Most property development feasibility software comparisons rank products from best to worst. That format hides the only decision that matters: these tools are not substitutes for each other.
A planning-intelligence subscription and a residual land value engine solve different problems, cost different amounts, and are often bought by different people in the same company. Ranking them together produces a list where the winner depends on a question the list never asks.
This comparison is organised by job instead: three use cases and one boundary that causes the most expensive mistakes in the category.
Key Takeaways
- The market is three layers, not one ranking. Early site and planning screening, financial appraisal with residual land value, and staged cash-flow modelling are separate purchases. Most developers need two of the three.
- Archistar and Landchecker are planning and site-information tools, not financial models. Neither computes development margin or residual land value. Treating either as an appraisal engine is a category error.
- Two Australian vendors publish AUD pricing; one publishes nothing. Feasly and Feastudy publish. Aprao publishes only in GBP. ARGUS EstateMaster is quote-only, per Altus Group.
- Feasly in Australia is not Feasly in the Gulf, and neither is Feasibly. Three near-identical names sit on three unrelated products, and buying the wrong one is a live failure mode.
- The honest trigger for buying software is repetition. One site can be modelled in a well-built spreadsheet. Software earns its place when you screen repeatedly, or when funding outgrows a worksheet.
- No product here was hands-on tested. Every capability claim is the vendor's description of its own product, and every price was read from a first-party page on 14 October 2026. Method and related-party disclosure appear below.
What "Feasibility Software" Actually Means
Three distinct jobs share one label, which is why the market looks more confusing than it is.
Screening answers whether a site deserves further spending: zoning and overlays, realistic yield, constraints, and what has been approved nearby. Appraisal answers whether the deal works financially, producing the number an acquisition decision hangs on, the residual land value: the most you can pay for land and still hit your target return. Staged modelling answers how a multi-year project behaves when funding is stacked and stages release at different times.
One adjacent category must be ruled out. Construction estimating software prices a build from quantities and trade rates, taking the design as given. Development feasibility software tests whether the development should happen at all, and needs land cost, revenue, finance, statutory charges and time, none of which appear on a drawing. If you are pricing a build rather than testing a development, start with construction estimating software. The method behind testing a development is in our guide to property development feasibility.
How This Comparison Was Researched
No product here was hands-on tested. We did not run a feasibility in Feasly, ARGUS EstateMaster, Aprao, Feastudy, Archistar or Landchecker for this article. Every capability statement is the vendor's own published description of its own product, and every price was read from the first-party page on 14 October 2026, recording currency, GST treatment, and whether the figure is per seat, per user or per entity.
Where one vendor publishes a comparison table containing a rival's pricing, we checked those figures against the rival's own page and discarded them where they did not reconcile. Feasly's own comparison page carries competitor pricing that failed that check, so no such figures appear here. Searching public forums for independent practitioner discussion of this vendor set also returned nothing usable for the Australian market. This category has almost no independent voice-of-customer layer, and we are saying so rather than implying broader corroboration than exists.
Related-party disclosure. Cyberate PM is part of DDDI Group, the publisher. Cyberate Scout, Shield and Yield are Cyberate PM's internal working tools, not products, as set out in full below.
Use Case 1: Early Site and Planning Screening
The job is to kill bad sites cheaply before anyone pays for due diligence.
This layer answers planning questions: zoning, overlays, setbacks, height limits, site coverage, realistic dwelling yield, hazards, and what has been approved in surrounding streets. For a developer running an acquisition pipeline the value is throughput, grading twenty addresses in an afternoon instead of three over a week.
| Tool | What it is | Published price (as at 14 Oct 2026) | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archistar | Planning research, site finding, generative 3D design, compliance checks; Australia-wide | Basic $79.17/month billed annually or $95 monthly; Professional $287.50/month annually or $345 monthly; National $495.83/month annually or $595 monthly. Page states prices include GST | Not a full financial model; its own tier table labels the financial capability a "Static Feasibility Tool" |
| Landchecker | Planning intelligence, zoning and overlay maps, aerial imagery, permit and DA alerts, title searches; Australia-wide | Free Starter; Standard $62.50/user/month ($750/year for 1 user) ex GST; Advanced $200/user/month ($2,400/year for 1 user, next 3 free) ex GST; Enterprise custom | No appraisal engine: no development margin, no residual land value, no cash flow |
Two things a buyer should resolve directly. Archistar's main pricing page states "All prices include GST", while an archived Archistar checkout page for a higher tier stack (Starter $495, Pro $895, Elite $2,495 per month) states "All prices exclude GST". Both are Archistar-controlled pages, so confirm the GST treatment of the tier you are quoted. That tier also lists an "Estate master integration", which connects a planning platform to a separate appraisal tool rather than replacing one.
