Last updated 21 October 2026
Should you charge for quotes?
Short version: charge for the expertise you hand over, not for turning up. If the visit ends with the customer holding something a rival could price from, such as a diagnosis, a design or a set of drawings, that is work and it is fair to charge for it. A look round and a number is the cost of winning work, so keep it cheap for yourself instead. Either way, tell the customer about any fee before you go out, in writing.
Telling them first is the line that matters, both to customers and in law. A fee they agreed to reads as professional. The same amount on an invoice they never expected reads as a con, and is hard to recover.
| What the customer walks away with | Charge for it? | Usual way to do it |
|---|---|---|
| A rough price from a call, photos or a video | No | Free, and it filters out the ones who cannot afford you |
| A visit, a measure and a written quote | Usually no | Free, once the ballpark has been accepted |
| A diagnosis of a fault | Yes | Call-out or hourly charge, agreed before you go |
| A detailed costing for a big build | Often | Survey fee, taken off the final invoice if they hire you |
| Drawings or a design | Yes | Design fee, deducted if they go ahead with you |
Do the sum first
What free quoting costs per job you win.
Most advice works out the cost per quote, or per week. That number is wrong, because you do not get paid per quote. You get paid per job, and every job you win carries the unpaid hours of the quotes you lost on the way. The figure to know is this one:
The formula
Hours per quote × quotes per job won × your hourly rate = unpaid quoting on every job you win
Here it is with made-up numbers, purely to show the working. Swap in your own: count the hours on your last ten quotes, including the drive and the evening writing them up, and how many of the ten turned into work. Nobody else can give you your win rate, and it is the number that moves the answer most.
| Input | Worked example (illustrative) | Yours |
|---|---|---|
| Hours per quote, travel and write-up included | 3 hours | ... |
| Quotes per job won | 4 (you win 1 in 4) | ... |
| Your hourly rate | £30 (a £240 day over 8 hours) | ... |
| Unpaid quoting carried by each job won | 3 × 4 × £30 = £360 | ... |
| Same, if the leads were shared with other trades and you win 1 in 6 | 3 × 6 × £30 = £540 | ... |
Read the result as a price you are already charging. That £360 is either in your quote, which makes you dearer than the trade who wastes less time, or it comes out of your wages. The last row is why the source of the lead matters: when the same job is sold to several trades, quotes per win goes up for everyone, which is the same cost per won job sum we run in the shared lead trap.
The formula also shows you have three levers, and a fee is only one of them:
- 1
Cut the hours per quote
Price from photos or a video call before you drive anywhere. Andrew Bassett of The Invisible Painter in Clapham reported to Painting & Decorating News in 2016 that his average quote took 76 minutes including travel, and 6 minutes once he switched to video estimates, with the price subject to a proper site visit.
- 2
Win more of the quotes you do
A clear written quote and a follow-up a few days later win jobs a silent quote loses. See how to write a quote and how to follow up a quote, linked below.
- 3
Get paid for the part that is worth money
Diagnosis, design and detailed costings, covered in the next section. This is the lever that turns away the people who were only ever collecting prices.
The second lever is the cheapest to pull: our guides on how to write a quote and how to follow up a quote cover what goes on the quote and when to chase it.
Pick your model
Four ways to charge, and who each suits.
The right model depends on what your visit produces. A repair trade sells the diagnosis, a measure-and-price trade sells the job, and a design-led trade sells the drawings long before anyone swings a hammer.
| Fee model | How it works | Suits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free, after a ballpark or photos | Give a rough range by phone, photos or video. Visit free only once they accept the range. | Measure-and-price work: decorating, fencing, flooring, driveways, roofing | Call the ballpark an estimate, not a quote, so it does not bind you. |
| Call-out or diagnosis fee | A fixed charge or an hourly rate to find the fault, agreed on the phone before you go. | Repair and fault-finding: plumbing, heating, electrical faults, appliances | Say the price before you set off. Never surprise them at the door. |
| Survey fee, deducted from the job | Charge for the detailed survey and costing; take it off the final invoice if they hire you. | Big projects: extensions, loft conversions, renovations, new builds | Put the deduction in writing. Mind the cooling-off rules below. |
| Paid design or drawings | Quote free, but charge for drawings or a design; deduct it if they buy from you. | Design-led work: kitchens, landscaping, signs | Make clear it is a separate charge, not a deposit on the job. |
Two notes on the table. The deducted fee costs the customer nothing if they pick you, which is the easiest way to say it out loud. And the drawings rule protects you from the worst outcome of all: doing the design work for free and watching a cheaper trade quote from your drawings.
