Common Quoting Mistakes-That-Cost-UK-Tradesmen-Thousands.md

5 Common Quoting Mistakes That Cost UK Tradesmen Thousands (And How to Fix Them)

It’s Friday evening. The van is parked up, the tools are down, but your work isn’t finished. Now it’s time for the mountain of paperwork, starting with the quotes you promised to send out. You find yourself staring at a notepad, trying to remember the price of a length of copper pipe, second-guessing your day rate, and wondering if you’ve forgotten something crucial. Sound familiar?

This struggle is one of the most frustrating parts of running a trades business. Get a quote wrong, and you either work for peanuts (or even a loss) or you lose the job to a competitor. The constant pressure doesn't just hurt your cash flow; it eats into your evenings, steals your weekends, and adds a layer of stress that follows you from the job site to your family dinner table. It’s a major reason why the "feast or famine" cycle feels so inescapable.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Winning profitable work consistently isn’t about black magic; it’s about getting your quoting process right. In this guide, we'll break down the five most common and costly quoting mistakes UK tradespeople make, and give you practical, no-nonsense tips to fix them today.

1. Inconsistent Pricing (The "Thumb in the Air" Method)

You did a boiler swap for Mrs. Jones last month and charged £1,800. Now Mr. Smith has asked for a quote for a seemingly identical job. Do you charge the same? What if material prices have gone up? What was your markup again? Just adding a "bit on top" and hoping for the best is a recipe for disaster.

Why It's Costly

Inconsistency is the enemy of profit. If you "guess" your price, you're flying blind. One week you might undercharge and effectively pay to do the job, wiping out the profit you made the week before. The next, you might overcharge and lose out to a more organised competitor. It also looks unprofessional. If two neighbours with similar properties get wildly different quotes from you, it damages your reputation on local forums and sites like Checkatrade. Over time, this erodes your profit margin and makes it impossible to forecast your income.

How to Fix It: Create a Standardised Price List

This doesn't have to be complicated. You’re not creating a Screwfix catalogue, just a simple reference guide for your most common jobs.

• Step 1: Calculate Your Base Labour Rate. Figure out your target annual salary, add your business overheads (we'll cover this next), and divide by the number of days you plan to work. This gives you a baseline day rate you need to charge to be profitable.
• Step 2: Create a Materials Markup Formula. Stop guessing. Decide on a standard, consistent markup for all materials. For example, Cost Price + 30%. This ensures you cover your time for sourcing parts, fuel for collection, and make a small profit on every item.
• Step 3: Template Common Jobs. For jobs you do all the time (e.g., "Fit 5 internal doors," "Install outdoor socket," "Replace 10m of guttering"), create a template. List the typical materials needed and the average time it takes.

With this system, you’re not plucking a figure from thin air. You're building a price from consistent, profitable components.

2. Forgetting About Your Overheads

This is the single biggest profit killer for tradespeople. You’ve quoted for your materials and your time on the job. Happy days, the rest is profit, right? Wrong. What about your public liability insurance, your van's MOT and insurance, your phone bill, your accountancy fees, your annual subscription to the Gas Safe Register or NICEIC, and the fuel you use just to get to the wholesalers?

Why It's Costly

If you don't account for these business-running costs in every single quote, you are paying for them out of your own pocket. The money you thought was profit – your wage, your family's holiday fund – is actually being used to subsidise your business. This is why so many tradespeople feel like they're working flat out but never getting ahead. You aren't just a plumber or an electrician on the job; you're the Director of a business, and that business has running costs.

How to Fix It: Calculate Your Overhead Recovery Rate

This sounds more complicated than it is.

• Step 1: Add Up ALL Your Annual Business Costs. Go through your bank statements for the last year. Add up everything that isn't a direct material or subcontractor cost for a specific job.
  • Van Lease/Insurance/Fuel/Tax/MOT: £4,500
  • Public Liability & Tool Insurance: £600
  • Accountant: £500
  • Phone Bill: £360
  • Tool & Equipment Depreciation: £1,000
  • Marketing (Checkatrade, website, etc.): £800
  • Uniforms, Registrations (CIS, Gas Safe etc.): £400
  • Total Annual Overheads: £8,160
• Step 2: Calculate Your Chargeable Days. Be realistic. You won't work 365 days a year. A typical year has about 220 working days after weekends, bank holidays, and a couple of weeks off.
• Step 3: Find Your Daily Overhead Cost. Divide your total overheads by your chargeable days.
  • £8,160 / 220 days = £37.09

This means you need to add £37 to every single day's work before you even start paying yourself a wage. You can add it to your day rate or build it into your pricing formula. Now, your quotes will accurately reflect the true cost of doing business. (For a more detailed breakdown, check out our complete guide to job costing for UK tradesmen).

