Turn the floor area of your project into an illustrative low-to-high price range by project type, plus one-time costs such as design, permits and disposal.
Choose the project type, enter the floor area being renovated (not the whole house unless the whole house is in scope) and add one-time costs that do not scale with area: design or drawings, engineering, the building permit, waste bins, and moving out if the house will be unliveable.
Formula: low = area × low price per sq ft + one-time costs; high = area × high price per sq ft + one-time costs.
Worked example (illustrative, the default): an 800 sq ft basement finished without a bathroom at $45–$85 per sq ft, with $3,000 of one-time costs: low = 800 × $45 + $3,000 = $39,000; high = 800 × $85 + $3,000 = $71,000. Add sales tax with the sales tax calculator and a contingency with the contingency calculator.
How the presets were built: each per-square-foot range is an editorial illustration, assembled by adding typical components for the project (framing, drywall, flooring, trades such as plumbing and electrical, fixtures and cabinets where relevant, and contractor overhead and profit) and rounding. They are not survey results, market averages or quotes, and they were not taken from any published price list. Kitchens and bathrooms have high per-square-foot figures because cabinets, fixtures and trades are packed into a small area.
Limits: real prices vary with your city and the season, the age and condition of the house, structural changes, moving plumbing, electrical panel upgrades, access and finish choices. Replace the presets with the figures in your written quotes as soon as you have them; see how to estimate a renovation.
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