Quoting for Trades Businesses: A Complete Guide to Getting It Right

Quoting in the trades is different from quoting in most other industries. You’re not selling a product off a shelf with a fixed price. You’re estimating the cost of work that hasn’t happened yet, on a site you’ve visited once, with materials that might change price before the job starts, using labour that varies in speed and capability depending on who’s available that week.

Getting quotes right is the foundation of a profitable trades business. Quote too high and you lose work. Quote too low and you win work that loses money. Quote inaccurately and you spend half your time managing the gap between what you promised and what the job actually requires.

This guide covers the practical mechanics of quoting for trades businesses — from the site visit through to the final number — with specific examples and approaches that work across HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and construction.

The Site Visit: Where Good Quotes Start

A quote is only as good as the information it’s built on, and for trades work, that information comes from the site visit. Rushing this step — or skipping it entirely — is the single biggest source of quoting errors.

What to capture on every site visit:

• Measurements and quantities. Don’t trust the customer’s description. Measure it yourself. A customer’s “small bathroom” might be 3m x 2m or 5m x 4m. That difference changes your quote by thousands.
• Access and site conditions. Is the ceiling accessible? Can you get a cherry picker in? Is there asbestos? Are there existing services in the way? These factors don’t change what you’re installing, but they dramatically change how long it takes.
• Existing infrastructure. What’s already there? What condition is it in? A switchboard upgrade quote is very different depending on whether the existing board has 10 circuits or 40. A plumbing rough-in depends on where the existing drainage runs.
• Photos. Lots of photos. You’ll forget details by the time you sit down to quote. Photos of the switchboard, the ceiling space, the pipe runs, the access points, the existing equipment — capture everything. Label them by location.
• Customer expectations. What finish level do they expect? What’s their timeline? Are there specific products they want? These conversations save requoting later.

Materials Estimation

Getting materials right means two things: listing everything you’ll need (completeness) and pricing it accurately (currency).

Completeness

The obvious items are easy. A split system install needs the indoor unit, outdoor unit, pipe kit, and electrical cable. But the quote also needs:

• Mounting brackets and fixings — wall brackets, vibration mounts, pipe clamps
• Consumables — sealant, PVC tape, cable ties, pipe insulation
• Electrical components — isolator switch, circuit breaker, cable
• Penetration and making good — core hole, weatherproofing, duct cover
• Waste removal — taking the old unit away

Missing any of these doesn’t change the job — you’ll still need them. It just means the cost comes out of your margin instead of the customer’s pocket.

Pricing

Material prices in Australia have been volatile. Copper fluctuates. PVC pricing shifted after supply chain disruptions. Even basic items like cable and fittings move more than people expect.

Rules for material pricing:

• Update your pricing sheet monthly. Set a calendar reminder. It takes 30 minutes and prevents months of underquoting.
• Quote from your buy price, not list price. If you have account pricing with suppliers, use that. But also check it hasn’t changed since your last order.
• Add a waste factor. For cable, pipe, and sheet materials, add 10-15% for waste, cuts, and unexpected site conditions. For fittings and components, quote exact quantities plus one or two spares for common items.
• Check pricing on big-ticket items at quote time. If a job includes a $3,000 unit, verify the current price with your supplier before quoting. Don’t rely on a price you saw two months ago.

Labour Rates: The Number Most Businesses Get Wrong

Your labour rate is not what you pay your team. That’s your cost rate. Your charge-out rate needs to cover the full cost of having that person in the field, plus your margin.

Here’s how to calculate it properly:

Employee cost per hour (loaded):

• Base wage: $38/hour
• Superannuation (11.5%): $4.37/hour
• Workers comp insurance: $2.50/hour
• Leave loading and entitlements (spread across worked hours): $3.80/hour
• Loaded cost: $48.67/hour

Overhead allocation per billable hour:

• Vehicle (fuel, rego, insurance, maintenance): $12/hour
• Tools and equipment: $4/hour
• Admin and back-office (your time, office costs, software): $8/hour
• Insurance and compliance: $3/hour
• Overhead: $27/hour

Total cost per billable hour: $75.67

If you’re charging out at $85/hour, your real margin is $9.33/hour — about 11%. Most trades businesses need 25-35% margin to be sustainable. That means this example needs a charge-out rate of $100-$115/hour.

Margin Calculation

There are two ways to think about margin, and mixing them up is a common and expensive mistake.

Markup is the percentage you add to your cost. If a job costs $8,000 and you add 30% markup, you charge $10,400. Your profit is $2,400.

Margin is the percentage of the selling price that is profit. On that same $10,400 job, your margin is $2,400 / $10,400 = 23.1%.

Notice the difference: 30% markup is only 23.1% margin. Many business owners say they work on “30% margins” when they actually mean 30% markup — and their real margin is closer to 23%.

The margin formula: Margin % = (Selling Price - Cost) / Selling Price x 100

To achieve a target margin: Selling Price = Cost / (1 - Target Margin %)

So if your cost is $8,000 and you want a 30% margin: $8,000 / (1 - 0.30) = $11,429.

That’s $1,029 more than the “30% markup” price — and over a year of quoting, that difference adds up to tens of thousands in profit.

Putting It All Together: A Quote Structure

A professional trades quote should include:

1. Customer details and job address
2. Scope of work — clear description of what’s included (and what’s not)
3. Line items with quantities and prices — materials, labour, subcontractors
4. Travel, permits, and other costs
5. Subtotal, GST, and total
6. Payment terms — deposit requirements, progress payments, final payment
7. Quote validity period — typically 14-30 days
8. Terms and conditions — warranty, variations process, access requirements
9. Acceptance method — signature, email confirmation, or online approval

Common Mistakes by Trade

HVAC: Underquoting electrical work on split system installs. The unit itself is priced correctly, but the dedicated circuit, isolator, and cable run are either underquoted or missing entirely. On a $3,500 install, the electrical component is often $400-$600.

Electrical: Not accounting for switchboard space. Quoting a new circuit but discovering on site that the switchboard is full and needs upgrading — turning a $500 job into a $2,500 job. Always check board capacity during the site visit.

Plumbing: Forgetting make-good costs. Cutting into walls and floors is part of the plumbing job. Patching, painting, and tiling to restore the surface is often not included in the plumbing quote — and the customer assumes it is.

Construction: Insufficient contingency on renovation work. New builds are relatively predictable. Renovations are not. Hidden structural issues, asbestos, non-compliant existing work — these surprises are the norm, not the exception. A 10% contingency on renovation work is a minimum.

Scaling Your Quoting Process

When you’re a sole trader doing 5 quotes a week, the process is manageable. You hold the pricing in your head, you do the site visits yourself, and your quotes are consistent because there’s only one person producing them.

At 15-20 quotes per week with multiple estimators, the wheels start to come off. Pricing diverges. Quality varies. Follow-up becomes inconsistent. The business owner spends evenings reviewing quotes instead of running the business.

That’s the point where systems matter — whether it’s a well-structured set of templates, an off-the-shelf platform, or a custom-built quoting tool that encodes your pricing rules, margin targets, and approval workflows. The method depends on your complexity and volume. The principle is the same: take the knowledge out of people’s heads and put it into a system that works the same way every time.