Payment Schedule Generator

A builder payment schedule breaks your agreed price into stage payments, each released when a physical milestone is finished rather than on a fixed date. This generator turns your total into a six-stage schedule aligned with UK industry practice, so you can hand it to a builder, drop it into a contract, and check that you never pay ahead of completed work.

Enter your agreed total, choose a retention level, and the tool splits the money across the six milestones below.

The six milestone stages

The schedule divides the contract value into six payments. Each is a share of the total and, more importantly, each is tied to work you can stand in front of and verify.

• Deposit, 10%, paid on signing before work begins.
• Foundations, 15%, once the foundations are poured, the damp-proof course is in, and building control has passed the foundation inspection.
• Walls, 20%, when walls, steels and lintels reach wall-plate level.
• Roof, 20%, once the roof covering is on, windows and external doors are fitted, and the structure is weathertight.
• Fit-out, 25%, the largest single stage, covering plastering, first and second fix, kitchen, tiling and flooring.
• Completion, 10%, when snagging is resolved and the completion certificate is in your hand.

The deposit is the one payment made before any work, so it carries the most risk. Keep it near 10%. A figure inside 10–20% is common, but a deposit of 20–25% should be supported by supplier invoices for long-lead items, and a deposit above 25% is a reason to walk away.

How retention works

Retention is a small percentage held back from each interim stage and paid only once the work stands up to inspection. The generator applies it to stages two to five, never to the deposit. A common level is 2.5-5%. The held-back money accumulates and is released with the completion payment, or kept until the end of the defects liability period, typically 12 months, so anything that cracks or settles as the building dries gets fixed on the builder's account. Hold that final slice for 6-12 months after handover.

A worked walk-through

Enter your agreed total and pick a retention level, and the generator returns a payment for each of the six stages above. Picture the build starting on site: nothing is due until the foundations pass their inspection, at which point the foundations share, less retention, falls due. The same pattern repeats through walls, roof and fit-out, each payment triggered by finished, verifiable work and each trimmed by its retention slice. The completion payment then collects the final stage share plus every pound of retention held along the way, released once the snagging list is signed off and the completion certificate arrives.

The result is a schedule where you never pay ahead of the work, and where the builder keeps a clear incentive to return and finish the last details. For the full contract checklist behind these numbers, see contracts and payment schedules.