EstateMaster alternatives: an honest review for Australian developers (2026)

EstateMaster is deep, proven and widely recognised, but it’s desktop software with opaque pricing, built for an era when a feasibility was a file.

ARGUS EstateMaster (often searched as Estate Master) is property development software owned by Altus Group, the Canadian company behind ARGUS. It’s sold as three modules:

• Development Feasibility (DF): feasibilities, residual land value, and sensitivity and scenario analysis.
• Development Management (DM): cashflow and budget tracking once a project is live, starting from an imported feasibility.
• Corporate Consolidation (CC): rolling up multi-stage projects and portfolios, including currency conversion.

Together they’re sold as the Property Development Suite. Altus says more than 20,000 property developers in over 75 countries use EstateMaster.

• Analytical depth. S-curve cost distribution, staging, debt, equity and JV funding structures, and sensitivity on costs, revenue, timing and interest rates. One reviewer says it can “calculate in extensive detail S-Curves, rental income, Funding costs”.
• Recognition. Lenders, valuers and consultants know the EstateMaster output, and Altus says ARGUS is taught at more than 200 universities and colleges.
• Reporting. Altus lists more than 100 reports and a custom report builder.
• Integrations. Links to Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Salesforce, and Microsoft Excel and Word.
• Portfolio scale. Corporate Consolidation suits large developers who report across many projects and stages.

• It’s desktop software. You download and install it, and it works through Microsoft Excel.
• A learning curve. Some reviewers describe it as “not user friendly to less experienced users” and say setup could be easier.
• Files, not projects. Each feasibility is a file. Versions multiply in folders and inboxes, and sharing one with a lender or partner usually means emailing a file or a PDF.
• Loan structures. One reviewer notes that “limited loan facility are allowed”, which matters on projects with a complex capital stack.
• Loan sizing. There’s no control to keep capitalised loans from blowing out beyond their limit. Sizing the loan is an iterative trial-and-error process.
• Opaque, long-term pricing. Altus doesn’t publish prices. Its subscriptions are quoted through sales, with discounts for multi-year terms.

Altus offers a 14-day free trial after you download and install the software, then discusses subscription options. It doesn’t publish prices. A recent enquiry has DF running $2,100 ex GST per user or $4,200 ex GST for a shared (SCA) licence that required a physical computer running it on your network.

EstateMaster is still a sound choice for large organisations with portfolio reporting needs, existing licences and staff already trained on it. For developers and small teams who want to work in a browser, pay monthly and share feasibilities cleanly, Feaso Cloud is the better fit.

Most developers who switch don’t need less analysis. They want less friction around it. These are the reasons that come up most:

1. Working from anywhere. A desktop install on one Windows machine doesn’t suit teams that work on laptops, from site or on a Mac.
2. Cost and commitment. A boutique developer doing a handful of feasibilities a year struggles to justify thousands of dollars per user on a multi-year term.
3. Version control. Feaso_v7_FINAL_revised.xlsx is a running joke because it’s real. Nobody is sure which file the lender saw.
4. Sharing with lenders and JV partners. Every financier wants a slightly different version, and a JV partner shouldn’t see another partner’s terms.
5. Standardising across a team. When every analyst builds feasos their own way, reviewing them takes longer than building them.
6. Onboarding. New staff need training before they’re productive, and training is a line item of its own.

Feaso Cloud costs about a third less than EstateMaster for one user, runs in any browser, and is built for sharing. Prices are in AUD.

Feaso Cloud matches the feasibility depth most developers use in EstateMaster, and fixes the workflow problems around it, at a published monthly price.

• The program drives the numbers. Lay out the development month by month, with phases and sub-phases. Costs fall along their S-curves, and the cashflow follows when a date moves.
• Finance that sizes itself. Debt facilities stay within their limits and wait for the required equity before the first drawdown. Interest is capitalised, and the 3-month BBSW rate is read from ASX each weekday.
• Returns across the top of every tab. Profit, return on cost, project and equity IRR, and peak equity. Set your targets and Feaso Cloud solves the residual land value that meets them.
• Every development type. Residential, townhouses, commercial, mixed use, build-to-rent, PBSA, hotel and industrial.

• Every version kept. Save scenarios with a history of what changed, when and by whom. Compare them side by side.
• Shared safely. Send a lender or partner a read-only interactive copy that they open with an emailed code, with no account needed. Each JV partner sees their own share and returns, never another partner’s terms.
• Lender-ready reports. Export a Feasibility summary or a full Lender pack as a PDF with your logo, or any tab to Excel with values only.
• Company standards. Save organisation templates so every analyst starts from the same assumptions.
• Kept properly. Hosted in Sydney, two-factor sign-in for everyone, uploaded documents scanned for malware, encrypted nightly backups.

If you need corporate consolidation across a large portfolio, development management linked to your accounting system, or your financier specifically asks for an EstateMaster file, EstateMaster goes further today. For feasibilities themselves, and for sharing them, Feaso Cloud is the simpler and cheaper choice.

1. Start free. Sign up with your name, your organisation and an email address. No card is needed.
2. Upgrade to Pro or Team when you’re ready to bring your existing work across.
3. Import your EstateMaster DF files as they are. You can also use the Excel import template, or let the AI Importer read your own spreadsheet models. Every problem is listed before the project is created.
4. Check one project against your EstateMaster output so you trust the numbers.
5. Save it as a template and share your next feaso with your lender as a live, read-only copy.