Price Lists
Price Lists are Darwin’s way of keeping reality honest.
Your modules represent how work is built (logic). Your price lists represent what the market looks like right now (money).
That separation is deliberate: you can recalculate a project under new market conditions without rewriting your cost DNA.
Section titled “That separation is deliberate: you can recalculate a project under new market conditions without rewriting your cost DNA.”What a Price List is (in Darwin terms)
Section titled “What a Price List is (in Darwin terms)”A Price List is a snapshot of market context for a given place and time:
- unit prices for materials
- labor rates
- logistics assumptions (the “getting it there and handling it” part)
It’s designed to behave like a time-bound market snapshot (not a live spreadsheet you constantly overwrite).
Tip: If you want historical traceability, don’t “edit the past”. Create a new price list for a new period (e.g., “US-FL — Q1 2026”), then re-run the estimate.
Base vs Project Price Lists
Section titled “Base vs Project Price Lists”Darwin supports two practical “levels” of price lists:
1) Base Price Lists
Section titled “1) Base Price Lists”Think of these as your reusable market baselines:
- “Costa Rica — Retail — 2026-01”
- “US — Southeast — RSMeans baseline — 2026-Q1”
- “UAE — Dubai — Supplier set A — 2025-12”
2) Project Price Lists
Section titled “2) Project Price Lists”Projects project-specific price list (derived from a base list + project context). This allows location-driven pricing behavior while preserving the original baseline as a reference.
Note: This design is what enables clean delta analysis later: if the estimate changes, you can reason whether it was market, logic, quantity, or decision that changed.
Recommended onboarding flow (do this in order)
Section titled “Recommended onboarding flow (do this in order)”Step 1 — Create your first Price List
Section titled “Step 1 — Create your first Price List”Create a price list named with a convention that encodes place + time.
Example: CR-SJ | Baseline | 2026-01 or US-FL | Q1 2026 | Supplier Mix A
Step 3 — Apply (or review) pricing at the project level
Section titled “Step 3 — Apply (or review) pricing at the project level”Open the project and go to Price Review
This is where you validate:
- which price list is being used for the project
- exchange rates (if applicable)
Exchange rates can be updated or refreshed for a project
Step 4 — Recalculate your estimate (without rewriting logic)
Section titled “Step 4 — Recalculate your estimate (without rewriting logic)”Once your modules exist, you can apply a different price list and re-run the estimate. Enter to edit project and select the new price list.
Logistics and “prices that aren’t unit prices”
Section titled “Logistics and “prices that aren’t unit prices””If your work includes transportation and handling (it does), Darwin models these as first-class inputs that feed your costing context:
Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)
Section titled “Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)”1) “My estimate changed and I don’t know why.”
Usually this is one of four categories: market (price list), design (quantities), logic (module versions), or decision parameters (overhead/margin). Darwin’s separation is meant to make that attribution possible.
2) “We keep overwriting the same price list.”
That destroys history. Prefer new snapshots per period or major market shift.
3) “Our modules have prices inside them.”
That’s the old-world spreadsheet spell. In Darwin, modules are cost logic; prices live in price lists so you can recost cleanly.