3. Vague or Unprofessional Presentation

You’ve had the chat, you know what needs doing, so you send a quick text: "Hi Dave, Boiler job will be about £1900. Let me know. Cheers, Tom." It’s quick and easy, but it screams "amateur." It leaves the customer with more questions than answers and does nothing to build their confidence in you.

Why It's Costly

First impressions are everything. A hastily written quote makes you look disorganised and untrustworthy. It doesn't give the client a reason to choose you over someone else. Crucially, it leaves dangerous grey areas. What's included in that £1900? Does it include removing the old boiler? Making good the plasterwork? A system flush? When the invoice is higher than the "about £1900" text, you're heading straight for a dispute, a bad review, and a delayed payment.

How to Fix It: Use a Professional Quote Template

Always send your quotes in a clear, professional format like a PDF. Your template should always include:

• Your Business Details: Your logo, company name, address, phone number, and email.
• Client Details: Their full name and address.
• A Unique Quote Number and Date.
• A Clear, Detailed Description of Work: Break down exactly what you will do. Instead of "New Bathroom," write "Remove existing bath suite and tiles. Supply and fit new L-shape shower bath, toilet, and basin unit. Tile walls up to 2m."
• An Itemised Price Breakdown: Separate costs for materials and labour. Mention VAT explicitly (e.g., "Total Ex. VAT," "VAT at 20%," and "Total Inc. VAT").
• Your Payment Terms: E.g., "50% deposit required to secure booking, with the final balance due upon completion."
• A Quote Validity Period: E.g., "This quote is valid for 30 days."

This protects both you and the client. It shows you’re a serious professional, outlines the scope of work to prevent "scope creep," and gets you paid faster.

4. Slow Response Times

A potential customer calls on Monday for a quote to rewire their kitchen. They're keen, they've got the funds, and they want to get the job booked in. You promise to send something over, but life gets in the way. You finally get around to it on Friday evening. By then, the job is long gone.

Why It's Costly

In the age of instant everything, speed is your competitive advantage. The homeowner isn't just waiting on you; they've likely contacted two or three other tradespeople. The first one to return a professional, well-priced quote often gets the job. A slow response sends a clear message: you're either too busy and don't really need the work, you're disorganised, or you're just not that interested. None of these inspire a customer to hand over thousands of pounds.

How to Fix It: Systemise and Communicate

You don't need to drop your tools the second an enquiry comes in, but you do need a system.

• Set a Target: Aim to get all quotes sent out within 24-48 hours. This simple goal will put you ahead of half your competition.
• Acknowledge Immediately: As soon as you get the enquiry, send a quick text or email. "Thanks for getting in touch about your kitchen rewire. I'm on a job at the moment but will put together a detailed quote and have it over to you by tomorrow evening." This manages their expectations and buys you time.
• Use Your Templates: This is where the work you did in points #1 and #3 pays off. With a standardised price list and quote template, you can generate a professional quote in minutes, not hours. You can even do it from your van between jobs.

5. Not Following Up On Your Quotes

You spend an hour pricing a job, you create a professional PDF, you send it off... and then you wait. And hope. And when you don't hear back, you assume they went with someone else and forget all about it.

Why It's Costly

You're leaving money on the table. People are busy. Your email might have been buried under a pile of others. The client might have a small question that's stopping them from committing. They might be waiting on one other quote before making a decision. Without a polite, professional follow-up, you’re letting a perfectly winnable, profitable job slip through your fingers for no good reason.

How to Fix It: The Simple Two-Step Follow-Up

Following up isn't being pushy; it's being professional.

• Step 1: Diarise It. When you send a quote, immediately put a reminder in your phone or diary to follow up in 3-4 working days.
• Step 2: Make the Call (or Send the Email). Keep it brief and helpful, not salesy. "Hi Mrs. Smith, it's Tom from Tom's Plumbing. I'm just calling to make sure you received the quote I sent over for the new bathroom and to see if you had any questions at all."

That's it. This simple, proactive step shows the customer you're organised and keen on their business. It opens the door for a conversation, allows you to overcome any minor objections, and will genuinely win you more jobs.

Taking Back Control of Your Business

Fixing these five common mistakes won't just make you more money; it will transform how you feel about your business. By moving from guesswork to a clear, consistent process, you'll reduce stress, free up your evenings, and gain the financial clarity you need to grow.

While these manual fixes are a huge step forward, the next stage is to use modern tools to automate the entire process. In our next article, we’ll explore how dedicated job management software can eliminate these errors for good, helping you quote faster, win more work, and build a more profitable, sustainable trades business.