Corpus vs Nomic for engineering firms: an honest comparison

Every statement about Nomic below comes from Nomic's own public pages, reviewed on October 10, 2026, and is linked to the page it came from. Prices and features change; check Nomic's site for current terms.

Short answer: Nomic is a per-seat AI platform for architecture, engineering and construction firms, with a self-serve plan, focused on drawings, specs and active-project files. Corpus by SalemWise is page-cited AI for civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, surveying and mining firms, built to help win work from the firm's past projects: a suggested bid/no-go score, SOQ drafts with page citations and fee builds, set up for you, with no per-user fees. If you want to start today without a sales call, Nomic is the faster start. If the value is in decades of past project files and you want it to run on your own hardware, look at Corpus.

What is Nomic?

Nomic calls itself "the domain-specific AI platform for architecture, engineering, and construction firms" (nomic.ai). Its homepage describes agents that read drawings and specs, review a drawing set against a firm's QA/QC standards with cited PDF markups, and check drawings against "380+ building codes and standards", and it says every answer is "cited back to the source" (nomic.ai). Its platform page says Nomic knows a firm's "historical RFP responses, resumes, and competencies" and drafts proposal sections from them (nomic.ai/platform). Its Individual plan needs "no sales call, pilot, or admin setup" to start (nomic.ai/individual).

Nomic publishes case studies from Arcadis, Aurecon and Wisconsin Built (nomic.ai/case-studies).

What is Corpus by SalemWise?

Corpus by SalemWise is page-cited AI for civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, surveying and mining firms. It helps engineering firms win work from their own past projects: a suggested bid/no-go score on a new RFQ, each scored factor linked to its sources, an SOQ draft with page citations to check, and a fee build with the fee math done by code. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them. When the archive does not hold the answer, it is designed to say "Nothing on file".

Set up for you: scanned sheets are OCR'd as part of setup, and we connect your network drive, SharePoint or ProjectWise as part of setup. Your team uses it in the browser, or in Microsoft Teams, which we connect during setup. You can try the live demo on public civil engineering documents with no signup.

How do the prices compare?

Nomic publishes four tiers (nomic.ai/pricing): Free; Individual at $20 a month; Business at $40 per user per month with a 25-seat minimum and $20 of included AI usage per seat; and Enterprise at a custom price. Nomic's pricing page describes AI usage as a dollar balance that pays for agent chats, workflows and document indexing at the underlying model rates.

Corpus starts with a $5,000 fixed-price pilot on one real pursuit, about 2 to 3 weeks, credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end. A full deployment is setup from $21,000, then $1,500–$2,000/mo, with no per-user fees.

The table compares list prices only: Nomic Business seats (before any AI usage beyond the included $20 per seat) against Corpus setup plus the monthly range. Larger Corpus scopes and Nomic Enterprise are quoted, so they are left out.

On list price, Nomic Business costs less in year one below roughly 80 to 95 users, and in later years below roughly 38 to 50 users. Above those headcounts, flat pricing costs less. For a small team, Nomic Individual at $20 a month is far cheaper than either.

Where does each one run?

Nomic describes "Nomic-managed, per-tenant hosting on AWS in the EU, AU, US, or UK" and says to "contact sales about other deployment options" (nomic.ai). Its security page says AI processing runs "under zero-data-retention agreements with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Cloud Vertex" (nomic.ai/security).

Corpus runs on your hardware (a local NVIDIA GPU on your network) or ours, with an open-weight model and no public AI API. Set up for you: Corpus is cloud-agnostic. It runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or your own servers. In the pilot, your files are never used to train or fine-tune a model. In full deployment, fine-tuning on your files happens only if you agree in writing.

Which systems do they connect to?

Nomic lists connectors for SharePoint, Egnyte, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Bentley ProjectWise, Trimble ProjectSight, Fieldwire, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Outlook and Gmail (nomic.ai/integrations). Nomic says that if a user can't see a file in SharePoint, they can't see it in Nomic (nomic.ai/security).

Corpus connects to network drives, SharePoint or OneDrive, and ProjectWise during setup. Restricted projects are left out of search for roles that cannot open them. Our SharePoint permissions guide explains how.

What about security reports?

Nomic says it is "SOC 2 Type II certified" and pen-tested annually (nomic.ai/security). SalemWise has no SOC 2 report. If your procurement requires one today, that favors Nomic.

How do you choose?

1. Choose Nomic if you want to start self-serve today, your team works mostly in active drawings and connected project systems (Autodesk, Bentley, Trimble, Egnyte), you are fine with Nomic-managed cloud hosting, or your procurement needs the audit report described in the security section above.
2. Choose Corpus if the value is in past projects: deciding bid/no-go on a new RFQ, drafting an SOQ from what the firm has actually done, and building a fee from past work, with every claim cited to a page someone can check. Also if files must stay on your own hardware, or if your headcount makes per-seat pricing the bigger cost.
3. Run both if drawing review and pursuit work belong to different teams. Nothing about either tool prevents it.

FAQ

Is Corpus a Nomic alternative for engineering firms?

For pursuit work from past projects, yes: Corpus suggests a bid/no-go score, drafts an SOQ with page citations and builds a fee, on your hardware or ours. For self-serve drawing review across active projects, Nomic is built for that.

Which costs less, Nomic or Corpus?

On list price, Nomic Business ($40 per user per month, 25-seat minimum) costs less below roughly 38 to 50 users a year after setup, and Corpus costs less above that, because it has no per-user fees.

Can Corpus run on our own servers?

Yes. Corpus runs on your hardware (a local NVIDIA GPU on your network) or ours. Set up for you: it runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or your own servers.

How do we try Corpus?

Start with a free 30-minute call, then a $5,000 pilot on one real pursuit, credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end.

Next step: book a free 30-minute call about your archive and the pursuit you are chasing, or try the live demo first. More detail on the Corpus page and the $5,000 pilot.

Nomic is a trademark of its owner. SalemWise Solutions is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nomic.

Sources

1. Nomic homepage, nomic.ai: positioning, drawing review, code checks, hosting, citations. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
2. Nomic pricing, nomic.ai/pricing: tiers, prices, seat minimum, AI usage. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
3. Nomic platform, nomic.ai/platform: proposal drafting from past RFP responses. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
4. Nomic Individual plan, nomic.ai/individual: self-serve start. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
5. Nomic integrations, nomic.ai/integrations: connectors. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
6. Nomic security, nomic.ai/security: audit report, AI processing, SharePoint permissions. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
7. Nomic case studies, nomic.ai/case-studies. Reviewed October 10, 2026.
8. Corpus pricing and terms: salemwise.com/solutions/corpus/ and the pilot page.