, and proposes moving from eight screws at 35 mm to six at 60 mm. The engine re-runs: geometry 87 per cent, axial 55 per cent, cost down 9 per cent. The insight card says what an experienced engineer would have said at your shoulder: the fastener governs, not the bracket. You can try it without saving, and nothing is applied until you apply it.
Help me fix this: a failing check diagnosed and answered with alternatives from the category. Every utilisation shown comes from the calculation engine, never from the model.
One rule sits under all of it, and it does not move:
The AI advises. The verified calculation engines compute. You remain the signatory.
No output reaches you without the deterministic engine running behind it. The model never asserts a number. Every assumption is shown with where it came from, and nothing applies itself. That is the thing a generic AI you cannot trust with a structural check can never offer, because it has neither the supplier data nor the engine.
Alongside fixing a failing check, Intelligence can set up a calculator from a sentence, rank the database against your live loads, compare code-valid methods, find the leaner configuration when everything passes with headroom, and explain any input in the context of your own numbers. Seeing is free. Acting uses credits, and your balance is always visible. Intelligence lights up module by module as each calculator moves to the new engine, starting with screw connections.
What 3.0 means for you
Every calculator is free. SPEC Intelligence credits are included for every engineer. Automation is Pro.
Free, for every engineer: every calculator, every category, every region, and the engineering never sits behind a paywall. SPEC Intelligence credits to use on the screw connection calculator, with your balance always visible. The rebuilt experience: everything on one screen, indexable outputs, one projects home. Projects, versions and sharing. Database View for the products you select, live, plus a preview of the full comparison. And your existing projects and calculations, carried over.
Pro adds speed: the design automations that turn one design into many, the full Database View comparison across every supplier in the category, and more Intelligence credits. The engineering is free. Pro is how fast you move through it.
| Free | Pro | |
| Every calculator, with certified supplier data | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full design codes for your region | ✓ | ✓ |
| The rebuilt 3.0 experience | ✓ | ✓ |
| SPEC Intelligence credits | 25 to start, then 5 a month | 500 a month |
| Database View | Preview | Full comparison across every supplier |
| Autosolve: one design into many | — | ✓ |
| Switch between regions and design codes | — | ✓ |
| Teams: seats, one invoice, pooled credits | — | ✓ |
What carries over, and what to do first
Your existing projects and calculations carry over. Nothing breaks.
When you log in on 14 October a short tour will point out what moved. After that: open a project, change an input and watch the utilisation move on the same screen, then open Database View on a screw connection and see the category ranked against your design. If a check fails, ask Intelligence to fix it.
The What’s New section below this article lists what moved where for returning engineers, and the release notes carry the technical detail module by module.
What is next
Intelligence lights up module by module as each calculator moves to the new engine. Every module reaches the new standard by the end of 2026. In Europe, second generation Eurocode 5 leads on connections in 3.0, with the balance of modules following in 3.1, and our iStructE webinar on mass timber design to the new Eurocode 5 explains that position in detail.
We rebuilt everything around the one thing we never touch: the calculation. The AI advises. The engine verifies. You remain the signatory.
Thank you to the thousands of engineers who told us what they needed, and to the supplier partners who put their data in. This is what it was for.
Making innovation easy to specify. That is why the company exists, and 3.0 is the clearest expression of it we have shipped.
