Why run a cost plan before tender?

A guide from Costd for architects. Read time 4 minutes.

Most jobs that die at tender were over budget months earlier. Nobody knew because nobody priced the drawings until the builders did. By then the documents are finished, the client has paid for them, and the only lever left is cutting things out of a design that was never set up to lose them.

What a cost plan is for

A cost plan is not a quote. It is an independent estimate of what the drawings will cost to build, broken down by trade, with the allowances named. Its job is to tell you, while the design can still move, whether the project and the budget are the same project.

When to run one

Three points pay for themselves. At concept, a range tells the client whether the brief and the budget belong together. At design development, a trade-by-trade plan shows where the money sits, usually glazing, joinery, structure and site. Before tender, a pre-tender plan sets the number the tenders will be judged against and lists the provisional sums and prime cost allowances for the documents.

What it should contain

• A total with a stated confidence band, not a single falsely precise number.
• Every trade marked priced, allowance or excluded. Empty rows are where blowouts hide.
• Provisional sums with a reason each one cannot be priced yet.
• Preliminaries and margin shown, not buried.
• The drivers: the three or four decisions moving the number most.
• The drawing revision it was priced from.

What it saves

A late redesign costs fees, time and client goodwill. A cost plan at design development costs a fraction of one redesign, and it gives you something to show the client when you are asked why the budget needs to move, or why the design does.

What we do

Costd cost plans are priced from a builder’s own library of finished houses, not a rate book, and come back in 48 hours at a fixed fee. See the architect products or apply for a Founding 5 place and run the first one free.

This guide is general information from a registered builder, not legal or financial advice. More guides · Pricing