Business Hub · Quoting Jobs
Is it reasonable to charge for quoting a job?
Charge for anything that requires travel or takes real time, and give free quotes from photographs. A site visit costs you two hours and a tank of fuel whether or not you win the work, and giving that away means paying for the privilege of being compared with three other workshops. The usual arrangement is: photo quotes free, home visits charged, and the visit fee credited against the job if it goes ahead.
What a quote actually costs you
A quote feels like admin. It is not. It is unpaid labour, and it is worth measuring.
A home visit to look at a three-piece suite is an hour there and back if you are lucky, half an hour on site, and half an hour afterwards working out the numbers and writing it up. Two hours, plus fuel and van wear. At any sensible shop rate that is a meaningful sum, and you might do six of them to win two jobs.
Give all of that away and the customers who do buy are subsidising the ones who never intended to.
The arrangement that works
Most workshops settle on something like this.
- Photographs: free. Quick, no travel, and it filters out the people who were never serious. Ask for the whole piece, both arms, the back, any damage, and a close-up of the existing cover.
- Home visit: charged. A stated fee, agreed before you set off.
- Credited if you win the work. The fee comes off the final invoice, so a genuine customer pays nothing extra and a tyre-kicker pays for your time.
That last point is what makes it palatable. You are not charging people to quote. You are charging people who do not go ahead.
How to say it
Do not be apologetic about it, and do not over-explain.
"I can give you a quote from photographs free of charge — if you send me a few shots I'll come back with a figure. If you'd rather I came out and looked at it properly, that's £X, which comes off the job if you go ahead."
Nobody who intends to have the work done objects to that. The ones who object have told you something useful about themselves.
When to visit anyway
There are jobs where you should get in the van regardless.
- Anything large, unusual, or built into a room
- Contract and commercial work, where the relationship is worth more than one job
- Antique or high-value pieces where a mistake is expensive
- A customer who has been recommended by someone you already work with
Judgement, not policy. The point of charging is not to collect fees, it is to stop giving away unlimited time to people who are shopping around.
Estimate or quote?
Two different things, and confusing them causes arguments.
An estimate is an informed guess and can change. A quote is a fixed price you are committing to. Say which one you are giving, every time, and if it is a quote make clear what it covers — see the chair being worse underneath than expected for how to handle what you could not see.
Tools for this
Do you work at the bench? The State of the Upholstery Trade survey collects rates, bench hours and lead times from working upholsterers worldwide, so the next person setting a price has something better than guesswork. Anonymous, about three minutes. Add your workshop.