Buildpartner Reviews

Easy to use one stop shop for project estimation and management

There is nothing really to dislike about the system

Buildpartner makes construction cost estimating possible for those with no prior experience. The industry guards their construction costs and labour prices a close kept secret, and it's incredibly hard to begin putting a costing plan together with confidence without it. Buildparter allows users to intuitively, build a cost plan room by room, floor by floor, and gives accurate pricing for both material and labour costs for all. Their standardised templates give every user a huge first step, with a set of tools to easily edit and adjust as needed from there on. It is so much easier to edit a first draft, than build one from scratch. And this is what Buildpartners offers flawlessly.

There are limited templates for Moderns Method of Construction (MMC) approaches such as Timber frame or SIP. It is mostly weighted towards renovation and extension projects rather than complete new builds. material costs can take a while to update, and has no live direct links to merchant or supplier store pricing. Menas every price needs to be checked and adjusted as needed.

It is a really easy to use interface and works well on all modern browsers.

It takes a lot of time to tweak it to work in a similar way to what I require. It also doesn't allow me to show costs in the way that I would like.

It's simplicity to use and the ability as an Architect, to be able to provide clients with outline costs for the various design options from early concept design all the way through to completion. In addition, the cost database provides an invaluable tool to test and evaluate costs across a range of residential project sizes and scopes, aiding in that role of Contract Administrator

As with any information database, it is constantly being expanded and built upon. As such, we have come across items of work, often very bespoke and often very few, that are not accounted for. Saying that, in these instances the Buildpartner team has tried to find a reasonable cost or advised on a reasonable provisional sum to include

I like how BuildPartner provides quick cost plans from a small amount of effort. Key in the areas within your building, fine tune the proposed works and you can get cost plan information at three different levels of budget. I like how the costing information is updated using data from builders local to the area as well.

I haven't quite got to grips with how to get builders to price through the platform.

Buildpartner is a valuable resource within the practice. It is accessible, user-friendly and gives the practice confidence when providing domestic clients with indicative costings in the early design stages.

Buildpartner will sometimes make generic assumptions, particularly with regards to retrofit/refurbishment works, that you need to keep an eye on. If Buildpartner's assumptions are incorrect it can have dramatic implications on projected build costs.

The platform is very easy to use, and it allows me to quickly put together an outline cost plan for a property renovation or extension at a much earlier design stage than I did before. Basically from a floor plan sketch design. This means I can give my clients a realistic idea of build costs at a very early stage before we've invested lots of time and money in fully developing a design. It gives us a 'sense check' we are on the right track before developing the design further. I also like the support I get from the team. If I ever have a question about using the platform, they are very proactive at getting back to me.

Nothing immediately springs to mind. I really like the platform.

Im still working it out so too early to tell

Prices initially seem high but [sensitive content hidden] has been good in explaininh how this works

The product is very easy to use and new staff can easily pick it up. We've been waiting for this type of software for a long time and use it on a weekly basis especially during the early stage of a project or when pitching for new clients.

I don't think there are any faults to be honest. Customer support is amazing and what I like is that if there is an issue or something missing, they can add it immediately.

We use the software regularly to prepare fee proposals. It is incredibly easy to use and fast. You will have a preliminary cost estimate(stage 1) in one hour and a detailed one (stage 3) in a couple of hours.
The people behind it listen to our requests: they have recently added a duplicate button so that we can prepare cost estimates for several options at once.

When switching to the tendering and contract stages, the pricing information can be too detailed to track variations.

The software has built in prices. When I need advice or I need to create new tasks with costs, I use the chat feature or send an email, the quantity surveyors on the other side generate a work sheet or template for me to use. I can log into the software from any device wherever I am.

I used a new trial service for Buildpartner to input the data to generate costs for a whole project. It didn’t really work for me. Although I can log into the software from any device, this pro can become a con when the internet service goes down.

Customer service is excellent. The software itself is relatively easy to use and one of the best features is how it compares your quote to the costs of similar projects in the area.

I find I need to tweak many areas of the quote to more accurately reflect the project costs, particularly those involving labour.

Also, I think the software is better suited to users working on smaller projects - sub £100k - where you would be estimating on multiple projects throughout the year. I might only use it once or twice a year as our average project size is much higher.

Speed in getting a feel of costs for any given design

Being able to visually understand the assumptions and interpretations that the software has made

I found that the speed and use of the product is very good. The continued updates and customer support really helps the software work well.

When exporting the information gathered on build-partner, we found it to be tricky to pick and choose between what information we'd like together.

I use this site daily to get quick quotes in order to put in more offers. This is incredible helpful and it’s helped my business massively.

It’s not clear what the ‘Small, medium, large’ means in the quote. Some clarification would be great!

Quick and easy to obtain early stage estimates

Doesn't allow you to build up your own estimate / scope of work to price. You spend more time amending the generic outputs.

It is easy to use it. Have enough information and slowly slowly it's going faster

There are some things that someone in thhe beginning can not find. I think you should have internet meetings to demonstrate thhe full options of the program

Overall Buildpartner is great value for money. It is an excellent tool with high accuracy and frees up my time to concentrate on other aspects of running the business.

Overall there isn't anything negative I can mention.

Can Cost jobs quick and effectively , and accurately

You can hide ur
Pricing
For labour and materials when saving to much info for customer

Ease of use and intuitive platform that uses realtime data to produce accurate cost plans

Some of the modules aren't logical so often get things wrong and have to start again

Very easy to generate a professional scope of works and cost estimate. The templates are very good and thorough.

Limitations on the number of projects - Right now 15 projects per month is OK but I can foresee needing more in the future. Also, the timeframe estimates to complete projects do seem a little ambitious, however this is yet to be seen so I will reserve further judgement on this for now.

How quick and simple it makes pricing as its a necessary requirement to tender for works but it you don't win the work its a big overhead.

It is still a product finding its feet, many changes to come I feel, softeware getting tweaked constantly which isnt even a negative thing!