Paint on walls

03/09/2026

What do my customers think of this? It’s a very tricky situation to be in.

IS IT TIME WE STARTED CHARGING FOR QUOTES? 🤔

Something I’ve been thinking about lately…

Should tradespeople still be expected to provide completely free quotes?

Because a “free quote” isn’t actually free.

You might:

🚐 Drive 20–30 minutes each way
⛽ Spend £5–£10+ in fuel
📏 Measure the job
🗣️ Spend 30–60 minutes discussing what the customer wants
💻 Go home and spend another 30–60 minutes pricing it
📞 Answer questions and make amendments
📅 And potentially follow it up…

All before earning a single penny.

And with diesel currently averaging around 183p per litre in the UK, the cost of getting to jobs is certainly not getting cheaper.

There’s also evidence that unpaid work is adding up for tradespeople. A 2026 Simply Business survey of 408 UK tradespeople found they spend an average of 1.8 hours every week on unplanned work they don't charge for, equivalent to 93.6 hours a year.

And quoting can be even more significant.

Imagine you do just 5-10 quotes a week, taking an average of 1.5 hours each including travel and paperwork.

That’s:

7.5 hours a week
30 hours a month
390 hours a year

That’s almost 10 full working weeks spent quoting.

And some of those customers will never even reply.

So maybe the answer isn't charging everyone £50 just to give them a price.

Maybe it's:

💷 £20–£50 survey/quotation fee
✅ if they accept the job, it gets taken off the final price
🆓 Repeat customers remain free

That way the customer isn't necessarily paying extra if they choose you…

…but your time isn't automatically worth £0 if they don't.

And let's be honest…

If a customer asks three, four or five tradespeople to visit, measure up and produce detailed quotes, they're potentially getting hours of professional advice and work for nothing.

The Federation of Master Builders has also highlighted the problem, with member businesses reporting that detailed quotations can take many hours and may ultimately go nowhere.

So here's the question:

WOULD YOU CHARGE FOR QUOTES?

And if you already do…

How much do you charge?

👇 Let’s hear what the trade thinks.

10/08/2026

Very interesting, especially the comment from the trades person that charges for estimates/quotes and then refunds from the final cost of successful.

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I don’t think this will ever change, but I’ll always highlight it..

Something that’s always increasingly frustrating for tradespeople…

You ask us for a quote.
You chase us for a quote.
You message, call, follow up and ask when we can get it over to you.

So we make the time.

We drive out to your property.
We assess the work.

We can spend 30+ minutes standing in your home after a long day at work or on a weekend answering questions, giving advice and helping you make decisions.

“What colour would you go for?”
“What paint would you recommend?”
“Is this finish better?”
“What would look best here?”
“How would you fix this?”

And of course we’re happy to help. That’s part of providing a good service. We use our experience to give you honest advice and help you get the result you want.

We measure up.
We discuss what you want.
We work out materials and labour.
We put together the quote and send it over.

We’re now in to hours of our time. Plus fuel costs.

The quote gets sent…
And… silence 🤐

No “thanks”
No “we’ve decided to go with someone else”
No “thank you for your time”
Nothing.

Tradespeople completely understand that you may get several quotes and choose someone else. That’s business. We don’t expect every quote we send to turn into a job, if we did we’re actually doing something wrong..

What is frustrating is when we’re repeatedly chased for a quote which takes up our time asking for advice and guidance and we can’t even get 10 seconds to acknowledge the quote once it’s been sent. Of course this isn’t every time, but in my experience it’s about 8/10 quotes.

Behind every quote is a real person and a real business.
The time spent driving to you, standing in your home, answering questions, offering advice, measuring up, sourcing materials, working out costs and preparing a detailed quote all adds up.

A simple “Thanks for the quote, we’ve decided not to proceed.” …is all it takes.

What’s difficult to understand is complete silence after we’ve invested our time helping you.

A little courtesy and communication costs nothing. If you know you don’t have that decency, aren’t sure if you’re serious about a quote and wont respond, please don’t waste our time. Respect our time and we’ll always respect yours.

31/12/2025

Happy new year to all my customers old and new. Thank you for the support over all the years.