Site Grading & Cut and Fill in Bali — Land Leveling to Design Levels
Grading is where earthworks budgets are won or lost. We measure your land, balance cut against fill on paper first, then move soil once — to design levels, compacted in layers, finished with a laser and handed over with the stakes still in.
FREE SITE VISIT · QUOTE IN 24H · from IDR 85,000/m³
What’s included
What you get with site grading & cut and fill
Topo measure & volumes
We shoot your plot’s levels with a rotating laser (or fly it for big sites), then calculate cut and fill volumes before quoting. Numbers first, machines second.
Balanced grading plan
Where possible, soil cut from the high side fills the low side. A balanced plan is the single biggest cost saver in Bali earthworks — fewer trucks, faster job.
Cut to design levels
Building pads, pool terraces and driveway alignments cut to the architect’s levels — checked continuously, not “we’ll fix it at the end”.
Fill in compacted lifts
Fill placed in 20–30 cm layers, each compacted before the next. This is what makes fill buildable instead of a future crack in your slab.
Laser final grade
Pads finished to ±30 mm, falls graded away from buildings, crowns on driveways. The site drains the day we leave.
Stakes for verification
Grade stakes and benchmarks stay in place at handover, so your architect or builder can verify every level against the drawing — most do, and that’s the point.
The cheapest truck is the one that never comes
Here’s the arithmetic nobody shows you: hauling one truck of soil off a plot and buying one truck of fill back costs around IDR 1.1 million together. A sloped 15-are plot graded without a balance plan can burn 60+ truck movements — IDR 30–60 million of pure logistics. The same plot with cut and fill balanced on site: sometimes zero trucks. That calculation, done before quoting, is the whole philosophy of this company. We’d rather win your job with a smaller number than pad it with trucks you didn’t need.
What a grading plan actually shows
After the laser survey you get a simple drawing: existing levels, design levels, where we cut, where we fill, and the balance number — surplus or deficit in m³. On Kedungu’s big coastal plots this is the document that decides whether your budget is 80 million or 180. It’s also your protection: when volumes are on paper, “oh, actually we need 30 more trucks” can’t happen mid-project.
Compaction is a religion here
Fill without compaction isn’t land, it’s stored settlement. Every lift of fill we place — 20 to 30 cm — gets rolled or plate-compacted before the next goes down, with moisture managed (dust-dry soil compacts as badly as soup). We photograph the layers as we go, and if your engineer wants field density tests, we schedule around them happily. A year later, when your tiled floor is still flat, this is the paragraph that did it.
Paddy, slope and everything between
Former rice fields in Seseh need their saturated mud stripped before any fill goes down — building on paddy mud is Bali’s most repeated (and most expensive) shortcut. Slopes above Ubud and in Pererenan become stepped terraces, usually with retaining walls priced in the same document, because grading and walls on a slope are one system. Flat urban plots in Denpasar? Half a day of laser grading turns puddle-land into a drained pad.
What grading costs in 2026
Soil moved and compacted on site from IDR 85,000/m³; imported fill from IDR 660,000 per truck delivered. Worked example: 1,100 m³ balanced on a Kedungu plot — no trucks either way — came to roughly IDR 95 million including compaction and final laser grade, six working days. The same job hauled and re-imported would have crossed 160. Volumes for your plot get calculated free with the site visit; full rates on the pricing page and worked budgets in the cost guide.
Pricing
How much does it cost in Bali
| Work | Unit | Price (IDR) |
|---|---|---|
| Cut and fill, moved on site | per m³ | from 85,000 |
| Imported fill soil, delivered | 7 m³ truck | from 660,000 |
| Compaction in 20–30 cm layers | m² / layer | from 22,000 |
| Final grading of building pad | per m² | from 18,000 |
| Topographic survey (standalone) | per plot | 2,500,000 (free with contract) |
| Mobilization, south Bali | per job | 1,500,000–2,500,000 |
July 2026 rates. The grading plan decides the real total — balancing cut against fill routinely removes 30–60 trucks from a budget. Full price list on the pricing page.
All prices are approximate and do not constitute a public offer — the exact price is fixed in your written quote after a free site visit.
Related
Often ordered together
FAQ
Site grading & cut and fill in Bali — FAQ
What exactly is cut and fill?
Cutting soil from the high part of your plot and using it to fill the low part, so the land reaches design levels with minimal trucking. Done right it’s engineering; done wrong it’s a pile of loose soil that settles under your floor. Full explanation with numbers: cut and fill guide →
How accurate is the finished grade?
Building pads hand over at ±30 mm to design level, checked with a rotating laser in front of you. Driveways and landscape areas are graded to falls (typically 1–2%) so water moves where the drawing says it should — verification stakes stay in the ground.
Can you build on fill immediately?
On properly compacted engineered fill — yes, for slabs and light structures, and your engineer can test it (we welcome field density tests). On loose-tipped fill — never; it settles for years. This is why our fill goes down in compacted lifts, and why we photograph each layer.
My plot is below road level. Where does fill come from?
Can rice paddy be turned into a building pad?
Yes — it’s half our work in Seseh and Kedungu. The paddy mud (soft, organic, saturated) is stripped first; building on it is how floors crack. Then geotextile where needed, engineered fill in lifts, compaction, and a pad your engineer will sign off. Budget honestly: paddy conversion costs more than it looks.
Get a free site visit and a volume-based quote
Send us your location pin and a few photos of the land on WhatsApp. We visit the site, measure levels, calculate real volumes and send an itemised quote — usually within 24 hours. No obligation.
FREE SITE VISIT · QUOTE IN 24H · OWN MACHINES