Support
A question about a price, a calculation that will not run, a contractor’s quotation to hold against ours. Write to us, preferably on Telegram.
Where to write
Telegram
A quick question, a price that looks wrong, an estimate to sanity-check. This is the fastest channel.
@BuildCostAfricaBotEmail
Your drawings, a contractor’s quotation, anything about billing. Whatever needs an attachment and a thread.
[email protected]
The Telegram bot
The same calculation engine as the site, inside your chat app. Describe the project on one line and you get the range, the split by trade, and a link that opens the same project in the estimator.
The commands
/estimate kolwezi villa 180 2- price a project
/plans- the plans and what they unlock
/support- reach a person
/help- this list
Word order does not matter. Only the area is required.
Why a chat app: a site here is run from a phone, often on limited data. An answer inside the conversation costs less data than loading a page.
Response times by plan
A stated response time only means something if it is held to. So it is given in working hours, not in vague assurances.
| Plans and pricing | Within | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | No committed time | Guides, sources and the broadcast channel. No committed response time. |
| Builder | 48 working hours | An answer within two working days, on Telegram or by email. |
| Lifetime licence | 48 working hours | An answer within two working days. The licence is perpetual; support follows the life of the product. |
| One-off | 48 working hours | An answer within two working days, for the project you bought. |
| Business | 8 working hours | An answer the same working day, and a review of your pricing assumptions on request. |
What to send us
With these three things a question takes one message instead of four.
- 1.The share link for your estimate. It carries the whole project, so we see exactly your figures.
- 2.The city and the survey date of the price you are questioning, as shown on the Prices page.
- 3.The quotation or invoice that says otherwise, if you have one. A real price beats a disagreement.
Still stuck?
Write to us. Attach your drawings, a quotation you have been sent, a screenshot: whatever helps us answer first time.
The message reaches us directly and the answer goes to the address you give. To attach a drawing or a quotation you have been sent, use the button above instead: your mail app takes attachments, this form does not.
What comes up most
Filter13 results
Topic
What does a 120 m² house cost in Kolwezi?
Roughly $71,000 to $130,000 at a standard finish with a contractor, and $32,000 to $71,000 self-building. Kinshasa runs about 7% cheaper: Kolwezi suffers a chronic cement shortage and sustained mining demand.Why are the prices in US dollars?
Because that is how the materials trade works across much of the region: cement, steel and roofing sheets are imported or dollar-indexed. Everything converts to local currency in one click, at the day’s rate.Is the land included?
No. The estimate covers construction only. Land varies too much between districts, often fiftyfold within one city, and it depends on a title the tool cannot verify. Folding it in would make the number meaningless.What does a plot cost in the DRC?
It depends entirely on the district, and no published land survey exists for Kolwezi. In Kinshasa, where the figures do exist, a plot runs from $17/m² in Mont-Ngafula to over $1,000/m² in Gombe. Have the title checked before committing to anything: that is the real risk, well ahead of the price.Can I use this for a client quotation?
Yes, carefully. Turn on the margin, replace our prices with your supplier rates and use the Quotation tab. It remains an estimate: have a proper take-off done before you commit contractually.Where do these prices come from?
From published sources (weekly cement surveys, cost-per-m² studies, the DRC housing profile), supplemented by market estimates. Every line is badged “sourced” or “estimated”, and the Prices page cites the references.Why do prices vary so much between cities?
Cement. In Kolwezi, this tool’s reference city, a 50 kg bag traded between 40,000 and 45,000 CDF in October 2025, during the shortage caused by power cuts at the Carrilu works. For comparison: 24,000–26,000 CDF in Kinshasa, 20,000 in Matadi next to the Lukala plant, and over 100,000 in Kananga during a stock-out. Matadi is the cheapest point in the country, Kananga and Mbuji-Mayi the dearest.A price does not match what I pay locally.
Replace it. Every price on the site is editable and yours wins over ours in every calculation. Send us the invoice too, because that is how the surveys get corrected. Go to the pageThe calculation returns nothing.
It is almost always an area left at zero, or a project type with no city selected. Check those two fields first. Go to the pageDrawing reading is unavailable.
That feature depends on a server-side API key. When it is missing everything else still works, and you enter the dimensions by hand. Go to the pageI want to change plan or stop.
A subscription stops at the end of the period you paid for, with no forced renewal. You drop back to the free plan and keep your saved projects. Go to the pageMy country is not covered yet.
Tell us, with local prices if you have them. A country opens when there are enough dated surveys for the figures to be defensible, not before. Go to the pageWhich parts of the site use AI?
Two: reading drawings and searching for missing prices. Everything else, the Eurocodes, the quantities, the labour and the recommendations, is computed here. If the AI service is down, the estimating still works. Go to the page