House construction cost calculator

Builders in Pakistan price a house by its covered area: the roofed floor area of every storey, measured to the outside of the walls, with the stairs, the mumty on the roof and a covered porch, but not open terraces, lawns or the drive. The calculator multiplies it by a rate a sq ft for the grey structure and another for the finishing, both with materials and the builder's margin, and adjusts them for the city. The rates are as of September 2026, checked against builders' published rates and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics' prices for cement, steel, bricks and labour.

Without drawings, it takes the covered area a house on your plot usually has. A small house covers most of its plot on every floor, about 89% on 3 and 5 marla, so a 5 marla double storey comes to about 2,000 sq ft. Bigger plots keep wider setbacks and bylaws trim the upper floors (DHA Lahore lets the first floor cover 82% of the ground floor on 7 to 10 marla and 80% on 1 kanal), so a 10 marla double storey is about 3,300 sq ft and a 1 kanal about 6,000. A marla is taken as 225 sq ft, as in LDA, DHA and most housing schemes. Type the area from your drawings to use that instead.

The middle estimate sits at the middle of the rates builders quote, and the low and high figures at the bottom and top of them. Where a real quote lands depends on the drawings more than the plot: ceiling heights and spans, the soil and the foundations it needs, the number of bathrooms, how much woodwork and glass, and the finishes chosen. The market moves as well: in the year to August 2026 the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics recorded building materials in the cities up 6.5% and construction wages up 9%.

A basement is taken as the size of one floor, with its grey structure costed 30% higher for the digging, the retaining walls, the waterproofing and keeping groundwater out; contractors quote 25 to 40% more. The cash plan splits the cost by stage in the shares builders work to, so it shows roughly when the money goes. It is not a payment schedule: a builder bills by the milestones agreed in the contract.

The grey structure is the house without its finishes: excavation, foundations and the plinth, the concrete frame, the slab (lenter) of every floor and the stairs, the brick walls, plaster inside and out, the roof's insulation and waterproofing, and the pipes and conduits buried in the walls. In Lahore it costs Rs 3,000 to 3,800 a sq ft with materials, as of September 2026.

Finishing is everything that makes it a home: floors and wall tiles, doors and windows, kitchen cabinets and wardrobes, paint, wiring and switches, sanitary ware, taps and lights. This is where the finish levels part: Rs 2,000 to 3,000 a sq ft on top of the grey structure for an economy to standard finish, Rs 3,500 to 4,700 for mid-range and Rs 5,400 to 7,600 for premium.

So the grey structure is 58% of the cost of a standard house, 45% of a mid-range one and 34% of a premium one. The structure costs much the same whatever goes inside it, and it is the part to get right first: a finish can be changed later, a slab or a column cannot.

Most houses are built on one of two contracts. On a with-material contract the builder supplies everything for one rate a sq ft, and when the house is handed over finished and ready to live in, it is called turnkey. That is what this calculator prices. On a labour-only contract the thekedar brings the masons, labourers and steel fixers, and you buy and deliver every bag, brick and bar yourself.

Labour-only rates in Lahore run Rs 550 to 800 a sq ft for the grey structure and Rs 900 to 1,400 for a complete house with a standard finish, as of September 2026: about a fifth of the with-material rate. Electricians and plumbers are often paid separately, by the point. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics put a mason in Lahore at Rs 2,461 a day and a labourer at Rs 1,747 in August 2026.

Labour-only saves the builder's margin on the materials, but the buying, the checking and the storing are yours, and so are the waste and the theft. It suits an owner who can be on site most days, or who has an engineer who can. On either contract, write down the rate, what it includes and a payment for each stage. A common schedule for a grey structure is 20% in advance, 25% at plinth level, 25% at lintel level, 20% when the roof slab is cast and 10% at the end.