How to write a quote for services — six real templates, and the clause that matters
A quote that prevents arguments is not a price with a job title on it. It states what the price does not include, what must be true on site for the work to go ahead, and that anything else found gets quoted before it is touched. Most tradespeople add those lines only after the job that taught them to. Below is a real set of six templates covering the usual jobs for a plumbing business, produced from one request, with the note block written into every one of them.
How to do it
- Write one template per job you actually quote Name the jobs first. Six specific headings beat one flexible template, because the flexible one gets retyped every night anyway.
- Put the exclusions in every template, not a footer What the price does not cover has to travel with the price. In a message thread there is no footer.
- State the site conditions the price assumes 'Assuming the stopcock turns' is a sentence that costs nothing to write and settles an argument that costs an afternoon.
- Leave rate and VAT as brackets you fill Do not bake in a call-out rate or a VAT treatment. Those are the two things that differ per business and per job.
The exact request
We run a two-van plumbing outfit. Every job we quote gets typed out fresh in WhatsApp and it takes me an hour a night. Build me a set of six quote templates covering our usual jobs — boiler service, leak callout, bathroom refit, radiator swap, blocked drain, emergency callout — each with the bits I always forget to mention.
What came back
What it cost
| Quote templates run | $0.148375 |
| Total | $0.148375 |
What it got wrong
- The file came back as Markdown, not Word or PDF. For pasting into a messaging app that is the right shape, but if you wanted something to attach to an email you would ask again.
- Six jobs were named and seven sections came back — one arrived unrequested. Worth a read before you use it rather than an assumption that it matches the list.
- The emergency callout template is the least distinctive of the six: its note block reads much like the others, and out-of-hours work is exactly where the disputes are. Add your own definition of what counts as an emergency before sending it.
- No call-out rate and no VAT treatment were invented — both are left as brackets. That is correct, and it means the templates are not sendable until you fill them.
Questions people ask
What should a quote for services include?
The job, the price, what the price excludes, what has to be true on site, and a line saying anything else found is quoted before work starts. The templates below carry all five in a 'Please note' block on each one.
How much did these cost to produce?
$0.148375 on the Smart tier, under a minute for all six. The receipt is on this page.
Opens with this request already filled in. You pay for the run, not a plan.