Tools
Free tender tools.
Check whether the municipality pays, price your BoQ, and generate the health-and-safety documents a South African tender demands. No subscription, no sign-up — everything runs in your browser.
Pricing & tendering
BoQ Pricer
Import a PDF, CSV or Excel BoQ, apply SA construction rate benchmarks, adjust per item, and export a priced BoQ as .xlsx.
Open tool →P&G Calculator Pack
Twelve Excel workbooks - a master build-up, a JBCC Bill No. 1, an NEC4 activity schedule and nine single-job calculators - with guides on extensions of time, guarantees, scaffolding and site utilities.
Open tool →Measurement Calculator Pack
Four Excel takeoff workbooks - structural steel tonnage, a road and earthworks measure, rebar schedule tonnage and bolt mass - with step-by-step measuring guides and the ASAQS, SAISC, COTO and SANS references.
Open tool →Elemental Estimate
Split a concept-stage building budget by element — substructure, frame, roof, finishes, services — as R/m² and % of cost. Export to Excel.
Open tool →Plant Selector
Enter the cubes to move and the type of work. Get the machine class, the hours it will take, the dig cost, and whether to hire it or own it.
Open tool →Health & safety compliance
Method Statement Generator
Build a safe-work method statement — scope, procedure, PPE, supervision and emergency procedures — from one of eight trade templates. Export as text.
Open tool →HIRA Risk Assessment Generator
Build a HIRA register with common construction hazards and controls one click away, aligned to the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014. Export as text.
Open tool →Free to use · runs in your browser · no sign-up, no data stored.
Which tool, at which stage
Use the elemental estimate while the design is still moving. It takes a total budget and splits it across substructure, frame, roof, finishes and services, so you can see whether the money matches the building being drawn. Use the BoQ pricer once a bill of quantities exists: it reads the bill, suggests a benchmark rate for each line, and gives you a priced bill to refine with your own quotes. The two answer different questions, and using the pricer on a concept design gives false precision.
The compliance generators belong with the tender submission and then with the site file. A method statement explains how a specific task will be done safely; a HIRA lists the hazards on the project, rates them and records the controls. Both should be adapted to the actual site and signed by the people responsible, not submitted as generic templates.
From a priced bill to a complete tender
A competitive price can still be disqualified on paperwork. On South African public-sector tenders, the returnable documents commonly include:
- Proof of registration on the National Treasury Central Supplier Database (CSD)
- A valid SARS tax compliance status, usually by PIN
- CIDB registration at the grade and class of works the tender requires
- A B-BBEE certificate or sworn affidavit to claim preference points
- The standard bidding documents, such as the declaration of interest and the preference points claim form
- A letter of good standing under COIDA
- The health and safety documents the tender specifies, often including a method statement and risk assessment
Read the tender data and the returnable schedules line by line before you price. Private-sector tenders vary more, but most ask for some of the same evidence. The guide to pricing a construction tender covers the build-up from direct cost to the submitted price, and CIDB grading explained covers which tenders your grade allows you to bid for.
What happens to your data
The tools run in your browser. A bill you import into the BoQ pricer is read on your own device and is not uploaded or stored by Setout, and the same applies to the method statements and risk assessments you build. When you close the page, the work is gone unless you have exported it, so export before you leave.