What Fergus costs in NZ, what it is strong at, where a fixed-price builder can trip over it, and where CostMate fits. Dated and sourced.
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Fergus was made in New Zealand and it shows. It is good at running jobs and at reading supplier invoices. Builders who look for an alternative are usually quoting fixed-price work and finding that a tool built around billing costs plus markup does not quite fit, or they want something that works out the estimate itself. Here is what we found, what Fergus does well, and what CostMate does instead.
Fergus's New Zealand pricing page shows Basic from $53 a month and Professional from $75 a month, with a 14-day free trial and no card needed. Professional adds job phases, purchase orders and hazard tools. Checked 15 October 2026.
Two things that page does not say: whether the price is per user, and whether it includes GST. Fergus's pricing page did say per user until mid-2025 and now says "From $53 per month", so check how many people need a seat before you count heads. Timesheet-only users and a certificates add-on are priced separately. The prices have also moved over the years, and our Fergus price history lines up the dated copies of its pricing page.
Supplier invoices. In our trial on 9 October 2026 we dropped in a test supplier invoice PDF and, within about 30 seconds, every line matched the invoice, in three taps. Fergus also has price books and links for PlaceMakers, ITM and Carters, hazard templates with a linked safety method, and a long list of accounting and payment options.
We do not claim CostMate matches Fergus at reading supplier bills.
Fergus is built for jobs where you bill costs plus markup. On a trial deck quoted as a lump sum and already invoiced in full, we added a supplier bill to the job. Fergus applied a 60 percent sell price to every line (the account's default materials markup) and then showed the bill as money still to charge the client, on top of the invoice already sent.
It is a default, and you can change the markup. But if you quote a fixed price, check how the job's numbers behave before you trust them, so you never bill the same material twice.
Fergus has no feature we could find that works out quantities and hours from a job description. Its quotes come from your price books and what you type.
CostMate takes a residential job from estimate to paid. You choose a job type and fill in the job, and it works out the materials with quantities and the labour in hours by phase, priced from Dayle ITM and PlaceMakers trade pricing. A rules engine does the maths, so the same job entered twice gives the same numbers, and it writes assumptions and exclusions you can edit. The client can accept the quote on a link, and once you win the job it carries on with variations, hours, receipts, deposits and progress claims.
What it does not have: a crew calendar or full invoicing beyond deposits and progress claims. It puts your job's stages on dates, and with Xero connected it sends draft bills and invoices to your own Xero for you to approve there.
There is a free plan, and a 30-day trial of the paid features with no card.
Fergus's prices are from fergus.com/nz/pricing, checked 15 October 2026. The invoice reading and the markup behaviour are what we saw on our own trial account on 9 October 2026. Fergus may have changed any of it since. What CostMate does is true of a brand-new account today.
Check Fergus's own pricing page, and try any tool on a job you have already quoted before you move your business to it.