About SmartBuild
Last updated: 8 October 2026
SmartBuild is a free UK website and web app for planning DIY and building jobs. You pick a project, enter your measurements, and SmartBuild works out the materials you need and what they cost, using up-to-date supplier prices where we have them. There's no sign-up for DIY use.
What SmartBuild does
- Project calculators for common jobs such as painting a room, plasterboarding, stud walls, loft insulation, fencing, decking and shed bases. Each one shows how the quantities are worked out.
- Project guides in plain English, with the formula, a worked example and a calculator.
- Material search across common building materials, plus 20,000+ products with prices.
- A shopping list you can share, print or email to yourself, then buy on the supplier's own website.
Where the prices come from
Right now three suppliers, Travis Perkins, Wickes and Toolstation, have prices on SmartBuild. Travis Perkins prices come from its official product feed, through the Awin affiliate network. Wickes and Toolstation prices are read from the price shown on each supplier's own public product page, only for the products we have matched to our materials. That check is small and polite: three mornings a week, one page every few seconds, identified as SmartBuild, following each website's robots.txt, and it stops if a website asks it to. We don't crawl supplier websites or get round any of their protections.
Prices are refreshed up to three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), each price shows the date it was updated, prices include VAT, and any update that looks wrong is held back rather than published. A supplier match is only made when the product is the same specification and pack size as the material listed.
For every other supplier we show a "Check price" link to their website instead of a number. Those items are never added to your total. Occasionally a price has been checked by hand on the supplier's own website; it is labelled "Price checked" with the date and is dropped after 14 days. We never estimate or invent a price.
Always check the final price, stock and delivery on the supplier's website before you buy.
Similar products, same job
Prices, totals and the "cheapest one stop shop" always compare the exact product in your list. For a few generic materials we also keep a short, hand-picked list of similar products from other suppliers: things like a weed-control fabric roll of the same width and length, or a compression fitting of the same size. When one of these is cheaper by at least 5% or 50p, a small optional line appears under the item, with the price from that supplier's own product page, a plain note of what matches (size, pack, type, material) and what can differ (usually the brand), and a Buy now link.
A similar product is never added to your exact totals or to the one stop shop result. If you want to see the saving, a separate, clearly labelled "Cheapest overall including similar products" figure shows it, and you choose whether to use it. Similar products are refreshed on the same Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule as every other price, and one that cannot be checked is hidden rather than shown with an old price. Whether it suits your job is your call: check the product page before you buy.
How SmartBuild makes money
Disclosure: Some links to suppliers are affiliate links. If you buy after clicking one, SmartBuild may earn a small commission from the supplier, at no extra cost to you. Links that can earn us money are marked "Affiliate" in the app.
- Results, "cheapest overall" and "one stop shop" totals are always worked out from price alone. Whether a supplier pays us anything plays no part.
- Suppliers can't pay for placement. There are no sponsored listings or featured suppliers.
- We add supplier prices whether or not they have an affiliate scheme, and every supplier gets a "Check price" link, listed A to Z.
SmartBuild doesn't show adverts, doesn't run analytics or tracking scripts, and doesn't sell personal data. See Privacy & cookies.
Who runs SmartBuild
SmartBuild is an independent UK service. It isn't owned by, or part of, any supplier or merchant group. It grew out of a quoting tool used on real building and refurbishment jobs, and launched as a standalone service at smartbuilduk.co.uk in October 2026. Company details are at the foot of this page.
Contact
Email hello@smartbuilduk.co.uk. If a price, quantity or link looks wrong, please tell us and we'll correct it. Suppliers and affiliate networks can use the same address.