Breaking a Job Down Before You Price It

Where the numbers start slipping

Most cost breakdowns fall apart before anyone's even opened the drawings properly. You get handed a package, a deadline, and a client who wants a number by Friday, so the temptation is to price it off a gut feel. Every shortcut taken at this stage gets carried straight through to the final account, usually as a loss.

Start with what you've actually been given

Before you measure a single item, go through the drawings and the specification page by page. Note what's missing, what's marked "to be confirmed", and where the drawings and spec contradict each other. Any gap here becomes an assumption you have to price around, and unpriced assumptions are where arguments start six months into the job.

Break it down by element, not by guesswork

Once you know what's actually being priced, split the job into elements using NRM2 so the breakdown lines up with how the job will eventually be measured and valued. Substructure, superstructure, external works, services, all kept separate. Measure it this way and when a variation lands mid-contract, you can point straight to the element it sits under instead of arguing about where it belongs.

Price each element on its own merits

Labour, plant, materials and overheads get priced against the element they actually belong to, not lumped into one round figure. This is the part that takes real time, and it's the part that gets skipped when the tender deadline is tight. Skip it and you're carrying risk you never priced for in the first place.

Check it before it goes out the door

Before submission, run back through the breakdown against the drawings one more time. Check quantities against the schedule, check nothing's priced twice, check nothing's been missed off entirely. A second pass at this stage catches the errors that would otherwise surface as a loss further down the job.

This is the process we run on every cost plan and estimate we put together for contractors and subcontractors, built on 25+ years contractor-side. If you want a breakdown built properly rather than rushed, send your drawings and we'll take it from there.

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