Estimating and quoting for UK builders

From site measurements to a professional quote.

Enter your labour rates once. Answer a short set of questions about the job — on your phone, on site. BuildLegend works out the materials and labour, prices them, applies your margins, and gives you a branded quote your customer can accept online.

No price book to build. No spreadsheet to maintain. Every number is traceable to a measurement, a rate or a dated price.

1

Your rates, once

A blended hourly rate is enough to start. Add rates by trade and charge-out rates when you want them. Cost and charge are always kept apart, so profit is never applied twice.

2

A short, guided job

Dimensions, roof, walls, openings, finish. Say "I don't know" to anything specialist and it becomes a visible assumption on the quote, not a silent guess.

3

A quote you can stand behind

Bill of materials, labour hours, provisional sums, exclusions and VAT — reviewed by you, then sent as a PDF and a secure page the customer can accept.

Live worked example

A 4m × 5m rear extension, priced by the engine right now

Fictional job, platform catalogue prices, default labour rate. Every figure below comes from the same deterministic engine your quotes use — no AI guesses.

FICTIONAL DEMO · Single-storey extension · 16.3 m² internal
£56,380.80
inc. VAT at 20% · £46,984.00 before VAT · about £2,886.00/m²
Materials (64 lines, catalogue allowances dated 2026-09-24)£13,900.90Labour (550 person-hours at a blended £30/hr)£16,495.05Provisional allowances (4)£4,435.00Plant£695.00Overheads 10% + contingency 5%£5,328.90Profit (15% markup)£6,128.23
BIGGEST WORK PACKAGES (AT COST)
Roof£6,054.20Windows & external doors£5,210.00External walls£5,133.10Structural elements£4,380.00Floors£2,238.40Excavation & foundations£2,098.25
1 assumptions that could move the price are listed on the quote, e.g. “Openings over 2.7m wide may need an engineer-specified lintel or steel; a heavy-duty catal…”

Open the full worked example →

Supported projects

Each build type is a template with its own questions, quantities and provisional items. Every template says what it prices, what it carries as an allowance, and what it leaves out.

Single-storey extension

Rear or side extension on one level — kitchen-diners, living rooms, utility rooms.

Wraparound extension

Rear extension plus a side return, joined into one L-shaped space.

Two-storey extension

Ground floor plus a bedroom or bathroom above, tied into the existing house.

Detached garage

Single or double garage standing on its own.

Attached garage

Single or double garage built against the house.

Garage with office above

Double garage with a home office or studio on the first floor.

Garage with self-contained flat above

Double garage with a separate flat above — its own access, services and fire separation.

Carport

Open-sided or partly enclosed roof over parking, on posts and pads.

Conservatory or orangery

Glazed room on a dwarf wall. Frames and glazed roof are supplier quotations; the base, walls and trades are priced.

Garden room / home office

Insulated, heated garden building on a slab — office, gym or studio.

Garage conversion

Turn an existing attached garage into a habitable room: infill the door, insulate, line, heat and finish.

What each template covers →

Honest about prices

Material prices come from your own price book first, then from BuildLegend's dated catalogue allowances. Every line says which. A price that isn't available stays visibly unpriced — it never becomes £0, and it never becomes a fake "live" price.

How pricing works →

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