For South African contractors & builders

Catch the overrun in week three, not at final account.

siteMargin tracks budget vs actual on every line item, updated from site — so a job going over shows up while there's still time to fix it.

Free for your first project · no card · set up in 2 minutes

23 contractors already on site

POPIA-compliant · encrypted

Your foreman photographed the slip. You found out the same afternoon.
Retention
Certified to dateR838,000
Held back at 5%R41,900
Released onPractical completion

Retention, tracked — not remembered.

Every certified claim holds back its 5%. siteMargin keeps the running total, so the release isn't a surprise on either side of the table.

Purchase orders
PO-0417 · Plumbing rough-inR38,500
SupplierTrident Plumbing
StatusAPPROVED

Commitments on the line, before they're invoices.

Raise a PO against a line item and its budget already knows the money's spoken for.

Progress vs spend
Joinery & carpentry62% spent
Work complete41%
GapAHEAD OF PROGRESS

Spend running ahead of the work.

Money out is 21 points ahead of work done on this line. That's the one to walk before the next claim goes in.

Three of the arguments this settles before it becomes one.Everything that's inside
Why not the spreadsheet

Your sheet isn't wrong. It's late.

The number that gives an overrun away isn’t the budget — it’s the gap between money spent and work actually done. Proper cost-control software watches that gap, but it is built for firms with a full-time QS and a budget to match. For a two-to-ten person outfit it is overkill, so the job ends up in a spreadsheet nobody updates until it matters.

That is not a discipline problem. It is a structural one: the only person you can trust with the whole file is the one person with no time to open it — and the people with time are the ones you can’t show your margins to.

Your spreadsheetsiteMargin
Who can update it You, or whoever you trust with the whole file Your foreman, from site, without seeing a single margin
When it is right The evening you sit down and rebuild it The afternoon the slip was photographed
When a line goes over Nothing. It waits for you to notice Flags it, in tolerance terms, on the line
Who this is for

Built for whoever's actually on site.

Built around real job-site roles, not hypothetical ones.

Contractors
3free site seats

Runs the job

Budget vs actual that updates itself, not a spreadsheet you rebuild every Friday.

Subcontractors
0extra admin

Does the work

Clean POs, visible payment and retention status.

Home owners
1honest answer

Pays for the build

On budget, on track — not a platform built for a GC.

Developers
1set of numbers

Holds the retention

You hold the retention and pay for the variations. The same numbers, read from your side of the table.

For developers →
Everywhere on site

Six tools. One set of numbers.

Six tools, six colours — so you always know which one you're in.

The principle

Three things it’s built to be.

Built in Cape Town for South African contractors — JBCC-aware, rand-native, retention held the way your contracts hold it.

  1. <1 MIN per entry

    Fast to update

    Log spend in under a minute — a tool nobody updates is worse than none.

  2. 0 formulas

    Plain-language

    No variance formulas. No QS training. Just numbers you can read.

  3. From R199 per month

    Priced for small businesses

    Free on your first job. Paid plans for outfits running two to ten, not enterprises.

Common questions

Straight answers.

Do I need a QS background?

No. siteMargin uses plain language — "spending ahead of progress," not a spreadsheet of variance formulas you have to interpret yourself.

Can I bring my existing budget across?

Yes. Export your current spreadsheet to CSV and import it in one go — no retyping line items from scratch.

What happens to my data?

It's yours. Your project data stays in your account, and you can export a PDF of any project at any time.

Resources

Practical, not persuasive.

Guides and tools for the job, not the boardroom.

All eight, in the Construction Library ›

Ready when you are.

Free on your first project, R199 a month after that — no card, no demo call.

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