Try to find out what Cordell Connect costs before talking to a salesperson and you will mostly find nothing. The main product pages push you toward a demo request, review sites list it as quote-only, and forum threads settle on "expensive" without a number. We spent a few sessions digging through public sources so you do not have to. Here is every price we could verify, with links, plus an honest look at who should pay it and who should not.
Quick disclosure before the numbers: we build DA Leads, a development application data platform that competes with Cordell at one end of its range. We will tell you exactly where we are a sensible alternative and where we are not.
What Cordell Connect is
Cordell Connect is the construction project leads product from Cotality (formerly CoreLogic Australia). It tracks commercial and residential projects from early planning through to construction, and its researchers phone around to attach company names and decision-maker contact details to each project. It has been sold in some form for decades, and alongside BCI LeadManager it is one of the two incumbent project-lead databases in Australia.
That research layer is the point. You are not just buying data scraped from council websites. You are buying a team of people who call builders and developers to confirm project status and collect direct contact details. It is also why the product costs what it costs.
The published floor price: A$577.50 a month
Cordell pricing is mostly quote-only, but there is one publicly listed price. The Cotality self-service store lists a Cordell Connect Lite package at "From $577.50/MTH" with a minimum cost of A$6,930 including GST over 12 months. That gets you 2 users, one state of your choice, and metropolitan area access only.
Source: the Cordell Connect page on the Cotality Core Store (also mirrored at corestore.corelogic.com.au). The page is a JavaScript app, so the price does not show up in a plain page fetch. Open it in a normal browser.
Read the conditions again, because they matter more than the headline number:
- 12-month minimum. You are committing to A$6,930, not trying it for a month.
- One state, metro only. Regional projects in your own state are not included at this tier.
- This is the floor. National access and the large commercial, civil and mining segments are quote-only and cost considerably more.
What buyers actually pay
Published floor prices and real invoices are different things. Two public sources give a sense of real-world spend.
Government contracts. Australian federal agencies must publish contracts on AusTender, and published contract notices for construction industry database subscriptions in this category run at roughly A$26,000 to A$32,000 a year. For comparison, the one directly citable notice we found in this product category is CN4037817, a 12-month construction industry database subscription at A$26,364.36, though that particular contract went to rival BCI Media Group. Treat the range as what a multi-seat, wide-coverage configuration of either incumbent costs an organisation that has to publish its invoices.
The 2018 rate card. A CoreLogic marketing PDF prepared for National Precast Concrete Association members, still online on the association's website, lists the full geographic tier structure as it stood in 2018, per user per month, for projects valued at $2m and above:
| Coverage | Commercial categories | Civil only |
|---|---|---|
| National metro | $1,199 +GST | $499 +GST |
| NSW or VIC/TAS state metro | $399 +GST | $139 +GST |
| QLD/NT or WA state metro | $299 +GST | $99 +GST |
| SA state metro | $199 +GST | $79 +GST |
| 3 LGAs of your choice | From $99 +GST | From $49 +GST |
Prices have moved since 2018 and this was a member offer, so treat it as structure rather than current pricing. But the structure is the interesting part: the same database was priced from $49 to $1,199 a month depending on how much geography you unlock. Coverage is the product.
Who Cordell Connect is right for
Being honest about when the price is justified:
- Commercial subcontractors and suppliers chasing $2m+ projects. One won contract pays for years of subscription. The maths is not subtle.
- Teams that sell by phone. Cordell's researchers attach decision-maker names and direct numbers. If your pipeline runs on ringing the right person this week, that research layer is the product, and no scraped dataset replaces it.
- National players. If you quote in four states, an aggregated, human-verified national feed is worth real money.
Who it is wrong for
- Small trade businesses. If you are a fencing contractor, landscaper, sparky or small builder working residential and light commercial jobs, a A$6,930 minimum commitment for one metro area is a lot of fences. Most of the projects Cordell researches hardest are above the size you quote anyway.
- Anyone allergic to annual lock-in. There is no monthly self-serve option. You commit for a year, and the price you pay depends on a sales conversation.
- People who mainly want early planning signals. If what you want is "show me every development application lodged in my patch this week," you are paying for a research team you do not need.
Alternatives in 2026
| Option | Price | What you get | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cordell Connect | From $577.50/mo, 12-mo min | Researched projects, decision-maker contacts | Annual lock-in, metro-only floor tier |
| BCI LeadManager (Hubexo) | Quote-only | Similar researched model, all stages on its top tier | No published pricing, 12-month contracts |
| DA Leads | $49/mo, cancel anytime | Every DA across 367 councils nationally, daily updates, trade matching, estimated cost data | No researched contacts, no direct phone numbers |
| PlanningAlerts | Free (non-commercial) | Email alerts near one address | No trade filter, no value data, patchy coverage |
| Council e-alerts | Free | Direct from the source | One council at a time, formats vary wildly |
Where DA Leads is a sensible alternative, and where it is not
DA Leads sits at the early end of the pipeline. We track development applications, the first public signal that a project exists, across 367 councils nationally with daily updates, and match them to trades. Pro is $49 a month, month to month, cancel anytime, and there is a free tier to check coverage in your area before paying anything. That is the honest pitch: early signal, national breadth, transparent pricing, no annual contract.
What we deliberately do not do is contact research. We do not publish applicant phone numbers or emails, and we do not have a call centre verifying project status. If your sales process needs a decision-maker's direct line handed to you, that is Cordell's and BCI's territory, and you should pay one of them for it. Plenty of trade businesses do fine the other way: see the DA the week it is lodged, look up the site, and approach the builder or owner through normal channels. That is the workflow a $49 product supports.
The practical test: if your average job is under about $100k and your patch is a handful of councils, start with the cheap early-signal layer and see whether it feeds you enough work. If your average contract is in the millions and you sell to project managers by phone, pay for the incumbents. They are expensive because that research layer genuinely costs money to run. Just go in knowing the floor is A$6,930 a year, and that the number on your quote will depend on how much of the map you ask for.
