Cost intelligence for residential builders

You already own years of cost data. It’s trapped in invoices, sub texts, and old bids.

Datum turns the invoices, quotes, and payroll you already have into one cost record you can trust. Current, traced to source, no data entry.

See a live demo — no signup

14-day free trial · a card starts it, cancel anytime  ·  built for residential builders doing $8–40M a year.

Not ready for a trial? Just tell us you’re interested →

Datum — product demo

Why we built Datum. I’ve spent my career helping home builders grow with technology. The same thing kept happening: builders sit on years of real cost data they can’t actually use, so they price from memory — and it quietly costs them margin on every job. Datum turns that data into one record you can trust. — Paul Wurth, Founder

First 25founding builders lock launch rates for life
Privateyour cost data is never shared or sold

From paperwork to one number you trust

WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE Invoices · quotes · sub texts · payroll DATUM READS & STRUCTURES Datum ONE COST RECORD current $4.92 +8.3% $58 +7.4% $168 −3.2% Current · deduplicated · traced to source
STEP 01

Read

Point Datum at the files you already have. It pulls every line item — no templates, no typing.

STEP 02

Structure

Messy lines become one clean cost record — per item, per unit, per supplier. Every number traces to its source.

STEP 03

Predict & check

See where every cost is heading, and catch drift from your history before it eats margin.

Framing lumber 2×4×8 SPF · $ / ea $4.92 ▲ +8.3% traced to source ↓ ABC SUPPLY · INV #4471 $… 2x4x8 SPF framing $4.92 $…
Why now

AI can finally read messy, non-standard construction paperwork reliably. Costs have whipsawed since 2021 and skilled labor is scarce — gut-feel pricing quietly bleeds margin on every job.

What it replaces

A senior person’s memory, a stale spreadsheet, last year’s numbers carried forward. Datum makes your own history the source of truth.

See it in action

Demo data — click through the four screens.

Click any line to see its trend →
Item90-day90-day trail CurrentConfidence

Builders sit on years of cost data, buried in invoices, quotes, sub texts, and old bids. Datum reads it all into structured line items. Nobody else has built this.

Reading documents…

Pull up a job’s costs. Datum checks each line against your own history and flags anything off. Lot 14 — Maple Ridge, 2,640 sf custom.

LineThis jobYour avgRead

Datum vs. a master spreadsheet

Most builders work from memory and a spreadsheet that's months out of date.

 A spreadsheet & memoryDatum
Where your costs liveScattered across files, emails, and someone's headOne record, from files you already have
How current they areLast year's numbers, updated when someone remembersUpdated from every new invoice, quote, and payroll
TraceabilityA number with no sourceEvery number traced to its source
Catches a drifting costNoFlags any line that's drifted from history
UpkeepConstant manual data entryNo data entry, no sheet to maintain

Simple, results-based pricing

One flat price by your building volume — no seats, no per-document fees, no tokens.

Founding builders lock these rates for life — first 25 only.

Core
Builders up to $15M/yr
$600/mo
or $6,000/yr — 2 months free
Pro
Builders $30M+/yr
$1,600/mo
or $16,000/yr — 2 months free
Built to pay for itself

See what even a fraction of a point of recovered margin is worth on your volume. Your own numbers do the math — nothing to enter, no signup.

Your building volume
Margin recovered 0.5%

Even half a point of margin you’d otherwise lose to stale costs. Slide to your own assumption.

$60,000/yr
Illustrative margin protected on a $12M year
Value protected$60,000
Your plan$6,000

Illustrative only, based on the inputs you choose — not a guarantee of results.

Every plan: one source of truth for labor & material costs · trends, forecasts & cost checks · reads invoices, quotes, sub texts & payroll · unlimited documents.

14-day free trial · a card starts it · cancel anytime — no long-term contract.

Not ready to buy? Tell us you’re interested and we’ll keep you posted →

Common questions

Is my cost data private?

Your invoices, payroll, and bids are yours alone — used only to build your private cost record. Never shared, never sold.

How long does it take to set up?

No setup project. Point Datum at your files and it returns a structured cost record — nothing to configure.

What does it cost?

Flat pricing by your building volume — $600–$1,600/mo, monthly or annually (2 months free). Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial: card required, cancel anytime.

What can it read?

Invoices, quotes, sub texts, payroll, and past bids — PDFs, images, and spreadsheets. No templates.

What is cost intelligence for builders?

Cost intelligence turns the data you already generate — invoices, quotes, sub texts, payroll, past bids — into one current record of what every material, labor, and sub line really costs. You manage costs from real history, not memory.

How much have construction costs risen recently?

In the latest data, U.S. construction materials are up about 5.6% year over year, framing lumber 4.2%, steel 7%, and construction labor 4.4%. Datum publishes the full residential cost index every month.

Not ready yet? Get the free monthly cost index.

One email a month on where builder costs are heading. No spam.

Stop pricing from memory.

See your real costs, built from the paperwork you already have.

Not ready? Get our free monthly construction cost index →