> IN 30 SECONDS
- Sign up with your email.
- Buy an estimate ($249 AUD via Stripe).
- Drop in your architectural plans (PDF). Engineering & selections are optional but help accuracy.
- Pick a Build Type, Finish Level, and Site Steepness (each is a 1–5 tier). These are mandatory and shape the cost output.
- Add notes if anything’s unusual about the build.
- Click Generate Estimate. Wait 1–10 minutes (chuckle at the rotating one-liners).
- Download your XLSX, formatted for direct import into WunderBuild.
> WHAT YOU UPLOAD
- Architectural plans (required) — floor plans, elevations, sections, roof plan, site plan, window/door schedules. The more complete, the better the estimate.
- Engineering plans (optional) — structural drawings, foundation details, bracing, slab specs. Helps with structural items.
- Selections & specifications (optional) — energy reports, finish schedules, BAL reports, client selections. Improves accuracy on finishes, kitchens, bathrooms.
Drop in everything you have. Wundermator handles up to 50 MB per file and ~100 pages per PDF. Larger or unusual PDFs are auto-flattened to images so stubborn architect plans still work.
> BUILD TYPE — 5 TIERS
The most fundamental dimension. A renovation reads completely different from a new build — there’s existing structure, demolition allowances, awkward access, and slow careful work around what’s already there. Build Type tells Wundermator what kind of job it’s pricing.
| Tier | Type | Materials | Suppliers | Sub-cons | Labour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Build | baseline | baseline | baseline | baseline |
| 2 | Knockdown Rebuild | ×1.05 | baseline | ×1.05 | ×1.10 |
| 3 | Extension / Addition | ×1.05 | baseline | ×1.10 | ×1.15 |
| 4 | Renovation — Light | ×0.85 | ×0.85 | ×1.10 | ×1.20 |
| 5 | Renovation — Major | ×0.70 | ×0.75 | ×1.20 | ×1.30 |
Renovations look cheaper on materials and suppliers (you reuse what’s there) but punish labour heavily. New work next to old is slow, careful, and surprises you. The labour multiplier is where the real cost lives.
> FINISH LEVEL — 5 TIERS
How premium the build is. We apply a different multiplier to each cost category so the impact reflects what actually moves on a real build — luxury hits materials and supplier/PC items hard, sub-contractors moderately, and labour only a little (a chippy charges the same per hour whether the cladding is weatherboard or cedar).
| Tier | Name | Materials | Suppliers | Sub-cons | Labour | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Investor | ×0.80 | ×0.75 | ×0.92 | ×0.97 | −15% |
| 2 | Standard | ×0.90 | ×0.88 | ×0.96 | ×0.99 | −7% |
| 3 | Mid | baseline | baseline | baseline | baseline | 0% |
| 4 | Premium | ×1.18 | ×1.22 | ×1.10 | ×1.04 | +14% |
| 5 | Luxury | ×1.40 | ×1.50 | ×1.20 | ×1.05 | +30% |
Avg assumes a typical Tassie custom-home cost mix of 35% materials, 20% suppliers/PC, 25% sub-cons, 20% labour. Your actual mix will shift the blended impact slightly.
> SITE STEEPNESS — 5 TIERS
How hard the site is to build on. Hits labour heavily, sub-contractors lightly, materials and suppliers not at all. A flat-vs-cliffside difference is mostly extra hours on site, not extra timber.
| Tier | Name | Labour | Sub-cons | Materials | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flat | baseline | baseline | baseline | Level lot. Slab on ground. Normal access. |
| 2 | Gentle | +4% | +1% | no change | 0–5% fall. Some cut/fill. |
| 3 | Moderate | +12% | +3% | no change | 5–15% fall. Retaining required. Stepped slab possible. |
| 4 | Steep | +28% | +7% | no change | 15–25% fall. Significant retaining, piers, restricted access. |
| 5 | Cliffside | +50% | +12% | no change | 25%+ fall. Suspended floors, deep piling, crane access, complex drainage. |
All three factors compound. A Renovation — Major + Premium + Steep job runs at roughly 0.70 × 1.18 × 1.00 ≈ ×0.83 on materials, 0.75 × 1.22 × 1.00 ≈ ×0.92 on suppliers, 1.20 × 1.10 × 1.07 ≈ ×1.41 on sub-cons, and 1.30 × 1.04 × 1.28 ≈ ×1.73 on labour hours.
