How to Quote a Job Accurately (and Stop Losing Money)
Quoting is the most important number you will write all week. Price too high and you lose the job; price too low and you work for nothing. Knowing how to quote a job accurately is the difference between a business that grows and one that just stays busy.
Here is a practical, repeatable method you can use on every quote.
Start with the scope, not the price
Before you put a number on anything, get the scope clear in writing. Walk the job, note what is involved, and list the work in stages. A quote built on a vague scope is a quote you will lose money on, because every assumption you got wrong becomes free work later.
Write down what is included — and just as importantly, what is not. A short list of exclusions saves more arguments than any other line on the page.
Price labour honestly
Labour is where most quotes go wrong. Be honest about how long the job really takes, including setup, travel between tasks, and clean-up. Then apply your true hourly rate.
Your hourly rate is not what you would like to earn. It is what you must charge to cover wages, the van, tools, insurance and the days you cannot bill — and still make a profit.
If you have never worked out your real rate, do it once and write it down. Quoting against a made-up number is the fastest way to a busy, broke business.
Price materials with a margin
List your parts as separate line items, priced at what you pay plus a sensible margin. There is nothing dishonest about a markup on materials — you carry the cost, the risk of price changes, and the time spent sourcing them. A flat single total hides this, which is exactly why you should avoid it.
Breaking out labour and materials also makes your quote easier to trust. Customers can see what they are paying for, which makes them less likely to haggle on the total.
Do not forget overheads and margin
A common mistake is to price labour and materials, add them up, and call it a quote. That total only covers your direct costs. You still need to cover overheads — phone, software, accountant, fuel, downtime — and then add the profit margin that makes the work worth doing.
A simple structure that works:
- Labour at your true rate
- Materials at cost plus markup
- A line for overheads or a percentage uplift
- Profit margin on top
- Tax applied correctly at the end
Make the quote easy to say yes to
An accurate quote still has to win the work. Send it quickly while the customer is keen, present it clearly, and make the next step obvious. A tidy, itemised quote beats a scribbled total every time — and it is closely tied to winning more work.
Review your quotes against reality
The final step happens after the job. Compare what you quoted against what it actually cost. This is job costing, and it is how your quotes get sharper over time. If you keep finishing jobs for less profit than you expected, your quoting method needs adjusting, not your effort.
Quoting accurately is a habit, not a one-off. Build it into a system, price every job the same disciplined way, and your margins stop being a surprise.
Watch out for the common pitfalls
A few traps catch trades again and again. Quoting from memory instead of measuring leads to under-priced jobs. Rounding everything down to "win the work" leaves you doing it for free. Forgetting small consumables — fixings, sealant, waste disposal, parking — quietly erodes the margin on every job. And quoting verbally, with nothing in writing, invites disputes you will always lose.
The fix for all of them is the same: a written, itemised quote built from real figures, every single time. Once you have a reliable way to capture parts and labour rates, accurate quoting stops being a chore and becomes the fast, default way you work.
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