Real numbers from real projects across Auckland. Your final cost will depend on scope, specification level, site conditions, and design complexity. The ranges below come straight from our own dataset.
Auckland’s renovation industry has a pricing problem. Not dishonesty. A system that produces inaccurate numbers and hands you the risk. Three mechanisms drive nearly every budget blowout.
The one-page estimate. Most builders price from memory. Framing, excavation, round numbers, a long list of exclusions. The lowest number wins the job. When detailed drawings arrive months later, the price shifts by $400,000 to $500,000.
The PC sum trap. Prime Cost sums are placeholder allowances for fittings not yet selected. They’re almost always set too low. A typical kitchen or bathroom specification can double or triple the allowance.
Phantom contingency. Many builders include no contingency at all. Others offer a vague buffer that gets consumed by their own pricing errors before it ever covers a genuine unknown. You pay for the builder’s inaccuracy and call it “scope creep.”
Every YOURBUILDER project feeds the pricing dataset. The team logs hours against specific accounting codes every day. Roof framing, wall framing, cavity battens, cladding, roofing, insulation, flooring. After each project we pull the data into spreadsheets that track hours per task and cost per square metre.
This is real project pricing. We price new projects against actual costs from 273 Auckland builds (as of 2026), not from memory of the last job. Material prices in our master pricing template get cross-checked three times a year against Placemakers, Carters, and Bunnings. Subcontractor rates are priced against actuals too. Internal painting costs $85 per square metre because the data consistently shows it.
The result. Cost variance of 1 to 3% against actual. Without a system like this, a builder is guessing from the last job. That’s how a price ends up $35,000 to $40,000 short, with no record of where the money went.
Stage 1. Concept design pricing. Right after the first concept drawings, our QS team produces detailed costing from the master pricing template. Two-layer contingency built in. It stops you falling in love with a design you can’t afford. It prevents the $100,000-on-detailed-plans-you-can’t-build scenario.
Stage 2. Detailed drawing pricing. Once the drawings are complete, we reprice the entire project with engineering, geotechnical reports, and structural steel factored in. Assumptions become specifications. This is your sign-off pricing before council consent.
Stage 3. Ongoing variation pricing. During the build, scope changes trigger formal variations through the CoConstruct portal. Budgets auto-update. Every variation is digitally signed off before work proceeds. The price adjustment is visible immediately. No surprise bills at project end.
Our interior designer joins the project during the design stage, well before construction begins. She presents options for every fitting. Taps, baths, toilets, tiles (including grout and silicone colour), kitchen, bathroom, whiteware, lighting, towel rails. Each category comes as three tiers (budget, mid-range, high-end) inside the CoConstruct portal. You select your preferences. Prices auto-update in the budget in real time.
CEO Hamid Zwart calls this “second-tier pricing accuracy.” When fittings are specified early, contingency requirements drop. A 10% contingency becomes 8%. A 15% contingency becomes 10%. The budget locks to your actual selections, not guesswork.
“A kitchen ranges from $45,000 to $95,000 depending on specification. Without early selection, the PC sum sits at the low end. The blowout is inevitable.”
Layer 1. In-price contingency at 10%. Built into the contract price. Covers variance on materials and in-house labour. Visible in the portal and tracked against actual usage through the build. Not a slush fund. A transparent, disclosed buffer.
Layer 2. Above-price contingency at 5 to 25%. Calibrated to project type. Standard extension around 10%. Villa renovation (borer, old wiring, lack of bracing) 20 to 25%. Rock-breaking areas like Epsom higher still. New builds 5 to 15%. The more that’s specified before construction, the less risk remains to buffer against.
Proof from a recent project. On a $3.5 million build, total contingency was set at $375,000. Only $110,000 was used. The remaining $265,000 stayed with the homeowner. The honest promise. “If we come in under this price, we’ve done you proud.”
Cost-Plus-Margin (default and preferred). You pay the actual costs of labour and materials, plus our margin. Every dollar visible in the CoConstruct portal in real time. The final cost typically comes in lower, because our real project data sidesteps the inflated contingency premium fixed-price builders embed to protect themselves. The documentation meets construction-lender requirements.
Fixed-Price-Plus (price certainty option). Price is fixed for everything visible on plans and confirmed during site visits. The “plus” covers variations or scope changes. Features you add, and hidden variables discovered once walls are opened (borer, timber rot, lack of bracing).
Common to both. Certified Builders contracts only, Halo 10-Year Guarantee, full CoConstruct portal transparency, two-layer contingency, priced from our own dataset.
Our cost-plus-margin proposals have never been rejected by a bank or construction lender. The detailed costing and built-in contingency give banks what they need to approve financing. Other builders using the same contract type often face rejection, because their documentation lacks the depth lenders look for.
With early concept design pricing, you can approach your bank for construction finance months earlier than the usual builder’s rough estimate allows. Financing gets locked in while detailed drawings and council consent run in parallel. You save months of dead time. We can also write a fixed-price contract if your bank specifically asks for one.
Most builders price from memory or from their last job. Without a systematic dataset, their numbers carry significant variance. Pricing from real project data works differently. Every YOURBUILDER team member logs hours against specific accounting codes daily, covering every construction task from roof framing to flooring. That data feeds our master pricing template, which tracks the actual cost per square metre for every task. When our in-house Quantity Surveyor prices a new project, they work through the template line by line. They cross-reference current material prices against major suppliers. The output is a detailed proposal with variance far below what traditional methods produce.
An estimate is a rough calculation based on experience and memory. Often a single page. No contractual weight. A quote is a number, more formal, but often still lacks the transparency to show how it was calculated. A Concept Design Pricing document is a detailed costing produced from our master pricing template, grounded in decades of real project data. It includes line-by-line breakdowns of every material, labour rate, and hire cost, a two-layer contingency structure, and documentation detailed enough for bank approval. The difference between a guess, a number, and a fully transparent financial plan.
Cost-plus-margin means you pay the actual cost of labour and materials plus our margin. With an inexperienced builder, this can be risky. Inaccurate pricing leads to cost overruns that you absorb. The dynamic with us is different. Our real project data consistently delivers accurate pricing. Cost-plus-margin clients avoid the inflated contingency premiums that fixed-price builders embed to cover their own pricing errors. The final cost typically comes in lower than a fixed-price contract. Both contract types are supported by documentation detailed enough for lender approval.
Our Concept Design Pricing satisfies bank requirements months earlier than a competitor’s rough numbers. Once complete, you approach your bank for construction finance while detailed drawings and council consent run in parallel. You save months of waiting. Both contract types (cost-plus-margin and fixed-price-plus) are supported by documentation detailed enough for lender approval. If your bank specifically requires a fixed-price contract, we can provide one.
There are two distinct categories. Variations are changes you initiate. Adding a feature, changing a specification. These get handled through the CoConstruct portal: the price adjustment is shown before work begins, you sign off digitally, no work proceeds without approval. Contingency covers genuine unknowns. Things discovered once walls are opened, such as borer damage, old wiring, or structural issues in older homes. Our two-layer contingency is calibrated to the risk profile of each project type. When the actual unknowns are fewer than budgeted, the unused contingency stays with you.
Yes. This is exactly what Concept Design Pricing delivers. Most builders can’t or won’t price at the concept stage because they lack the historical data to do so accurately. Homeowners in this situation often spend six figures on detailed architectural plans before discovering the build exceeds budget by half a million dollars. Our own dataset allows our in-house Quantity Surveyor to produce detailed costing from concept drawings alone. This standalone service is available for $1,500 to $3,000, refundable if we’re engaged for the build.
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