Landchecker's published feature list across every tier is planning data, imagery, permits, documents and collaboration. There is no line item for development profit, margin or land value. That is a scope statement rather than a criticism; it means the appraisal layer has to come from somewhere else. For the free path, our guides to checking zoning through SAPPA for Adelaide sites and the ePlanning spatial viewer cover what public tools already do.## Use Case 2: Financial Appraisal and Residual Land Value
This is the layer the primary keyword usually means, and the one that decides what you pay for a site.
The core output is residual land value. In simplified form:
RLV = GRV − non-land development costs − target profit
Read that carefully, because most spreadsheet errors live here. The deduction is gross realisation minus every development cost except the land purchase price, then minus target profit. Subtracting the land price as well double-counts it. Gross realisation should be stated on a clear GST basis with GST handled once, and because stamp duty, land-linked interest and the GST margin scheme all move with the price you actually pay, a real model needs iteration or a goal-seek rather than the flat subtraction above.
| Tool | Origin | Published price (as at 14 Oct 2026) | RLV output | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feasly (feasly.com.au) | Australia, marketed for AU and NZ | $149/month billed monthly, or $1,639/year at $137/month equivalent. Page states prices include GST. 14-day trial, card required | Yes, listed as a Residual Land Value Calculator | Single plan, all features. Team seats and permissioning stated as not yet available |
| ARGUS EstateMaster | Canada (Altus Group) | Quote only: "We have several subscription plans... please contact us." 14-day trial | Yes. Documented outputs include residual land value, development profit, IRR and NPV | Modular: Development Feasibility, Development Management, Corporate Consolidation, or a suite bundle |
| Aprao | United Kingdom (Appraised Limited, London) | Grow £299/month for 3 users or £2,990/year; extra users £89/user/month. Corporate £1,499/month for 10 users or £14,990/year, extra users £129. Tax applied at checkout. No AUD pricing published on the pages checked | Appraisal, viability and cash flow reporting | Per-seat tiers with an included user count |
The trap in that table is currency. Aprao's published prices are in pounds sterling with tax applied at checkout under UK rules, and there is no AUD figure on the pages we checked. Converting a list price is not the same as an Australian quote, because the tax treatment differs. Get currency, GST treatment and seat structure confirmed in writing before comparing a UK-origin tool to an AUD price.
What an Australian buyer should test is the localisation, not the feature list. Feastudy's documentation describes GST rates entered per cost and income line, GST input tax credits, and treatment of GST at settlement for new residential property sold by a GST-registered developer. Feasly's pages describe GST and the margin scheme handled automatically. Those are the lines where a model built for another market most often diverges from an Australian appraisal.
Use Case 3: Complex Cash Flow and Staged Models
This layer gets bought when the project stops fitting on one page.
The forcing functions are specific: a development released in stages over years, funding with senior debt and mezzanine or preferred equity, capitalised interest, loan-to-value tests at each drawdown, monthly rather than annual granularity, or multiple projects consolidated for a board. Once two or more are true, a single-worksheet model becomes a maintenance liability rather than an asset, regardless of who built it.
