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Insight · Choosing software

What construction software
actually costs.

The monthly figure is the part everyone compares and the smallest part of the bill. Setup, migration, the annual uplift, and the licences you ration because they are charged per person.

Published ·6 min read·Written by Unibuild

The monthly licence is the part everyone compares and rarely the largest number. A realistic figure for the first year includes the licence, implementation or setup, data migration, training time taken from people who are also doing their jobs, and the annual uplift written into the renewal. Ask for all five before comparing anything.

The four pricing models, and what each one does to you

Almost every product in this market prices one of four ways, and the model matters more than the headline rate because it decides how the bill behaves as you grow.

  1. Per user, per month. The most common. Simple to compare and it scales with headcount, which sounds fair until you notice it also scales with the number of people you would like to have looking at the system.
  2. Tiered by user bands. Same idea with steps. Watch the step edges: adding one person can move you a whole band, and the effective cost per user jumps at exactly the point you were not planning for it.
  3. Per project or per active job. Fits businesses with a few large projects and punishes those with many small ones. Ask specifically what counts as active and when a job stops being counted, because a finished job that stays billable for a year is a common and unpleasant surprise.
  4. Flat fee for the organisation. One figure, usually sized to the modules you use rather than to headcount. Predictable, and it removes the incentive to limit who logs in.

Where the rest of the money is

Four costs that are real, that are frequently not in the quoted figure, and that a buyer should ask about explicitly.

  • Implementation or onboarding. Sometimes a one-off fee, sometimes a mandatory professional services package. It can be a substantial fraction of the first year and it is not always mentioned until the contract stage.
  • Data migration. Getting your existing jobs, subcontractors, assets and history into the system. Ask whether it is included, what exactly is migrated, and what happens to the things that are not. "You can start fresh" is a real answer, but it is a cost in disguise, because somebody will be looking things up in the old system for two years.
  • Your own people's time. The cost nobody puts in the business case and the largest one in most implementations. A fortnight of a contracts manager's attention has a value, and it is spent whether or not it appears on an invoice.
  • The annual uplift. Read the renewal clause. An uplift of inflation plus a few per cent, compounding, changes the three year figure considerably, and a contract that permits unilateral repricing at renewal is worth negotiating at signature rather than discovering later.

Why per-user pricing changes behaviour

This deserves its own section because it is the effect buyers least anticipate and it is not really about money.

When every login has a price, somebody in the business becomes responsible for deciding who does not get one. That decision is always made the same way: the office gets licences, and site does not, or the four people who use it constantly get licences and the eleven who would use it occasionally do not.

What follows is predictable. The people without access carry on with paper or WhatsApp, and somebody with a licence retypes their information into the system. The system now holds a version of what happened, entered by somebody who was not there, a day or two late. Every report drawn from it inherits that delay and that distance from the work.

The cost of the rationed licences was never the licence fee. It was that the data stopped being a record of the job and became a summary of the job, and the summary is what you then run the business on.

A firm that rations logins to control a bill ends up paying one person to retype everybody else's work. That is a more expensive way to save money than it looks.

What to ask any vendor, including us

Seven questions. They are short, they are all answerable in a sentence, and the ones a vendor is reluctant to answer plainly tell you as much as the answers.

  1. What is the total first-year cost, including setup, migration and training?
  2. What is the renewal price in years two and three, and what governs the uplift?
  3. Does the price change if we put everybody on it, including site?
  4. What exactly is migrated from our current system, and what is not?
  5. How long until we are actually using it, not until the account is created?
  6. If we leave, what do we get back, in what format, and how quickly?
  7. What does it not do that we will still be doing in a spreadsheet?

That last one is the most useful question in any software demo, and a vendor who cannot answer it either does not know their product or is not going to tell you.

Whether it is worth it at all

Set against the licence, the comparison is not the software's cost against zero. It is the software's cost against what the current arrangement is already costing, which is usually invisible because it is spread across people's time and the odd bad month.

The honest components: hours spent assembling a position that a system would produce, applications that went in late or unsupported and were paid short, retention that was never chased because nobody held the date, plant hired twice because nobody could find the first one, and the cost of a claim you could not evidence. Most firms can put a number on at least two of those from last year without much effort. If that number is smaller than the annual licence, the answer is genuinely no, and a vendor telling you otherwise is selling rather than advising.

Where this touches the platform

Since the page asks the questions, here are our answers to them. Unibuild is a flat monthly fee sized to the modules you use, never per person, so putting every director, QS, contracts manager and operative on it does not change the bill and there is no reason to ration logins. No setup fee and no VAT added. Implementation is about two weeks for most firms with data migration included in the figure, run in phases rather than as one switch, with a sandbox so people can get it wrong somewhere that does not matter. It is not an accounting system and it does not file your tax, so your accounts package stays. The whole figure is quoted in writing before you commit.

Pricing How implementation works All modules and features Integrations

Where to start, on Monday

Before you look at a single product, write down two numbers: how many people would touch the system if licences were free, and what last year's avoidable losses came to across late applications, uncollected retention and lost plant. The first tells you which pricing model suits you. The second tells you what you can sensibly spend.

Then take the seven questions above into every demo and write the answers down. Vendors sound remarkably similar in a demo and remarkably different on that list.

Asked most often

The follow-up questions.

Our own figure and what it includes is on the pricing page, and the rollout on how implementation works.

How much does construction management software cost in the UK?+
It depends far more on the pricing model than on the product. Most vendors charge per user per month, in tiered user bands, per active project, or as a flat fee for the organisation. The quoted licence is rarely the whole bill: a realistic first-year figure also includes implementation or setup, data migration, your own people's time, and the annual uplift written into the renewal clause.
What are the hidden costs of construction software?+
Four: an implementation or onboarding fee that may be a mandatory professional services package, data migration that may or may not be included, the internal cost of your own team's time during rollout, and the annual uplift at renewal. The internal time is usually the largest and is almost never in the business case, because it never appears on an invoice.
Is per-user pricing a problem for a construction firm?+
It creates a decision about who does not get access, and that decision is usually made against site. The people without licences continue on paper or WhatsApp and somebody with a licence retypes their information in, a day or two late and second hand. The data becomes a summary of the job rather than a record of it, and every report inherits that. The real cost is not the licence fee.
What should I ask a construction software vendor about price?+
The total first-year cost including setup, migration and training; the renewal price in years two and three and what governs the uplift; whether the price changes if everyone including site is on it; exactly what is migrated and what is not; how long until you are actually using it; what you get back if you leave and in what format; and what the product does not do that you will still be doing in a spreadsheet.
How do I work out whether construction software is worth it?+
Compare it against what the current arrangement already costs rather than against zero. Add up last year's hours spent assembling a position a system would produce, applications paid short because they were late or unsupported, retention never chased because nobody held the date, plant hired twice, and any claim you could not evidence. If that total is smaller than the annual licence, the honest answer is that you do not need it yet.
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