Whichever you pick, send the terms in a message before the visit, so there is a written record of what they agreed to. Two you can adapt:
A survey fee that comes off the job
Hi [name], thanks for getting in touch about the [job]. For a project this size we do a full survey and a detailed written quote. The survey is [£amount], paid before the visit, and it comes off your final invoice in full if you go ahead with us. If that works, just reply and we'll book [day]. [Your name]
A free quote, with paid drawings
Hi [name], happy to come and measure up and give you a written quote for free. If you'd like drawings or a design to go with it, that is [£amount], a separate charge rather than a deposit, and it is taken off the price if you go ahead with us. [Your name]
What UK law says
Tell them first, or you may not get paid.
A general guide to the rules, not advice on your own case. Three pieces of consumer law decide whether a quote fee holds up, and all three point the same way: agree it before the visit.
- 1
What you say becomes the contract
Section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes anything you say or write about your service a term of the contract, where the customer takes it into account when deciding to go ahead. "Comes off your invoice if you hire us" is a promise you have to keep. So is "free quote".
- 2
No agreed price means a reasonable price, and no more
Under section 51, where no price was agreed, the customer must pay a reasonable price for the service, and what counts as reasonable is a question of fact. An invoice for a quote nobody was told about can only be argued as a reasonable price for a service they may say they never asked to buy.
- 3
The price goes in before they are bound
The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 require the total price, including taxes, before the customer is bound. For a contract agreed in their home, that information, plus their cancellation rights where they have them, must be given on paper or, if they agree, another durable medium.
Then the trap almost nobody mentions: a fee can carry a 14-day right to cancel. Citizens Advice tells customers that a service arranged online or over the phone gets a 14-day cooling-off period, and so does one agreed away from the business's premises, such as their home, above a £42 line. How that applies to a quote fee depends on how it was agreed:
| How the fee was agreed | 14-day cooling-off? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| On the phone or online | Can apply | Send the price and cancellation terms in writing, and get them to ask expressly, ideally in writing, for the visit to go ahead inside the 14 days. |
| Face to face at their home, over £42 | Yes | Give the price and cancellation terms on paper, or another durable medium if they agree, before they agree to the fee. |
| Face to face at their home, £42 or less | No | The off-premises rules do not apply to contracts of £42 or less. |
| They called you out for an urgent repair | No | Urgent repairs or maintenance the customer asked you to visit for are outside the cancellation right. |
Where the cooling-off does apply, the rules say you must not start the service inside the 14 days unless the customer expressly asks you to. If they ask and then cancel, they pay for what you had already done. If you never gave them the cancellation information, they pay nothing. That is why the written request before the visit matters: without it, a customer can cancel a survey you have already carried out.
Two caveats. Whether a sole trader taking bookings by phone counts as a distance sale under these rules is not clear-cut, which is why the first row says it can apply, not that it does; Citizens Advice is the place to check. And the £42 figure has an amendment recorded against it on legislation.gov.uk that has not yet taken effect, so check the current figure before you rely on it.
The customer's side
They mind the surprise, not the fee.
A homeowner on Mumsnet got three builder quotes and was then invoiced by one of the builders she did not pick. The complaint was not the amount: "I wasn't advised that there would be any costs involved in receiving a quote and I didn't ask for drawings". The replies drew the same line again and again:
"If he didn't say he would charge then he doesn't get to charge."
"I can see the logic in charging, but you'd need to be advance-warned"
"Tbh, I'm happier paying the fee as I can explore ideas with all three without feeling I'm wasting their time. But I do want to know in advance."
"I wouldn't pay for someone to look round, but I would pay for drawings / design work."
That last one is the whole guide in a sentence, from the customer's side. A fee for a look round feels like paying for your sales visit. A fee for drawings feels like buying something. And the customer who was happier paying is the one you want: a fee announced up front meant they could explore ideas without feeling they were wasting anyone's time. Some will still refuse any fee ("I wouldnt use someone who tried to charge me for a quote", said another reply), which is why the table above keeps the look round and the ballpark free.
