Vates Cognition returns a budgetary Rough Order of Magnitude for SCIF and secure-facility work. Answer a short intake and the range tightens as you go. Gated by work email and CAGE code; built for security officers, ISSMs, and program offices scoping a build.
Vates Cognition is an on-premise estimating and analysis engine that turns a short program intake into a budgetary Rough Order of Magnitude for SCIF and secure-facility work. It is one of the six products in the Praesidium Suite. In its production deployment the model, its weights, and every inference trace stay on local hardware.
The Project Estimator above is free and open to the public. It asks for business and program metadata only, never classified or controlled information.
There is no honest flat price per square foot for accredited space. Two facilities of identical size can differ by a factor of three, and the reasons are predictable. These are the inputs the estimator weighs, and the ones worth pinning down before you commit to a budget line.
| Driver | Why it moves the number | What tightens the range |
|---|---|---|
| Starting posture | A new build, a retrofit of existing space, and the rescue of a stalled project are three different jobs. Retrofits inherit whatever the previous team did or failed to do, and rescues inherit that plus a schedule already spent. | An honest assessment of what exists today, including any prior accreditation attempt. |
| RF and acoustic requirements | Shielding is the single largest swing item. The attenuation your accreditation requires determines the construction method, and the gap between a modest acoustic requirement and a full RF-shielded enclosure is large. | The attenuation standard, if the Accrediting Official has named one. |
| Usable secure square footage | Scales the whole envelope, but less linearly than people expect. Fixed costs (perimeter, entry control, mechanical penetrations) amortize across larger spaces. | Secure square footage separated from total leased or owned area. |
| Region | Cleared labor is a thin market and its depth varies sharply by metro. The same scope prices differently in the National Capital Region, Huntsville, Colorado Springs, and rural sites. | The metro, or at least the state and whether the site is near an existing cleared campus. |
| Schedule compression | Compressing a schedule buys overtime, parallel trades, and expedited materials. Where scope allows, Salian has reached occupancy in roughly four to six months against an industry norm of twelve to twenty-four. | A required occupancy date and whether it is contractual or aspirational. |
A budgetary ROM is a planning range, not a bid or a firm-fixed price. For a firm figure, write us directly or start with a scoping intake.
The intake asks about size, starting posture, accreditation need, region, timeline, and contract regime. It does not ask for and must not receive classified information, controlled unclassified information, or the as-built specifics of a fielded accredited facility. That boundary is a design constraint across the whole Praesidium Suite, not a policy note added later.
Early answers produce a wide band because a wide band is the honest output of thin information. Each additional input narrows it. You can stop at any point and take the range you have earned so far, rather than being forced through a full form to see any number at all.
What comes out is a budgetary Rough Order of Magnitude suitable for sizing a budget line or testing whether a program is affordable before design money is committed. It is not an offer, a quote, or a firm-fixed price, and the page says so wherever the number appears.
When the range is close enough to act on, Salian scopes the project directly and returns a feasibility read. If the blocker is facility clearance rather than cost, start with the FCL readiness check or the FCL Navigator instead.