Quote or estimate? What the difference actually means for your money
On a job sheet the two words get used like they mean the same thing. They don’t — and the gap between them is your money if a job runs over.
A quote is a fixed price
A quote is a firm offer. Once the customer accepts it, that’s the price — even if the job takes longer than you thought or your materials go up. Quote £800 to reboard and skim a ceiling, then find an old chimney breast that doubles the work, and you’re doing that work for £800 unless you agreed otherwise in writing. A quote is the right tool when you can see the whole job and price it with confidence.
An estimate is your best guess
An estimate is an educated figure, not a commitment. It sets the customer’s expectation and lets you both get going, but the final invoice is based on the actual time and materials. Estimates suit jobs where you genuinely can’t see everything up front — anything behind a wall, under a floor, or dependent on what you find once you start.
Why the wording matters
If a disagreement ever reaches a court or an ombudsman, they look at what a reasonable customer understood they were agreeing to. Call a document a “quote” and you’ll be held to the number. Call it an “estimate” — and actually write that word, and explain that the final figure may change — and you can charge the real cost. A number with no label defaults, in most people’s heads, to a fixed price.
Practical rules
- Whole job visible, low surprise risk → quote.
- Unknowns behind the surface → estimate, and say in writing what could change the price.
- Either way, put it in writing. A verbal price is almost impossible to enforce or to defend.
- If you estimate, give a range, or a day rate plus a materials allowance — not a single tidy number that reads like a quote.
- Note what’s excluded. “Price assumes sound plaster behind the units” saves an argument later.
The middle path
Plenty of experienced trades quote the parts they can see and estimate the rest, in one document: “Quote: £1,200 for the work listed. Any additional work needed once the floor is up will be agreed with you first and charged at £X per day plus materials.” The customer knows the floor and the ceiling, and nobody’s surprised.
Scoped builds the priced, itemised document from what you say on site. You choose whether it goes out as a quote or an estimate, and your standard terms — deposit, validity, what’s excluded — sit on every one automatically.
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