UpScale.buildWhat the vendor calls itself
- Spreadsheets
- A file nobody would call industry-leading
- ARGUS
- Industry-leading feasibility, appraisal and cash-flow management software
- UpScale
- A feasibility that keeps working once the site settles
Comparison
UpScale.build vs ARGUS EstateMaster: appraisal, or a budget that survives delivery?
Altus Group describes ARGUS EstateMaster as industry-leading property development feasibility, appraisal and project cash-flow management software, designed to manage development projects. There is no published price on its own page — a trial comes first, and subscription pricing is discussed afterwards.
This is the closest of the four comparisons on this site, because both products start from the same word: feasibility. The difference this page argues for is not depth of modelling — it is what happens to that number once a site settles and a claim turns up asking to be paid against it.
An appraisal and a delivery budget stop matching eventually
An appraisal answers a question at a point in time: given these assumptions, is the deal worth doing? That question can be asked again and again as inputs change, and a structured appraisal tool is built to answer it well, repeatedly, for a portfolio of candidate deals.
Delivery asks a different question of the same numbers: is the margin I was appraised on still there, given what has actually happened on site? Answering that requires the original figure to stop moving — to become a fixed point rather than a model you could re-run with fresh assumptions — because a moving baseline cannot tell you whether you have drifted from it.
UpScale.build makes that fixing explicit. Approving a feasibility writes it into an Original Budget nobody can quietly edit, and every tender, claim, variation and funder report afterwards is read against that single frozen position.
Side-by-side comparison
How you find out what it costs
- Spreadsheets
- Whatever the licence already covers
- ARGUS
- No public figure — a trial, then a subscription conversation
- UpScale
- A pricing page you can read before signing up for anything
What 'appraisal' is measured against
- Spreadsheets
- Whatever was true when the tab was last touched
- ARGUS
- The deal as modelled, appraised and cash-flowed
- UpScale
- The deal as committed — frozen the day you approve it
The word used for ongoing tracking
- Spreadsheets
- A revision nobody dates
- ARGUS
- Project cash-flow management, across your development projects
- UpScale
- Baseline vs Delivery, read section by section as claims land
Getting past the sales conversation
- Spreadsheets
- No conversation needed, no support either
- ARGUS
- A trial first, then pricing discussed directly with the vendor
- UpScale
- Sign up and start — no trial clock, no call to book
How many projects the description spans
- Spreadsheets
- One, whichever tab happens to be open
- ARGUS
- "Your development projects" — plural, cash-flow managed
- UpScale
- Several feasibilities at once, capped by plan; delivery detail on the deals that are live
Competitor column checked against the vendor’s own public pages: ARGUS EstateMaster (Altus Group), accessed 17 September 2026. Products change; check theirs before you decide.
When ARGUS EstateMaster is the right call
If your organisation already runs structured appraisal and cash-flow modelling across a program of projects, and ARGUS EstateMaster is the standard your valuers and analysts share, its own description is built for exactly that scale of work. Nothing here argues you should disturb a stack that is doing its job.
Come here if you are a smaller developer who wants the feasibility itself to become the thing delivery is measured against, without a trial and a sales conversation standing between you and starting.
What UpScale.build is
Property development software for the client side — Australian developers and client-side project managers. Feasibility is free; approving one freezes it into an Original Budget, and delivery is read back against that baseline: tenders, progress claims, variations, site diary, defects and funder reporting. Documents stay in your own Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. Consultants, builders and clients you invite do not cost a seat.
- Feasibility software overview
- What a feasibility study covers
- How progress claims work
- Variations, claims and margin
- Site diary
What it costs
Feasibility is $0 — 3 projects at a time, no card. Developer free until 1 January 2027, then $149 AUD a month includes 1 active project; Portfolio $299 includes 5. Extra active projects are $49 a month within each package, Portfolio X is $499 for 10, and archived projects are free and read-only. People you invite are free, up to 50 per project on Developer and 100 on Portfolio.
Frequently asked questions
Is UpScale.build a substitute for ARGUS EstateMaster?
For some teams, yes; for others, not quite. Altus Group describes ARGUS EstateMaster as industry-leading feasibility, appraisal and project cash-flow management software, and organisations that have standardised on it for structured appraisal work have good reason to keep doing so. UpScale.build is aimed at a small or mid-sized developer who wants that feasibility to keep functioning as the delivery record, without a trial-and-subscription conversation to get there.
Can I appraise in ARGUS and deliver on UpScale?
You can, though the two numbers will need reconciling by hand at the handover point. ARGUS EstateMaster's own description centres on appraisal and cash-flow modelling rather than certifying claims against a frozen delivery budget, so a developer moving from one to the other is choosing to re-enter the approved cost structure into UpScale's feasibility, rather than assuming the appraisal carries across automatically.
Why is there no dollar figure in the ARGUS column above?
Because Altus Group's own page does not publish one. It invites a trial first and discusses subscription pricing afterwards, which is a legitimate way to sell enterprise software and not something we would misrepresent by guessing a number. If a published figure matters to your decision, that is a reasonable question to put to them directly.
Is UpScale.build built for institutional valuation teams?
Not primarily. UpScale.build is aimed at small and mid-sized Australian developers and the client-side project managers who carry a deal's margin day to day, rather than at an enterprise appraisal function sitting across many projects. A fund with a dedicated valuation team already using an established appraisal stack may simply have less need for what UpScale adds.
Coming from ARGUS, where should a developer start?
With a free feasibility, modelled on UpScale rather than exported from elsewhere. Approving it is the step that turns a set of assumptions into a fixed budget, and there is no card or sales call attached to trying that step before you decide anything else.
Related reading
- Tracking margin once claims start moving
- A subdivision feasibility is not a scaled-down building one
- What retention is actually holding back
Start with the feasibility
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