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Equity Development Strategies LLCOwner’s Independent Cost Estimate
Know what it should cost before the bids come in
An Owner’s estimate is not a price. It is a position you can defend after the award — against the low bid, the change order and the claim — two years later, in front of someone who was not in the room.
Built off the Owner’s own issued documents: every volume read in full, quantities measured to sheet and key note, labour off the prevailing wage determination bound into the contract.
What you get, and what you don't
What lands in your inbox
- The estimate workbook. Sixteen tabs, summaries first and the engine behind them, live formulas, and one total — the face-value pass kept as an audit column that nothing foots to, so every movement stays traceable.
- A Basis of Estimate. Ten numbered sections: pricing basis, quantity basis, markup, allowances and contingency, qualifications, risks, benchmarking, reconciliation. Written to survive the estimator.
- Every line sorted five ways — discipline, location, type of work, funding source, package — so the estimate answers the questions it was not built for.
- Guards computed from the workbook’s own cells, including the count of guards. A guard here can actually fail.
- Bid reconciliation when bids open, A+B handled correctly: the A value is the award price and the like-for-like comparator.
What you won't get
- A bidder’s price. Nothing here is prepared to win work, and no bidder sees it. If you need a number to submit, this is the wrong product.
- A square-foot model dressed as an estimate. Quantities are measured to sheet and key note, and a proxy rate is flagged as a proxy.
- A reconciliation that closes with one adjusting figure. That is a plug, and every reviewer reads it as one. There isn’t one.
- A claim that your low bidder is wrong. Their cost book is not visible. What the arithmetic establishes is whether the room is there.
How it works
- Every volume read in full, before a line is priced Targeted searching finds the scope and misses the obligations. A specification-mandated service has no quantity on any drawing, and a constraint that halves a crew’s output is a sentence in Division 1 — not a number in a schedule.
- Quantities measured, rates sourced and benchmarked Labour off the wage determination bound into the documents, carried verbatim at the rates in effect on the pricing date. Equipment carried as a discrete third cost element rather than buried in material. Staff anchored on the Project Manager, every other position an explicit ratio of it.
- Three independent reviews, then revisions The first build is never the finished estimate. Three reviewers with different lenses — oversights, scope and quantities against the documents, arithmetic and internal consistency — work without sight of the estimator’s reasoning. Findings are verified before they are reported and issued as revisions with a variance that ties.
- Issued as one matched set, and held after the award Workbook, Basis of Estimate and transmittal go out together. When bids open, the award is run backwards to its implied direct cost and compared to direct work — not to the craft lines alone.
Four ways an Owner's estimate goes wrong
These are the findings that recur. Every one of them is checked on your estimate before the independent reviews even start.
| The error | Where it lives | Effect on the number |
|---|---|---|
| Sell factor added instead of compounded OH&P, bonds and insurance, and escalation are each charged on the one below. Adding them is arithmetically a different operation, and the error grows with the estimate. | Markup basis | understates every line |
| Fund-paid supplements burdened The formula is wage × (1 + burden) + supplement. Supplements paid to funds are never burdened. Reverse the order and the whole craft build-up inflates. | Wage schedule | overstates every craft line |
| Craft vs staff mistaken for direct work vs general conditions The split that matters is what the money buys. Attic stock, mockups, testing of the work, access plant and abatement allowances are direct work whatever crew type they carry. | Reconciliation | confident, false findings |
| Contingency and allowance carried for the same work An allowance is an obligation certain with an unmeasured amount. Contingency is design not yet fixed, and at the bid-document rung it is zero. | Allowances | double-counted |
| Staff durations that stop at Substantial Completion Division 1 positions run to Final Completion. The Construction Agreement article that fixes the gap is what sets the term, and a guard that compares a cell with itself will not catch the shortfall. | General conditions | short by the gap |
| Sales tax taken on material only With no exemption certificate in the documents, contractor equipment is taxed too, grossed up for the design contingency that will become material, plus the rental share of temporary plant. | Pricing basis | understated base |
A benchmark tab that says “within band” beside a value outside it is worse than no benchmark tab. Every guard verdict on your workbook — and the count of guards — is computed from the workbook’s own cells, so none of them can pass vacuously.
What your estimate costs
Price is set by one number you already have: the estimated construction value. Flat fee per project, confirmed in writing before work begins. No hourly billing and no change orders.
Your price
No quote to wait for. Move the slider to your project value.
How the number is set
Four tiers against the construction value you expect, not against the hours it takes me. The turnaround runs from receipt of a complete document set.
Priced with the engagement — bid reconciliation when bids open,
change-order and Force Account reference positions, review of an estimate someone else prepared,
addendum impact revisions.
Bids already opened? Say so and the reconciliation is scoped with the estimate rather
than after it.
On a $10M project the Major tier is 0.15% of construction value — less than the cost of one change order argued without a position to argue from.
Know what it should cost before the bids come in
Send the project or solicitation number, the date you need the estimate, and a link to the full document set — every volume, not a summary. You get the confirmed tier, the fee and the date back the same business day.
Prefer to write? Put the project number, the date you need it and a document link in an email to the address above. Same reply, same day.