How to write a quote
A clear quote has four parts. Once you separate them, pricing stops being a guess and the client sees why.
The four parts
Labor: the hours of each worker times the number of workers times your hourly rate. If you prefer to charge by the square foot, it is the area of the job times your price per square foot.
Materials: what you buy for the job (paint, drywall sheets, bags of concrete, mulch, cleaning products), at your purchase price.
Overhead: what it costs to keep your business running that is not labor or material, such as the vehicle, insurance, tools and the time you spend quoting. It is worked out as a percentage of the labor plus the materials.
Profit: what you want to earn on top of all that cost. It is worked out as a percentage of the subtotal plus the overhead.
A worked example
These numbers are an example to show the arithmetic; replace them with yours. A 12 × 12 ft room with 8 ft walls, one door, two windows and two coats of paint needs 334 square feet of wall per coat; at 350 square feet per gallon that is 1.91 gallons, so 2 one-gallon cans.
- Labor: 8 hours × 1 person × $25.00 an hour = $200.00.
- Materials: 2 gallons × $40.00 = $80.00.
- Subtotal: $200.00 + $80.00 = $280.00.
- Overhead at 10%: $280.00 × 0.10 = $28.00.
- Profit at 15%: ($280.00 + $28.00) × 0.15 = $46.20.
- Total: $280.00 + $28.00 + $46.20 = $354.20.
Each line is rounded to the cent and the total is the sum of the rounded lines, so the printed quote always adds up.
By the hour, by the square foot or a flat price
By the hour protects your time when you do not know how long the job will take. By the square foot is easy to explain and to compare, but it only works if you know your own pace. A flat price is what clients usually want to hear; the trick is to reach that number with the arithmetic above and not the other way around.
The calculator takes hours and square feet. Either way the price is yours: we do not publish market rates because they change by city, client and season, and a made-up figure would make you price wrong.
What to put in the written quote
- What work it includes and what it does not.
- The labor and the materials separately, with the quantities.
- The total, and how and when it is paid.
- How long the price holds and when you start.
The green button of the calculator sends all of this on WhatsApp, and the print button gives you a sheet or a PDF.
What the calculator does not do
It does not add sales tax, permits or licenses: they change by state and trade, and a wrong line is worse than none. If you charge them, add them separately before you send the quote.