Service
Employer's Cost Estimate Preparation
The employer's cost estimate (in Turkish procurement, yaklaşık maliyet, literally "approximate cost") is the contracting authority's own price for the work, set before the tender goes out. It is not a bid. It is a yardstick: the threshold value comes from it, the abnormally-low-tender inquiry is triggered by it, and the fee for a procurement complaint is derived from it. A wrongly built estimate distorts every later stage. Even if the tender is not cancelled, the threshold shifts, sound bids are rejected or unsound ones survive.
This page describes the service of preparing the estimate schedule for you. If you will do the calculation yourself, the steps are in How to calculate the employer's cost estimate (Turkish), and an empty schedule is in the Excel template.
Who is it for?
- Contracting authorities and employers who need the estimate schedule for construction tender documents, or want an existing schedule checked for defensibility.
- Organisations that prefer to use a ready technical office rather than build their own staff. In that case the service can also be delivered under project consultancy.
- Preparing a bid file for a contractor entering the tender is a separate service: Tender and bid preparation. Documents and estimates for the authority are kept apart from that category.
What we deliver
- Employer's cost estimate schedule, item by item, with current public rate items.
- Summary (icmal) in Excel and PDF. A per-room breakdown and a percentage-weight table can be added on request.
- Analysed items: for works with no public item, a custom item and analysis with labour, material and plant inputs written out separately.
- Source-and-period record: which rate book and which month each line belongs to is visible in the schedule.
The quantities behind the schedule can be taken off by the same team; see quantity take-off.
The calculation in four steps
- Quantities. Quantities are taken from the drawings and the room schedule. The unit of measure (m², m³, tonne, number) must match the item exactly; take-off does not begin while one is missing.
- Item selection. Each work item is matched to a unit-price item. If the official rate book has no equivalent, an analysed item is built, with labour, material and plant inputs written separately.
- Pricing. Item prices come from the rate book for the period of the calculation. The source and period are shown in the schedule. Rate books are updated period by period; the same item has a different price in two different months.
- Profit and overhead. On construction works, contractor profit and overheads are added to analysed items at 25%. Official rate unit prices already include it; adding both is a common error.
Price source hierarchy
| Order | Source | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unit prices published by public bodies | Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, KGM, DSİ, İller Bankası |
| 2 | The authority's own previous works | Real contracted prices |
| 3 | Market survey | At least three quotations, with a price record |
The order is not arbitrary. A market survey exists for works that have no equivalent in the official rate books. If the order is skipped on the grounds that "the rate exists but the market is higher", the estimate becomes indefensible. The source used is documented in the schedule.
The three most common errors
- Quantity unit and item unit do not match. An item measured in m² is linked to an m³ item; the quantity is right and the price is wrong.
- No period. The schedule has a "unit price" but not "which month's book". This is the first thing asked at the objection stage.
- Profit and overhead added twice. A further 25% is stacked on a rate that already contains it; the total inflates and the threshold value moves up.
How we check
Our dated price memory holds more than 300,000 lines; every item is stored with the month it belongs to. When an estimate schedule reaches us, we check first the item–quantity unit match, then period consistency, and last the profit/overhead layer. If all three hold, the estimate is defensible.
The take-off output is not a dead Excel file: each line is stored with its item number and rate period. When the same work moves to an interim payment, a final account or an abnormally-low-tender defence, the same line is traced.
Why is the estimate so decisive?
It is not announced in the tender notice. The estimate does not appear in the tender documents or the notice; it is used in evaluating bids and calculating the threshold value. It is announced at the first session of the tender together with the bid prices (Law No. 4734, Art. 36).
It sets the complaint fee. The application fee is set according to the estimated cost, not the bid price. For 01.02.2026–31.01.2027 there are four bands: 64,652 TL for tenders with an estimated cost up to 10,785,492 TL; 129,385 TL between 10,785,492 and 43,142,132 TL; 194,085 TL between 43,142,132 and 323,566,103 TL; and 258,810 TL at 323,566,103 TL and above (Public Procurement Communiqué 2026/1). You can work out your band with the complaint fee calculator (Turkish).
It triggers the abnormally-low-tender inquiry. The authority may ask for an explanation of bids below the threshold value. How the explanation file is built is described on abnormally low tender explanation; the analyses are the same analyses.
Frequently asked questions
The answers to which unit prices are used, why the period is recorded, how profit and overhead are added and whether the estimate is disclosed in the notice are in the question list at the top of the page.
Where has this been used?
The scale of our quantity and cost-estimate work: Kartal Training and Research Hospital 323,000 m², MaviBahçe shopping mall 250,000 m², Çorum 650-bed State Hospital 139,000 m². In transport: Sincan–Ankara–Kayaş / Başkentray (TRY 442 million) and the Bingöl–Genç 9th Regional Border Road (TRY 115.35 million).
What do we need to start?
The calculation begins with reading the drawings and the room schedule. Floor plans, sections, details and the room schedule are opened together; take-off does not begin while one is missing. If drawings are incomplete, the work can be done partially: we make no assumptions on a missing sheet, and the report states which item rests on which document and what is left as an assumption. This is so the schedule can be defended if challenged later: behind every figure there is a document, an item and a period.
After the schedule is delivered, the work does not end: the same lines carry into the threshold value calculation during the tender, into abnormally-low inquiry when bids are evaluated, and into interim payments during the contract. That is why we build the schedule from the start so that it can be used at every later stage.