Quote the wall face on-site. Get the deposit before you excavate.
Wall face, footings, ag-drain and excavation. Sumitt turns a tricky build into a clear quote your client can accept and pay on the spot.
Your rate card builds the price while you walk the job. No kitchen-table maths at 9pm.
Your client opens the quote on their phone, picks an option and e-signs.
They pay the deposit on the same link, so the money is in your account before you begin.
Built for retaining-wall builders, not adapted for them
Every figure below is read from the Retaining walls rate card, takeoff engine and hazard library inside Sumitt when this page renders. It cannot say more than the product does, and it moves the day the card does.
The Retaining walls rate card
Size field: Wall face (m²)16 lines in 4 groups, 5 switched on before you touch anything, 4 with a grade or billing basis to pick.
- Wall
- Drainage
- Site
- Labour
- Wall face supply + build: Timber sleeper, Concrete sleeper, Link/interlocking block, Sandstone / stone block
- Excavation: per m², per day
- Wall builder: per day, per hour
Australian guide rates factored across 10 regions, every one of them editable. Guidance, not gospel.
The takeoff engine
Say it like this. The engine reads the scope, works out the quantities, prices them off your card and tells you what it assumed. Deterministic arithmetic; no AI touches the numbers.
- “15m concrete sleeper wall 1m high”
- “10m block retaining wall 1m high”
- “12m timber sleeper wall 0.6m high”
The safety pack
A SWMS drafted from the job you priced, with the retaining walls hazard set on top of the common site hazards.
- Excavation & cut battering
- Wall construction & drainage
Priced lines add their own: Waste disposal & tip runs, Waterproofing application.
Extra PPE: Respirator (P2) when cutting masonry; Gloves for block/sleeper handling.
3 site questions to confirm before sign-off.
You review it against the site, edit it and sign. Sumitt prepares the paperwork; it does not assess your site or make your business compliant. Safety packs are part of Pro, and the free trial includes Pro.
Price books
Import your supplier’s or wholesaler’s price list and quote from real trade prices instead of a guide rate. Every line stays editable on the quote.
Books, exports and the rules
Paid invoices land in Xero as drafts, and quotes, invoices and payments export as CSV. Sumitt warns when a total crosses a Queensland, New South Wales or Victorian licence line, and never blocks.
The Trade Rate Index shows the benchmark cost of the jobs retaining-wall builders quote most and the rates that leave a floor, healthy or premium margin, derived from the same rate cards. Not a survey, not advice.
Straight answers
Does it know sleeper walls from block walls?
Yes. The wall face line offers timber sleeper, concrete sleeper, interlocking block and stone at their own rates per square metre of face, and sleepers, posts, besser block, footings, core-fill and capping sit as their own lines. Type the length and height and the face area works itself out.
What about drainage and engineering?
Ag drain, gravel backfill, geofabric and waterproofing are lines on the card. A wall tall enough to need an engineer's design comes back with a warning in the estimate, so the design and approval are priced in rather than found out later.
Does the safety pack cover the cut?
The retaining hazard set covers excavation and cut battering, with collapse and services strike controls, and wall construction and drainage, including silica controls for cutting masonry and no loading behind a fresh wall. You confirm the high-risk questions on site and sign.
Can the client accept and pay before the excavator arrives?
Yes. The client opens the quote link on their phone, picks a package, e-signs and pays the deposit by card, or marks a bank transfer. The job opens itself with the paper trail, and progress claims cover the longer builds.
Sumitt provides software and templates, not legal, financial or tax advice.
For AU retaining-wall builders. Block, sleeper and besser, costed properly.