BoQ Pricer
Import a BoQ as PDF, CSV or Excel, or enter items manually. We’ll suggest rates from SA construction benchmarks. Adjust, and export the priced BoQ as .xlsx. Free to use — no subscription, no sign-up.
| # | Description | Unit | Quantity | Rate (R) | Amount (R) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | R 0.00 |
Benchmark rates drawn from published SA construction cost data. Apply location factors for your province, and always verify against current market rates. Figures are planning-stage estimates, not a quote.
How the pricer reads your bill
A spreadsheet import looks on every sheet for a header row with description, quantity and unit columns, so a bill split into one sheet per trade comes in whole and the cover and summary sheets are left out. Only rows with a description, a quantity and a unit are kept. Headings and clause narrative drop away. PDF import reads the text line by line and is best-effort, so check every row it brings in.
Where a line has no rate, the pricer matches the description against its benchmark list and suggests one. Open the rate benchmarks panel to see each range and its source.
Before you submit the price
Benchmark rates are a starting point, not your rate. Replace them with supplier and subcontractor quotes where you have them, and adjust for your province and site. The subtotal here is the measured work only. Preliminaries and general, overhead, profit and contingency go on top. Price the preliminaries bill with the P&G calculator pack, then check the total mark-up in the tender pricing calculator. The guide to reading a tender BoQ covers provisional sums, PC sums and the pricing traps to look for.
Checking a priced bill before it goes in
Check the arithmetic first: every quantity multiplied by its rate, every page total carried to the summary, and the summary added up. Then sort the bill by value. A small number of items usually make up most of the price, and those are the rates to test against current supplier and subcontractor quotes. Look for lines left blank. Many tender conditions treat an unpriced item as included elsewhere, so a blank line can mean doing the work for nothing.
Watch the units. A rate per m³ applied to a quantity in m², or a rate per tonne applied to kilograms, produces an amount that looks plausible on its own and is badly wrong. The pricer keeps each line’s unit beside its rate so mismatches are easy to spot; scan the unit column once before you export.
Finally, compare the total with a top-down figure. Divide the measured work by the floor area and compare it with the rate per m² for the building type and city in the cost data. A large difference is not necessarily wrong, but you should be able to explain it before you submit.