Fitout cost estimator
Seven questions, a full project budget, no form. Change any input and every line moves with it.
Most estimators in this industry hold the answer behind an email address. This one does not. The figure updates as you go, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Three things move the result more than the finish you pick: shell condition, how many rooms you actually need, and what is carried as a provisional sum. For the whole-of-project number including equipment, see what it costs to open.
Estimate your fitout
What are you fitting out?
Sets the base rate per square metre.
How big is the tenancy?
Gross lettable area, as it appears on the lease.
What condition is the shell in?
The largest single swing in a fitout budget, and it’s settled in the lease rather than the design. What is the difference?
Landlord provides
You provide
What level of finish?
Laminate and simple lighting at one end, extensive joinery and feature lighting at the other.
How many clinical rooms?
Consulting rooms, surgeries, treatment or refraction rooms. Sets the equipment line. How many fit?
Annual rent, if you know it
Optional. Sets the bank guarantee and the rent you will carry during the build.
The budget a lender wants to see
Every line a bank or a business plan asks for, as a low and a high, from the same inputs. Download it, then replace each line with a quote as you get one.
| Line | Basis | Low | High |
|---|
What the estimator is doing
It starts from the published range for your sector, narrows that band according to the level of finish, then adds a separate allowance for shell condition. Shell is additive rather than a percentage because a cold shell costs what it costs regardless of how nice the joinery is.
The result is rounded to the nearest thousand, because a fitout estimate that reads $187,432 implies a precision no estimator has.
What each budget line is built on
- Base build. The published range for the sector, narrowed by finish, times the area. Warm shell assumed.
- Shell allowance. $350 to $550 per square metre on a cold shell; a saving of $100 to $160 when refurbishing an existing fitout.
- Design and documentation. Architect or interior designer, plus services and structural engineers: 8% to 12% of the build, with a floor of $12,000. Industry guides put clinic design at $8,000 to $25,000 and engineering at $3,000 to $7,000; percentages hold better as the job grows.
- Approvals and certification. The council DA fee from the NSW schedule for your cost of works (the other states are similar), a planning consultant for a DA, and the certifier for the construction certificate and occupation certificate. Complying development skips the planner.
- Clinical equipment. Per room by sector: $8,000 to $15,000 for a GP consulting room; $25,000 to $50,000 for a dental chair and unit plus imaging and sterilisation once; $40,000 to $80,000 per refraction lane plus retinal imaging; a veterinary surgery pack of table, anaesthetic, monitoring and X-ray. Day procedure equipment is quoted separately and shown as a range.
- IT, phones, software. Network, cabling fit-off, phones, practice software setup: $8,000 plus $3,000 to $6,000 a room, which lands where practice-setup guides put it ($15,000 to $40,000).
- Furniture, signage and fit-off. Waiting room, workstations, storage, external signage: $120 to $250 per square metre.
- Contingency. 10% to 15% of the lines above. Every guide says it; every project uses it.
- Make-good provision. $150 to $300 per square metre to return the tenancy at the end of the lease. Not spent now, but a lender will ask.
- Bank guarantee and rent during the build. Three to six months of rent as a guarantee, and the rent you carry through a three-to-four-month build, if you enter the rent.
Estimator questions
How accurate is a fitout cost estimator?
It’s a planning figure, not a quote. It tells you whether a tenancy is in the right order of magnitude for your budget, which is the question worth answering in the first five minutes. A priced scope follows a site assessment and a documented design.
Why does shell condition change the number so much?
Because a cold shell means you are buying air conditioning, ceilings, lighting and fire services before choosing a single finish. That allowance sits on top of the base rate rather than inside it, which is why the estimator adds it separately.
Does the estimate include dental chairs or medical equipment?
The construction figure does not; the full budget table below it carries equipment as its own line, per clinical room by sector, from published supplier ranges. Equipment is bought directly from your supplier, and it has to be selected before services are set out, so price it early.
Can I give the budget to my bank?
That is what the table is for. Download it as a CSV or print it to PDF, then replace each line with a quote as you get one. It is an indicative planning budget, not a quote, and it says so on the file.
What about GST?
Every figure on this site is exclusive of GST.
Other tools
How much space do I need?
Count the rooms you want and get an indicative floor area, including circulation.
Space plannerClinic lease checklist
Fourteen questions to answer before you sign a tenancy you intend to fit out.
Lease checklistPublished cost ranges
The per-square-metre figures behind the estimator, with inclusions and exclusions.
CostsSend us the floor plan
A site assessment tells you what the tenancy can take and what it will cost to get there, ideally before you have signed for it.