> WHAT YOU GET BACK
A spreadsheet (XLSX) formatted to import directly into WunderBuild, with line items, quantities, materials, labour, sub-contractor allowances, and PS / PC items for things needing client selection or supplier quotes. Plus a text summary covering total cost, $/m², markup-adjusted contract value, and sanity checks.
> LOCKED LABOUR RATES
Wundermator’s labour rates are locked at the source. They never change based on which tiers you pick. The $/hr you see on a Labour line is the same rate, every time, every job.
| Category | Locked rate |
|---|---|
| Preliminaries | $130 / hr |
| Project Management (on & off-site) | $95 / hr |
| Everything else (carpentry, concrete, framing, fit-out, etc.) | $80 / hr |
When you change Finish Level, Site Steepness, or Build Type, what scales is the hours the job takes — not the rate. A Steep site doesn’t make your chippy more expensive; it makes the framing take longer. The $80/hr stays the same.
| Column on every Labour line | Tier multipliers do what? |
|---|---|
| Quantity (hours) | scale with tiers |
| Rate ($/hr) | 🔒 LOCKED |
| Total ($) | scales (= hours × locked rate) |
If you ever see a Labour line on a Wundermator-generated estimate with a rate other than $80, $95, or $130 — flag it to kyle@zanettobuilders.com.au. That’d be a bug.
> IMPORTING TO WUNDERBUILD
Once you’ve downloaded the XLSX, here’s how to get it into WunderBuild as a fresh estimate. Whole round-trip is about 2 minutes once you’ve done it once.
- Create a new estimation. In WunderBuild, go to the Estimations dashboard and click + New Estimation (top right). Fill in the basic details — name, type, client, template (if you use one), markup %, site address — then click Create.
- Open the Costing tab. Inside the new estimation, click the Costing tab in the top navigation row (next to Schedule, Takeoff, Quote Requests, Specifications).
- Open the import dialog. Top right of the Costing tab, click Options → Import from Spreadsheet.
- Upload your Wundermator XLSX. Drag the file into the drop zone, or click Select Spreadsheet to browse. Max 10 MB. Click Next: Map Fields.
- Confirm the column mapping. WunderBuild auto-detects the columns — you’ll usually see something like “14 of 15 columns mapped”. Wundermator’s output is built to match WunderBuild’s expected columns, so this should be near-instant. Skim the mapping to confirm Item Number, Category, Costing Item, Quantity, UOM, Cost (ex.), and Cost Type all line up.
- Hit Import Data. Bottom right of the dialog. WunderBuild brings every line item into your new estimation.
- Review and refine. This is where you do the human work — sense-check items, tweak quantities and prices, add anything Wundermator missed, remove anything that doesn’t apply to the job. Wundermator gets you from blank slate to a complete first draft. Your eye and experience finish the job.
Tip: if a column doesn’t auto-map, click the dropdown next to it and pick the matching WunderBuild field. The mapping is remembered for the next time you import.
> HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?
Most estimates complete in 2–6 minutes. Large or complex plan sets can take up to 15 minutes. The browser shows live progress through four stages: reading plans → calculating labour → pricing items → generating spreadsheet.
Estimates that exceed the 15-minute hard cap are automatically refunded.
> WHAT IT ISN’T
Wundermator gives you a fast, AI-generated draft estimate — not a builder’s formal quote, not a quantity surveyor’s report, and not a substitute for a qualified estimator’s eye on a complex job. AI gets things wrong sometimes. Always verify before you sign anything.
Use it the way most builders do: as a fast first-pass to size up a job, sanity-check feasibility, generate a starting point for negotiation, or pre-flight a tender before you spend hours on a manual takeoff.
> TIPS FOR THE BEST OUTPUT
- Drop in architectural, engineering, and selections together — context matters.
- Use the Notes field for anything unusual: passive house, off-grid, remote site, owner-supplied joinery, demolition required, etc. The model uses these to adjust pricing.
- Be honest with the Site Steepness tier — getting it wrong is the single biggest source of estimating error in custom homes.
- If a PDF was scanned (not exported from the original software), text quality matters — re-scan at higher resolution if outputs look off.
- Consistent plan sets work better than mixed sets from different revision dates.
> PRICING
A$249 per estimate. No subscription, no minimum, no hidden fees. Failed estimates are automatically refunded as account credit — see our Refund Policy.
> NEED HELP?
Email kyle@zanettobuilders.com.au — we read everything.