| Tool | Platform | Published price (as at 14 Oct 2026) | Staged and complex capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARGUS EstateMaster | Desktop, Excel-style interface with Microsoft Excel interaction | Quote only, per Altus Group | Its operations manual describes "a cash flow model designed for property development feasibility analysis" calculating residual land value, development profit, IRR and NPV, suitable for "multi-staged developments or single-staged developments", with goal seek. Separate Development Management and Corporate Consolidation modules cover budgets and portfolios |
| Feastudy Professional (Devfeas) | PC, Mac and browser | AUD$880 desktop (PC or Mac); Online from AUD$260 by term ($260/1mo, $380/3mo, $630/6mo, $880/12mo for 2 users in a subscribing entity), maintenance and support included. GST treatment not stated | Debt and equity funding scenarios, joint venture analysis, monthly loan-to-value ratios, mixed GST treatments for mixed-use, after-tax investment feasibility and develop-and-hold |
| Feasly | Cloud, browser | $149/month or $1,639/year, inc. GST | Scenario comparison within a project, funding coverage and allocation, debt facility interest schedules, profit and preferred equity distributions |
ARGUS is the deepest of the desktop class, and its staged-project requirement is met by buying the right modules, so the cost of that depth has to be established by asking. Feastudy is the long-standing Australian option and publishes its prices; Devfeas has produced this software since 1988 from Brighton in South Australia, which matters if vendor longevity is part of your criteria. Feasly approaches the same problem from the cloud side, and its published limitations are relevant: it is newer, team seats are stated as not yet available, and Xero integration is described as on the way rather than shipped.
Desktop versus cloud is a working-model axis rather than a quality axis: desktop tools tend to carry deeper calculation engines, cloud tools tend to be faster to adopt and easier to share. The staged-modelling requirement should drive the choice. For the method behind testing these scenarios, including why sensitivity analysis is a set of separate single-variable tests rather than a probability forecast, see our guide to feasibility sensitivity analysis.
Planning Tools Are Not Financial Models
This boundary deserves its own section because crossing it is the most expensive mistake in the category.
Archistar and Landchecker address planning and site information. Archistar combines zoning and overlay research with generative 3D design, compliance checking and site finding. Landchecker aggregates planning scheme information, zoning, overlays, imagery, permit activity and property documents into a research platform. Both are genuinely useful and both are sold as what they are.
Neither is a financial model. Landchecker's published feature set contains no appraisal output. Archistar's tier table lists a "Quick Estimate Calculator" and a "Static Feasibility Tool" alongside its measurement tool, and the vendor's own adjective, "static", is the honest signal: an indicative calculation inside a planning platform, not an appraisal engine with a funding model behind it.
The practical consequence is a budget line. A developer who buys a planning subscription expecting the number they bid on will rebuild it in a spreadsheet anyway, and will have paid twice.
Excel vs Software vs Adviser: A Decision Table
The question is not which is better. It is which is correct for the volume and complexity you are actually running.
| Your situation | Excel | Purpose-built software | Adviser |
|---|---|---|---|
| One site, simple funding | Appropriate. A well-built workbook is an efficient system, not a compromise | More tool than the job needs | Hard to justify unless the assumption set needs challenging |
| Three or more sites screened per year | Breaks down: you are maintaining a model, not testing sites | Strong fit; this is the volume the paid tiers are priced for | Useful periodically, not as a subscription |
| Residual land value needed for bidding | Workable but error-prone, because duty, land-linked interest and margin scheme make the calculation iterative | Strong fit; RLV is a headline output for every appraisal tool here | Strong fit when the bid is material and assumptions need a named owner |
| Funding with multiple tranches | Fragile quickly; small input changes can break the model silently | Strong fit at the staged-modelling layer | Often the fastest route to a defensible structure |
| Lender or investor-ready output | Possible, but the format is yours to defend | Good fit; formatted reporting is a core feature | Strong fit; the output carries someone's accountability |
| Must be defended to a third party | Risky: the model's author is you | Better, but software is not an accountable party | The honest reason adviser fees are paid |
The pattern is straightforward. Excel is correct for low volume and simple structures, and the trigger to move is repetition or funding complexity, not a feeling that spreadsheets are unprofessional. An adviser's value is not the software they run; it is the assumption set, the local evidence behind it, and the fact that a named person answers for the conclusion.
