Regional cost differences

Construction costs vary a lot by location. Labor rates, material delivery, climate and building codes all play a part. Every cost calculator on ProjectMath has a Region selector. When you pick a state, the calculator multiplies its national installed-cost range by that state's published location factor. National average = 1.00.

Source

We use the state-level DoD Area Cost Factors (ACF) from US Army Corps of Engineers PAX Newsletter No. 3.2.1, dated 18 August 2026. This is Table 4-1 of the UFS 3-701-01 DoD Facilities Pricing Guide, as of 2026-10-14. The Tri-Service ACF model prices a market basket of 8 labor crafts, 18 construction materials and 4 equipment items in each location. It then adjusts for local conditions such as weather, seismic and frost zone. It is one of the few free, government-published location factor sets that covers every state.

Limitations

• ACFs are built for military and commercial-style construction. The DoD guide says not to use them on detailed commercial cost data. We use them only as a rough relative guide to how a state compares with the national average for home projects. Treat the adjusted figure as a planning estimate and get local quotes.
• State factors average out big differences within a state. For example, the same newsletter lists New York State at 1.03 but New York City at 1.32.
• A factor applies to the whole installed cost. Some of our ranges are already national averages that cover a wide spread.
• Calculators that don't price construction (paint gallons, heating fuel cost per MMBtu, insulation payback based on your own inputs) have no region selector.

Canada

Canadian provinces are not in the selector. We could not find a free, credible, published cross-province location factor on the same basis. Statistics Canada's Building Construction Price Indexes (table 18-10-0289-01) track how prices change over time within each city. They are not price-level comparisons between cities, so we don't use them as factors.

Currency note: all prices on ProjectMath are in US dollars. To convert, multiply by 1.4263 CAD per USD. That is the Bank of Canada daily average exchange rate for 2026-10-14. Converting changes only the currency. It does not account for Canadian labor, materials, taxes or codes, so use the converted figure only as a rough check.

All factors (as of 2026-10-14)

Last reviewed: 2026-10-14. Prices are national planning ranges; get local quotes.