Tools

Calculators that run on
your numbers, not ours.

Four working calculators for the arithmetic that decides whether a residential job makes money. Each one takes your own rates, percentages and contract terms, because a figure you did not supply is a figure someone invented. Nothing is gated, nothing is downloaded, and every tool links to the reference that explains the concept behind it.

Margin and markup calculator Browse the resources

01 / The tools

Every calculator

Small, exact and useful on a live job. More are added when they earn their place rather than to fill a grid.

Margin and markup calculator

Convert margin to markup and back, and work out the sell price your own cost and rate produce, with the gross profit each one actually returns.

Construction retention calculator

Retention held on one claim and cumulative retention against the contract, using your own rate and cap, with the split between practical completion and the end of the defects liability period.

Progress claim calculator

Build a claim from work completed, approved variations and credits, withhold retention at your own rate, add GST at the rate you apply, and see the claim total and the contract position.

Construction cost calculator

A build cost estimate from your own rate per square metre, your own areas, your site costs, allowances, contingency and margin. No benchmark rates supplied, every figure is one you enter.

02 / How these are built

Three rules behind every tool here

Most construction calculators on the internet are lead capture with a text box attached. They pre-fill a rate nobody can source, produce a number that looks authoritative, and ask for an email address before showing it. These are built the other way around.

  • Your figures, never ours. Every rate, percentage, cap and margin is entered by you. The build cost calculator in particular ships no dollars per square metre, because the honest rate for your next job is the one your last job produced, not a national average with a decade of scatter in it.
  • The tool computes, the reference explains. Each calculator sits beside a knowledge node that covers the concept properly. The tool does the arithmetic and stops. If you want to understand why retention exists or how margin behaves across a whole business, the knowledge library is where that lives.
  • The maths is exact and the caveats are stated. Nothing here is estimated by a model. Where a number depends on your contract or your tax position, the page says so rather than presenting an answer that only holds in one state or one accounting setup. All of it is general information, and the contract and your accountant remain the authority on your own job.

Between them the four cover the money trail a residential builder actually walks. You price the job with a margin, you claim it in stages, retention is withheld along the way, and the whole thing starts from a rate you should be able to defend. The resources library covers the checklist side of the same work.

The same arithmetic, running on the live job.

A calculator is a snapshot you retype every time. VIABUILD holds the rates, the claim schedule and the retention terms once, then keeps budget, committed cost, claims and forecast margin current as the job moves.

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