Take an illustrative example: a small South Australian infill project of three townhouses, all figures GST-exclusive, with gross realisation of $3,000,000, non-land development costs of $2,000,000 and a target profit of $400,000, producing an RLV of $600,000. At that land price, total development cost is $2,600,000, profit $400,000, margin on cost 15.38% and margin on revenue 13.33%. An 8% fall in sale prices alone drops profit to $160,000 and the RLV to $360,000; a 10% construction cost rise drops profit to $250,000 and the RLV to $450,000. These are illustrative assumptions, not real project data, and the point of running them is that a model which cannot reproduce all four figures consistently is not a model you can bid from. The cost build-up is in our guide to property development costs, and the arithmetic is set out in the feasibility template walkthrough.
Related-Party and Internal Tools Disclosure
Cyberate PM is part of DDDI Group, which publishes this article. References to its services are a related-party referral, not an independent third-party recommendation.
Cyberate PM also operates three internal platforms, and they are not for sale. Cyberate Scout is used in-house to organise the planning and market signals behind a site assessment, including zoning overlays, infrastructure pipelines, approval histories and feasibility screening. Cyberate Shield is an internal governance and risk tool used on live engagements to check planning risk and track budget, variations and progress claims through construction. Cyberate Yield is used internally to keep decisions oriented toward exit value through design, delivery and settlement. None can be licensed, subscribed to, or logged into by a client, and none should be evaluated as a purchasable option in this category.
What Cyberate PM does offer publicly is an owner-side feasibility service, delivered through the same three-way test it applies to its own work: approvable under the South Australian Planning and Design Code, buildable for the market, and bankable on stated assumptions. To have the appraisal layer delivered as a service rather than bought as a licence, start with property development feasibility at Cyberate PM. Our wider service map is on the DDDI intelligence services page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is property development feasibility software?
It models whether a development site is financially viable. It takes assumptions about land, acquisition costs, construction, fees, statutory charges, finance, timing and sale revenue, and returns development profit, margin, cash flow and residual land value. It is distinct from planning software, which tells you what a site's controls allow rather than what it is worth.
What is the difference between feasibility software and a feasibility calculator?
A calculator answers one question for one set of inputs and gives a single number. Feasibility software is built for repeatable modelling: saved projects, timing, debt and cash flow, scenario comparison, and outputs you can share and re-run. Calculators suit a fast screen; software earns its place when you assess sites repeatedly.
How much does property development feasibility software cost in Australia?
Published Australian pricing runs from $149/month or $1,639/year for Feasly with GST included, to AUD$880 for a desktop Feastudy Professional licence, with Feastudy Online from AUD$260 depending on term. ARGUS EstateMaster is quote-only. Aprao publishes from £299/month for three users. All figures were read from first-party pages on 14 October 2026.
Is Archistar the same kind of tool as ARGUS EstateMaster?
No. Archistar is a planning and site-research platform with generative design and compliance checking, and its own tier table labels its financial capability a "Static Feasibility Tool". ARGUS EstateMaster is a development appraisal and cash-flow model outputting residual land value, development profit, IRR and NPV.
Can I just use an Excel feasibility template?
For one site with straightforward funding, yes, and it is often the honest answer. Excel starts to fail on repetition and on complex funding: multiple tranches, capitalised interest and LVR tests multiply the interdependencies, and a single changed input can break the model quietly. The trigger to move is volume or funding complexity.
Is there a free property development feasibility tool?
Yes, at the screening layer rather than the appraisal layer. Landchecker offers a free Starter tier covering property search, zoning and overlays, and state planning viewers such as PlanSA are free. Free tools are genuinely useful for ruling sites out. A free tool producing a residual land value you would bid from, with funding and tax modelled, is not something we found in this market.
Where This Leaves the Buyer
Decide which layer you are shopping in before comparing prices, because the differences between layers are larger than the differences within them.
If your bottleneck is finding and filtering sites, you are buying a planning platform, and you should budget separately for the appraisal that follows. If your bottleneck is knowing what to pay for land, you are buying an appraisal tool, and the decisive test is how it handles Australian GST, the margin scheme and the iterative parts of the calculation rather than how long its feature list is. If your bottleneck is a staged, multi-tranche program across years, you are buying depth, and depth in this category is usually quoted rather than published.
Whichever layer you are in, run your own deal through a trial before you buy. Every vendor here offers one, the localisation differences only show up on real numbers, and a fortnight spent testing your last completed project will tell you more than any comparison table, including this one.