Build a grant budget in nine steps.
No spreadsheets to maintain, no rates to chase. The Research Grant Costing Platform pairs verified benchmark rates for common non-salary items with live estimates from third-party suppliers.
Guided, not guessed.
Every budget follows the same nine-step path, from naming your project to a polished export ready for your application.
Name your budget
Give your project a title and you're ready to build. Every budget lives in your personal library, ready to reopen.
Set the rules
Toggle GST, indirect cost recovery, and profit margin to match your funder's requirements. Pick your display currency.
Browse by category
Choose from organised categories and subcategories.
Costs auto-fill
Selecting an item pulls in a curated benchmark rate. No hunting through PDFs or stale spreadsheets. Just accurate figures.
Plan across years
Add up to ten year tabs and duplicate a year's items in a click. Multi-year budgets stay tidy and comparable. Filter the view by funding requests or contributions, and by cash or in-kind, to see exactly who is contributing what across each year.
Plan across institutions
For collaborative research, mark each row as a funding request or a contribution, cash or in-kind, and assign it to a responsible organisation. Every organisation's share rolls up into the overall budget automatically.
Watch the totals
Subtotals, GST, ICR, and profit update live as you type, recalculating against each row's settings and selections, the source country of suppliers, and your chosen currency conversions.
Save to your library
Your budget is stored securely and only visible to you. Reopen it any time to refine, add items, or adjust settings.
Export and submit
Download a polished CSV or Excel workbook with formulas intact.
Verified. Verifiable.
Every benchmark rate is drawn from an authoritative published source. No invented numbers, no stale PDFs. Each figure is current, clearly described, and ready for you to justify in your application.
Flat-rate transfers each way.
New work, exhibitions, workshops and appearances.
Writing, illustration, editing and literary awards.
Foreign accommodation and subsistence.
Domestic accommodation and meal rates.
Compensation for consultation and involvement.
Mileage allowances.
Live, not assumed.
For items that move with the market, the calculator reaches out to third-party suppliers in real time, pulling current fares, quotes, and published prices straight into your budget row. What you see is what you'd actually pay today.
Hotel pricing is pulled live by city and travel dates.
Daily rental rates come from major providers.
Service pricing is pulled from AWS, Azure and GCP.
Live exchange rates land foreign-currency costs in your display currency.
Real-time fares span airlines and booking classes.
Route distances are calculated automatically.
Per-participant reward and study costs are estimated.
Academic journal publishers' and book publishers' charges are available.
Domestic and international parcel and letter rates are calculated.
Live print quotes are generated by quantity and spec.
Ready to calculate?
Purchase or redeem a voucher to access the full calculator and save your budgets to the library.