Construction cost intelligence, decoded
What Fern is, and why.
Fern publishes the inflation, escalation, and supply-chain data that estimators actually need to bid with confidence. Free. Methodology-transparent. Sourced.
Why Fern exists
Cost intelligence today is split between two unsatisfying options.
The paywalled databases
Point estimates for $300 to $1,500 a year, with methodology held proprietary. You can't see why the number is what it is. You can't reproduce it. You can't argue with it.
The locked-up commentary
Free expert analysis that's deeply rigorous, locked in PDFs and JPG tables, and not queryable. Brilliant work, but not usable in a modern estimating workflow.
Neither serves an estimator pricing a project for construction midpoint Q3 2027. Fern exists to fix that.
The fern, the fractal, the bid
A shock dilutes on its way to your number.
A 25% tariff on mill steel is not a 25% hit to a building. It passes through a chain of shares, shrinking at each step, self-similar, until it lands as a fraction of a percent. Most reports skip this. Fern shows the whole ladder.
What Fern publishes
- Quarterly reports
- Free. PDF and web. Final-cost and input indices, margin dynamics, regional view, geopolitical risk transmission, tariff landscape with stage-of-input math, forward look with documented uncertainty.
- Escalation calculator beta
- Live. Documented assumptions. Ranges, not point estimates. Configurable confidence intervals. Backtested. Free.
- Geopolitical risk and supply-chain pulse live
- Real-time. Current shocks (Strait of Hormuz, Section 232 tariffs, Red Sea routing) walked through the stage-of-input ladder to building-cost impact. Updated as conditions evolve.
- Methodology
- Every principle Fern applies, every source it uses, every assumption it makes. Open.
- Data API coming soon
- Free tier for the core indices. Pricing for high-volume access.
What Fern doesn't do
- We don't publish point forecasts. We publish ranges with documented uncertainty.
- We don't paywall our primary data. The dashboard and quarterly are free. Methodology is open.
- We don't republish ENR, RSMeans, or other copyrighted indices. We reference them; we don't reproduce them.
- We don't predict geopolitical events. We model their cost transmission once they're underway.
- We don't defer to incumbents. We cite established methodological concepts where we build on them. Otherwise we compete on rigor and form factor.
About Fern
Fern is a product of Katabatic Engineering. The mission: cost intelligence that estimators, preconstruction directors, and owners can actually use, with methodology transparent enough to defend in a bid review. Methodology and analytical code are public.