What a Guaranteed Maximum Price Actually Guarantees

Most construction contracts make you choose between a fixed price you can't see inside and an open bill you can't predict. The cost-plus GMP structure we build under is designed to give you the best of both — if you understand what it does and doesn't promise.

The structure, in one paragraph

You pay what the work actually costs — every subcontract, every invoice, visible to you — plus a stated fee for our management. Above that sits the GMP: a guaranteed maximum price, the ceiling the project cannot exceed for the defined scope. Costs land below the ceiling and you pay the lower number. They threaten the ceiling and that risk is ours, not yours.

Open books, literally

Cost-plus only works with total transparency, so our billing is open-book: subcontractor bids, invoices, and change logs are yours to inspect. You see what we see. Clients tell us this is the part that changes how the whole relationship feels — the guessing stops.

The ceiling is ours to defend. The savings are yours to keep.

What moves the number — and what can't

The GMP caps the scope everyone agreed to. It doesn't cap decisions that change the scope: a larger footprint, a finish upgrade, an owner change mid-frame. Those move through a written change process with pricing you approve before the work happens. What can't move the number is our efficiency — if the work comes in under the ceiling, the savings return to you, per the contract.

Why we build this way

A custom coastal home is too long a relationship for adversarial pricing. The GMP aligns the incentives: you get cost truth and a hard ceiling; we get a client who can watch the books and still sleep. It's the contract we'd want if we were the ones writing the checks.