Cemetery GIS Mapping Calculator

This calculator estimates the labor, equipment, and timeline cost of building a searchable GIS database for an existing cemetery. It splits the project into field work and office work, each with its own throughput rate: GPS/RTK survey covers 45 graves per hour regardless of mapping level, while headstone photography (60/hour) and inscription transcription (15/hour, the slowest step by far) are added only at the "standard" and "premium" mapping levels respectively — selecting "basic" skips both. Office hours cover data entry (30 records/hour), quality control (60 records/hour), and historical research for any grave lacking existing records, estimated at 10 records/hour and scaled by the percentage of graves without documentation you enter. Total labor hours times your hourly labor rate gives the labor cost; equipment cost adds RTK GPS rental (billed in full-week increments, so a 41-hour survey still books two weeks), a software/web-platform license that jumps from $1,500 to $3,000 at the premium tier, and an $800-$1,500 drone aerial survey fee that increases once the cemetery exceeds 5 acres.

Project duration in weeks assumes one person working full-time (40 hours/week) through the entire labor total, so real timelines shrink with a larger crew. Annual maintenance is estimated at 15% of the software license plus a flat $1,000 for hosting and updates. Because the field-rate assumptions (45 graves/hour by GPS, etc.) are industry averages, expect real throughput to vary with terrain, marker condition, and crew experience.