The tender that came back far too high
The design is finished, planning is approved and the technical drawings are out to tender. The builders' prices come back, and all of them are well above what the clients said they could spend. Now the practice has to value-engineer: smaller glazing, cheaper cladding, the second bathroom removed. The clients are disappointed, the practice does unpaid redesign, and the builder the clients liked is no longer affordable.
Looking back, the budget and the brief never matched. Everyone half knew, but nobody had evidence strong enough to say so at stage 1.
Why the evidence is missing when it matters
Architects are not cost consultants, and on larger projects a quantity surveyor should be involved. But on many domestic and small commercial projects there is no cost consultant early on, and the conversation about cost falls to the architect. The best evidence the practice has is its own past projects: tender returns, contract sums and final accounts. That evidence is in PDFs, spreadsheets and email attachments, organised by job number, not by project type or size.
- Past tender returns and final accounts are not collected in one place.
- Costs are not recorded against project type, floor area or specification.
- Early conversations rely on memory and general rules of thumb.
- Clients hear figures from friends and websites that do not match their project.
What a late budget reality check costs
Redesign after tender is usually unpaid, and it lands at the worst time. Clients lose confidence in the practice even when the cause was their own brief. Some projects stop altogether, taking the remaining fee with them. And without better evidence, the same conversation happens on the next job.
A cost reference built from your own projects
- We collect tender returns, contract sums and final accounts from your completed projects, from wherever they are stored.
- Each project is recorded with its type, gross internal area, location, specification level, date and key features, such as basement, extensive glazing or listed building work.
- Figures are adjusted to a common date using a published building cost index, where you choose to, with the adjustment clearly shown.
- When a new project starts, the architect enters its type, size and features and sees comparable past projects with their outcomes.
- Comparables can be shared with the client in a simple, clearly caveated summary, which makes the budget conversation about evidence rather than opinion.
- Tender returns on new projects are added as they arrive, so the reference grows with every job.
This is a reference of what your own past projects cost, not an estimate for the new one. It supports the conversation, and it does not replace a cost consultant where a project needs one.
What the reference shows
| Comparable | Type | Area | Adjusted outcome | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past project A | Rear extension | Similar | From your records | Extensive glazing |
| Past project B | Rear extension | Similar | From your records | Standard specification |
| Past project C | Extension and loft | Larger | From your records | Conservation area |
The structure is illustrative. The figures would be your own.
Budget conversations at stage 1, not stage 5
The architect can say, early and with evidence, that projects like this one have come in at a certain level in your experience, and let the client decide whether to adjust the brief, the budget or both. Clients who proceed do so with open eyes. And the practice spends its design time on schemes that have a real chance of being built.
Does this happen on your projects?
- Tender returns regularly exceed the client's budget.
- You redesign after tender more often than you would like.
- Past project costs are in PDFs filed by job number.
- Early cost conversations rely on rules of thumb.