Quote vs. Estimate
A quote is a fixed price you commit to; an estimate is your best guess and can move once you see the job up close. Treat a quote as a promise and an estimate as a heads-up, and say out loud which one you’re sending.
What it means
The words get used interchangeably by clients, but they mean different things to your bank account. A quote is a firm number you’ve agreed to do the job for — if it takes longer than you planned, that’s your cost to absorb, not theirs. An estimate is a rough figure, given before you’ve fully scoped the job, that both sides understand could move once the real work starts.
Which one you send changes how you handle surprises. Under a quote, finding rotten wood behind a wall means you eat the extra hours unless you get a signed change order first. Under an estimate, you can revise the number and explain why, and most clients expect that. The trouble starts when you call something an “estimate” out loud but the client hears “quote” — say the word you mean, and put it on the paper too.
You estimate a bathroom repaint at $800 based on a five-minute look. Once you’re stripping wallpaper and find water damage behind it, you tell the client the real number is $1,150 — that’s an estimate doing its job. Call that same $800 a quote instead, and you eat the extra $350 yourself.
Writing “estimate” at the top of the document while treating it, in your head, as a fixed price you’re too embarrassed to revise — then eating the difference on every job that runs long.
See also
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- guide How to price a job so the number holds up The quote only works if the number underneath it does. Start with the price, then write it up.
- tool Free Quote & Estimate Generator Fill in your business and client details, add line items — mark anything optional — set a deposit, and watch a clean quote build itself. Turn it into an invoice with one click.
- tool Quote & invoice terms builder Tick the clauses that fit the job, fill in your numbers once, and get a plain-English terms block you can copy, print, or send straight into the quote generator.