How to Write a Professional Building Quote

Building quotes carry more risk than any other trade's. The numbers are bigger, the jobs run longer, and the thing that ruins them is almost never the price — it's a disagreement months later about what the price included.

A good builder's quote is mostly a scope document with a number at the bottom.

What to include in a building quote

• Your business details and any memberships — FMB, CHAS, Constructionline, TrustMark.
• The scope, phase by phase — groundwork, structure, first fix, second fix, finishes. Not one paragraph.
• What is explicitly excluded. This matters more than the inclusions.
• Material specifications — brick type, block density, insulation spec. "Bricks" is not a specification.
• Who is responsible for what — skips, scaffold, welfare, parking, permits, and access.
• An indicative programme with the caveat that weather and third parties move it.
• A payment schedule tied to stages, not dates.
• Validity period — 14 to 28 days. Material prices genuinely move.

What a garden wall quote looks like

A double-skin garden wall, roughly 6 metres by 1.2 metres, on an existing footing. Larzo's starting prices:

• Bricks, 600 at £70 per 100 — £420
• Sand and cement, 12 bags at £8 — £96
• Concrete blocks, 20 at £3.50 — £70
• Labour, 16 hours at £50 — £800

That's £1,386 before VAT. Note what the line "on an existing footing" is doing: it's the difference between this price and one twice the size. If the footing turns out to be unsound, that's a new quote, and the customer already knows it because you wrote the assumption down.

Fixed price or day rate

For defined work — an extension to a drawing, a loft conversion, a wall — customers expect a fixed price and you should give one. Uncertainty is your problem to price, not theirs to carry.

For renovation and discovery work, where nobody knows what's behind the plaster, a day rate with a not-to-exceed figure is fairer to both sides. Say which you're quoting in plain words. A customer who thinks a day rate was a fixed price is a customer who won't pay the last invoice.

The assumptions that protect you

Every building quote should carry its assumptions on its face. The useful ones:

• Existing structure is sound; remedial work found on opening up will be reported and priced first.
• Reasonable access for materials and a skip; restricted access is chargeable.
• Ground conditions as expected; obstructions and made ground are excluded.
• Services located as indicated; diversions are excluded.
• Weather-dependent work will not proceed in frost or persistent rain.
• Making good and decoration excluded unless stated.

None of that is legalese. It's six lines that turn "you never said" into "it's on page one".

Regulations and approvals

Be explicit about who is obtaining what. Extensions, structural alterations and loft conversions generally require Building Regulations approval, and may need planning permission depending on size and location — permitted development covers a lot of domestic work but not all of it. Party Wall matters can apply where you build near or on a boundary.

State clearly whether fees and applications are in your price or the customer's responsibility. It's a common and expensive misunderstanding.

Stage payments done properly

For anything running weeks rather than days, tie payments to milestones the customer can see: deposit on materials, payment at damp course, at plate height, at roof watertight, on completion. Dates encourage arguments about delay. Milestones don't.

Never let the final payment be the only meaningful sum outstanding. Structure it so completing the job is worth your while and so you're never funding the customer's project.

Common mistakes

• Scope in one paragraph. If it can be read two ways, it will be.
• No exclusions. Silence gets interpreted as included.
• Quoting off a phone call. Go and look at it.
• Free variations. "While you're here, can you just…" is a new quote, in writing, every time.
• No photos of existing conditions. When the customer later says the crack was your doing, the dated photo settles it.

Quote building jobs from your phone

Larzo handles multi-trade quotes, staged invoicing, and site photos attached to the quote itself — so the condition you priced against is recorded before you start. Get an e-signature on acceptance and track payments as they land. See it built for builders →