A construction budget lists every project cost by cost code, adds a contingency, and tracks budget against actual. The example below prices a 2,000 sq ft home line by line. Download it as a template and swap in your numbers.
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Direct costs become part of the structure: labor, lumber, concrete, subs. Indirect costs support the job without becoming part of it: permits, supervision, insurance.
Build the budget in the same order as the job. Each step fills one part of the template.
Lock size, specs and finish level, and list what’s excluded. Vague scope is where overruns start.
Take off quantities from the drawings and get subcontractor bids for each cost code.
Add soft costs and general conditions, then reserve 5–10% for unknowns.
Post actual costs to each code at every draw. Act on a variance while it’s still small.
Divide the total by the square footage and compare it with recent local bids before you commit to a number.
Smaller jobs carry a bigger contingency. Commercial work shifts budget into MEP. The template handles both.
See budgeting in Buildend →In Buildend, POs, change orders and invoices post to their cost codes, so budget vs. actual updates as the job runs.
See how Buildend tracks budgets →Hard costs, soft costs, general conditions and a contingency, each split into line items by cost code. Every line tracks a budget, an actual and a variance.
Define the scope, price every line from takeoffs and subcontractor bids, add indirect costs and a contingency, then track actual costs against each line at every draw.
It depends on location, design and finishes. The example above totals $605,000, about $302.50 per sq ft, excluding land. Get local bids for your project.
A personal-finance rule: 70% of income for living costs, 10% for savings, 10% for investing and 10% for giving or debt. It is not a construction rule. Construction budgets reserve a 5–10% contingency instead.
Commonly 5–10% for new construction and 10–20% for remodels, where hidden conditions are more likely.
Yes. The Buildend construction budget template is free in Excel and PDF, with the example figures included.