Renovation Project Manager vs. General Contractor: What's the Difference?
A renovation project manager coordinates your renovation — managing trades, timelines, permits, and budget — but does not mark up labor or materials. The project manager provides receipts for all trade and subcontractor payments with no markup, and charges a transparent fee, typically 15–25% of construction cost.
A general contractor bundles labor, materials, and management into a single bid. The contractor pays subs and buys materials, then bills the homeowner a marked-up total. Markup is usually 15–100%, but it's almost always hidden inside the bid rather than disclosed.
The trade-off: general contractors can be simpler if you trust them and don't want visibility into pricing. Project managers cost roughly the same on net, but you see exactly where every dollar goes.
FRYH uses both a project manager and a general contractor under one project management fee — giving our clients the organization and communication they want, and the highest quality finished product because someone is on-site making sure every trade is doing the job correctly.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Most homeowners don't realize there's more than one way to run a renovation — or that the model their contractor uses determines almost everything about how the project will actually feel. Here's how the three approaches compare across the things that actually matter: who's in charge, who pays whom, where the money goes, and what you're allowed to see along the way.
Why FRYH
Does Both
General contractors are skilled at the building itself — but the administrative side and the client experience often get sacrificed in the process. We don't think they should be. Not anymore.
So we built a hybrid model that pairs construction expertise with project management discipline, supported by systems that keep the work on track and the homeowner fully informed at every stage. Nothing has to be sacrificed — because at the end of the day, you deserve to know what's happening to your home, and trust that the people doing the work are qualified and doing it right.