From the trades
How UK trades actually handle it.
In their own words, from trade forums and the Federation of Master Builders. Notice how few of them charge for the visit itself, and how many charge for what they hand over.
"Although i don't ask customers to pay for a quote, since the late 1990's i absolutely do not give them design drawings unless they pay for them."
"I have started charging for designs, after many years of doing them for free, but do emphasise to the client that if we landscape the garden then the design fee is subtracted from the landscaping total."
"I don't do that as to give a price I need to spend time diagnosing the problem."
"If we are the successful contractor, the quote is credited to the client's final invoice"
"This will all be completely refunded if the client decides to choose us for their project."
"be clear that this is not a deposit on the job but a separate charge"
The other side gets a fair hearing too. Peter Cassidy, another sign maker on the same thread, put the risk plainly: "if I told the customer there would be a charge before I even got the job, I probably wouldn't get to quote for many jobs." That is the case for keeping the first step free and charging only once the job is real, the way Booth credits the fee back and the kitchen fitter deducts the drawings. Booth had spent "30+ hours preparing a quote, only to learn that the client was just shopping around". The fee is what stops that happening twice.
The bigger picture
Fewer wasted quotes start before the call.
A quote fee filters out time-wasters at the door. It is cheaper to filter them before they ever ring. A website that shows the kind of jobs you take on, the areas you cover and a "prices from" figure means the people who get in touch already know roughly what you cost, which is the ballpark step done for free. What that looks like is in what makes a good tradesman website, and if the phone is where the qualifying happens, a call answering service can ask the budget questions while you are on a job.
The biggest single input in the sum is quotes per job won, and that is set by where the lead came from. A lead sold to several trades starts you as one of several prices; a lead that came to you alone starts you as the only one. Run the same cost per won job sum on your lead source with the shared lead trap before you decide the answer is a quote fee.
Straight answers
Questions owners actually ask.
- Is it normal to be charged for a quote?
- Both happen in the UK. Plenty of trades still quote for free, while others charge for a survey, a diagnosis or design drawings, often taking the fee off the bill if the customer goes ahead. The line customers draw is being told first: the NI Direct government advice to homeowners is to ask beforehand whether there is a charge for giving a quotation, so say it before they have to ask.
- Can I charge for a quote if I didn't say so beforehand?
- It is a weak position (a general view, not advice on your case). Under section 51 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, where no price was agreed the customer only has to pay a reasonable price for a service, and what counts as reasonable is a question of fact. A customer who asked for a free look and got an invoice will argue they never agreed to buy anything. Tell them about the fee, in writing, before you go out.
- Should the survey fee come off the job?
- For bigger jobs, usually yes. Taking it off the final invoice means the customers who hire you pay nothing extra, and only the ones collecting prices pay for your time. Write it down when you agree the fee: under section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, what you tell the customer about your service and they rely on becomes a term of the contract, so the promise to deduct it is one you have to keep.
- Is it normal to pay a plumber for a quote?
- For a repair, often yes, because finding the fault is most of the work. Plumbers on UK trade forums say they will not price a boiler repair without diagnosing it first, and that time is charged as a call-out or by the hour. Pricing a new installation from a visit is a different job. Either way, the NI Direct advice to customers is to always ask about call-out charges, so tell them before they ask.
- What is the legal difference between a quote and an estimate?
- Citizens Advice puts it plainly: a quote, sometimes called a fixed estimate, is a promise to do the work at an agreed price, and the trader cannot charge more without a good reason, and not because their own costs went up since quoting. An estimate is the trader's best guess. If the final bill is a lot more than an estimate, the customer only has to pay what is reasonable. So label a ballpark as an estimate and a firm price as a quote.
- How long is a builder's quote valid?
- As long as you write on it. There is no standard period you have to use, so put a validity date on every quote. Because what you write and the customer relies on becomes part of the contract under section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a clear date is what lets you re-price a job they come back to months later.
Quote for people who already want you.
See what it costs, then tell us about your business and we'll show you a website that sends you leads that are yours alone, from people who already know what you do and roughly what you charge, so your evenings go on a full diary instead of quotes for strangers. Got a question first? Just message us.