Ask any tradesperson what their biggest business challenge is, and pricing comes up time and time again. Get your quotes right and you'll build a profitable, sustainable business. Get them wrong and you'll work harder than ever with less to show for it.

Here are the most common quoting mistakes we see tradespeople making, and how to fix them.

1. Not Accounting for Travel Time

It's easy to think of a job as just the time spent on site. But what about the 45 minutes driving across town? Or the time spent picking up materials on the way?

Travel time is working time. If you're not factoring it into your quotes, you're effectively working for free during those hours.

The fix: Track your actual door-to-door time on jobs for a month. You'll quickly see how much unbilled time you're giving away, and you can adjust your quotes accordingly.

2. Underestimating Material Costs

Material prices have been volatile in recent years. If you're quoting based on prices from six months ago, you could be in for a nasty surprise at the merchant.

Common material cost traps:

  • Not checking current prices before quoting
  • Forgetting sundries like screws, sealant, tape, and fittings
  • Not adding a contingency for unexpected requirements
  • Buying from the wrong supplier when better prices exist elsewhere

The fix: Always check current prices before quoting, add 10-15% for sundries and contingency, and keep a running list of your preferred suppliers with price comparisons.

3. Copying Competitors' Prices

Setting your prices based on what other tradespeople charge is a race to the bottom. You don't know their overheads, their experience level, or whether they're even profitable.

Your prices should be based on your costs, your desired profit margin, and the value you provide, not on what Dave down the road charges.

Think about it: if you're more experienced, more reliable, or provide a better service, your prices should reflect that.

4. Not Tracking How Long Jobs Actually Take

This is perhaps the biggest one. Most tradespeople estimate job durations from memory, and memory is often optimistic.

If you think a bathroom refit takes three days but it consistently takes four, you're giving away an entire day's labour on every job. Over a year, that adds up to thousands of pounds in lost revenue.

The fix: Start logging your actual time on every job. After a few months, you'll have real data to base your quotes on rather than guesswork. A job tracking app makes this simple by letting you log start and end times as you work.

5. Providing Quotes Without a Site Visit

Email quotes based on a phone description are a recipe for disaster. The customer says "small leak under the sink" and you quote for a quick repair, only to arrive and find corroded pipework that needs replacing.

The fix: For anything beyond the most straightforward jobs, do a site visit first. Yes, it takes time, but it's far cheaper than absorbing the cost of work you didn't quote for.

6. Forgetting to Quote for Waste Removal

This catches out a surprising number of tradespeople. You complete a great job, but then you're stuck with a van full of rubble, old materials, or packaging that costs you time and money to dispose of.

The fix: Add a line item for waste removal on every quote. Even if it's a nominal amount, it protects your margin and sets the customer's expectation.

Building a Better Quoting Process

The common thread running through all these mistakes is a lack of data. When you track your jobs properly, including time, materials, travel, and complications, you build up a picture of what work actually costs you.

With that data, quoting becomes less of a guessing game and more of a science. You can price with confidence, knowing that your quotes are based on real numbers rather than gut feeling.

The tradespeople who make the most money aren't necessarily the ones who work the hardest. They're the ones who know their numbers and price accordingly.