Cost per pour: EdgePro brackets versus redboard and pickets, worked through
Every estimator who prices EdgePro for the first time does the same sum: the bracket costs more than a picket, so the job costs more. Priced on one pour, that is true. Priced the way the gear is actually used, it is not close. Here is the sum, worked through with real prices, so you can run it on your own numbers.
What the bracket replaces
The edgeboard stays. Redboard, LVL or FRP is still the form face on both methods. What changes is the bracing behind it. The traditional way is a star picket every half metre with the board nailed to it, timber bracing cut and nailed in behind, and a box of nails. The bracing timber gets reused for 6 to 12 pours before it is too split and nail-holed to keep, and 10 to 20 percent of it goes missing along the way. An EdgePro bracket stands against the board, anchors to the ground with two FixEdge anchors, screws to the board through its face holes, and comes off intact at the strip to go straight onto the next edge.
Left: a slab edge braced the traditional way, timber cut and nailed to the job. Right: FlexEdge 600 at Kogan Creek Power Station, Next Civil, August 2026.
The worked example: 100 metres of 300 mm slab edge
A typical commercial ground slab edge. Redboard 170 x 36 as the form face on both methods. Prices ex GST, September 2026. Where a number is an assumption rather than a list price it says so, and the last section shows how to swap in yours.
Bracing with EdgePro
The datasheet spacing for 170 mm redboard is 1200 mm, so 100 metres needs 84 brackets with one at every board end and joint. That lands in the 80 to 99 price tier.
| Item | Qty | Unit | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| FlexEdge 600 bracket | 84 | $116 | $9,744 |
| FixEdge Ground Screw Anchor, 2 per bracket | 168 | $18 | $3,024 |
| Bracing hardware, bought once | $12,768 |
Both lines are rated for 500 or more pours with normal site care and carry a 12-month warranty. On softer ground the FixEdge StarPeg Anchor at $12 is the alternative; it is reused until it bends or the top mushrooms, and the cap built into its design takes the hammer blows so the mushrooming is slowed. Spread across 500 pours the hardware costs $25.54 per pour. Spread across a conservative 100 pours it is $127.68 per pour.
Bracing with pickets and timber
Assumptions, not list prices: star pickets at $8 each and two per metre; timber bracing behind the form at about one metre per metre of edge at $10 a metre; nails and consumables at $50 a pour. On paper a picket takes a hundred pulls and a set of bracing timber six to twelve pours. On site, crews tell us, the lot gets bought again about every three months: pickets bend, mushroom, get buried under fill or walk, the timber splits and 10 to 20 percent of it goes missing. The worked figure uses that, at two pours a week: a fresh set of pickets and timber every 24 pours.
| Item | Qty | Unit | Per pour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Star pickets, $1,600 a set every 24 pours | 200 | $8 | $67 |
| Timber bracing, $1,000 a set every 24 pours | 100 m | $10/m | $42 |
| Nails and consumables | $50 | ||
| Bracing materials per pour, $3,800 every 24 pours | $158 |
Labour, which is the bigger number
The materials sum is the slower half. The labour saving is where crews notice the difference. In EdgePro's own 2019 kit studies, set-out, pour and strip took about a third less time with brackets than with redboard and pickets on every kit measured, and crews running the system on repeat jobs tell us it is closer to half the time. The reasons have not changed. Nothing is cut, nothing is nailed, one person sets a bracket in the time it takes to drive a picket, and the strip is backing out screws and lifting anchors instead of pulling nails and pickets.
On the 2019 study closest to this example, 97 metres of 300 mm edge, the picket method took 22 hours to set, pour and strip. A third less is about 7 hours back a pour; half is 11. At $70 an hour that is $490 to $770 a pour. That is the number to put next to the materials.
Where the lines cross
Two pours a week, 100 metres of edge each time. On pickets and timber that is $2,600 of gear every three months, $50 of nails and consumables a pour, and 11 hours more labour a pour at $70, the half-time figure crews report on repeat jobs: about $7,400 a month. The bracket set is $12,768, once.
| Spent so far | Month 1 | Month 3 | Month 6 | Month 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickets and timber | $7,427 | $22,280 | $44,560 | $89,120 |
| EdgePro FlexEdge 600 | $12,768 | $12,768 | $12,768 | $12,768 |
The bracket set is paid for in the second month. Count the labour saving at a third less time instead of half and it is the third month. From then on it is about $7,400 a month ahead, $89,120 a year. On materials alone, with no labour counted, it is paid for in about ten months. Halve every assumption and it is still paid for inside four months; double them and it is inside four weeks. Run it on your own rates.
Brackets come back off the job and go back on the rack. The spend hits the books once.
Plug in your numbers
- Lineal metres of edge divided by the datasheet spacing for your board (1.2 m for 170 redboard, 1.5 m for FRP) gives the bracket count. Round up and add one per joint.
- Bracket count times the tier price (from $120 down to $110 a bracket above 500) plus two anchors each gives the one-off hardware cost.
- Your picket, timber and nail spend per pour, plus the labour hours you save, is the other side. Most crews already know the first from the last invoice.
- Divide the hardware cost by your per-pour spend. That is the pour where EdgePro is paid for. Everything after it is margin.
If you would rather we ran it, reply to any EdgePro email with the lineal metres and the board you use, or call 1300 085 365, and the comparison comes back within 48 business hours. Every bracket's rated loads and spacings are in the technical datasheet pack.
See the bracket range, priced per bracket · Site packs of 50, 80 and 100