How to read a tradesperson’s quote before you accept it

The cost notes tell you what published guides have printed for common jobs. This page sits after that: you already have one or two figures in your hand. Four hundred businesses here advertise a free quote. That is an offer to price the work, not a promise that materials, skip hire or VAT sit inside the first number you hear.

This site does not send your job, does not rank the quotes, and does not certify the work. You still place the call. Use a city list when you need another number — contact details shows the same public routes.

If it is only a sentence, it is not a quote yet

Ask for the figure in writing: email, letter, or a message you can keep. A verbal “about two grand” on a noisy line is how extras appear on Saturday. The written note should name the address, the rooms or the elevation, the work, and a date the figure holds.

A directory card that says “quote on request” or “free survey” is a policy. Confirm the same wording with the person who attends. Twenty businesses advertise no call-out fee, ten of them locksmiths. That usually means the visit fee is not billed separately. Labour, parts, night rates and VAT can still be extra. Ask before a van is sent.

Read the scope twice — then read the exclusions

1. What is being done? “Roof” is not a specification. Tiles, underlay, flashings and valleys are.
2. What is being reused? Existing boiler connections, existing plaster, existing kitchen units.
3. What is excluded? Scaffold, parking, skip, making-good, painting, weekend working.
4. What happens if they find rot, sludge or a hidden pipe? A day rate for extras, or a stop-and-requote?
5. Who owns the certificates? Gas Safe paperwork, an electrical installation certificate, a building-control completion notice.

A cheaper quote that omits scaffold and making-good is not cheaper. A dearer quote that names those lines is the one you can compare. For a roof, read new roof costs. For a rewire, read rewire costs. For an extension, read extension costs per m² before you multiply a rate that might be shell-only.

VAT silence is not “included”

Only a handful of listings here mention VAT in the note. Ask whether the written figure is plus VAT or including VAT. A 20% surprise on a £6,000 rewire is a different conversation from a £50 locksmith call, and both still need the question.

Access extras hide in the same silence: parking suspensions in London, a scaffold licence, a skip permit, or “we’ll see when we lift the boards”. If the job is an occupied house, ask whether the figure assumes empty rooms. Checkatrade and MyJobQuote both warn that occupied rewires and London labour sit higher. Use that as a prompt, not as their bid.

Comparing two quotes without picking a mascot

Line up scope, duration, exclusions, VAT and certificates. Ignore who answered the phone faster. Ignore a card that publishes a £1,000 roofing guarantee — that is a warranty line on four London roofing profiles, not a job price. Ignore a heat-pump headline next to a gas-combi figure.

If one installer is MCS and the other is Gas Safe only, they may be pricing different systems. If one electrician is in a competent-person scheme and the other will “sort building control later”, they are not the same product. You still choose. This site does not.

Ask when money is due. A deposit for materials on a named specification is different from cash-up-front for a job that has no written scope. Stage payments on an extension should follow visible work. A locksmith or an emergency plumber should be able to say the figure before the van moves. None of that is a payment product on this site; it is what you write back on the quote.

Open the matching list when you want a third number: roofing, plumbing, electrical or building. Use the number on the card. Nobody here emails them for you.

Questions before you accept the first figure