How to Write a Quotation That Wins the Job

Quote, estimate, proposal or invoice?

Use “quote” only when you're prepared to stand by the price. Once a client accepts a quotation, it can form a binding agreement on those terms in many countries, so anything that might change the price should be written into it as an assumption or exclusion. If the cost genuinely depends on what you find — renovation, repairs, open-ended consulting — call it an estimate and say what would change it.

What to include

1. 1
   Header: your business name, contact details and tax/VAT number if registered; the word “Quotation”, a unique quote number and the date.
2. 2
   Client: contact name, company and address. Use the client's own name for the project so they recognise it in their inbox.
3. 3
   Scope summary: two or three sentences on what the job delivers — and a line on what it doesn't include.
4. 4
   Itemised lines: description, quantity, unit (hours, days, m², pieces), unit price and amount. Group them into stages if the job has them.
5. 5
   Totals: subtotal, any discount, tax shown separately, and the total. Say whether prices include tax.
6. 6
   Validity: the date the price expires, not just “30 days”.
7. 7
   Payment terms and timeline: deposit, when the balance is due, and when work can start and finish.
8. 8
   How to accept: a signature block, a reply-to-accept line, or a purchase-order requirement.

Writing the line items

Itemising does more than show your working. It lets the client trim the scope rather than reject the whole quote, and it makes it obvious later what was — and wasn't — paid for. Compare:

The clear version adds up to the same $5,770, but a client who wants to save money can now ask for six pages instead of eight — and you know exactly what that's worth ($440).

Tax: added on top or included?

This single line causes more disputes than anything else in a quote. A business buyer usually expects prices before tax; a consumer expects the price they'll actually pay. Whichever you use, label it.

To pull tax out of an inclusive price, divide by (1 + rate): £1,200 ÷ 1.2 = £1,000 net, so the VAT is £200 — not 20% of £1,200 (£240). The VAT Calculator does both directions.

Validity, deposits and payment terms

• Validity. 14–30 days is typical. Go shorter when your costs move quickly (materials, currency, fuel) and longer for slow corporate approvals. Print the actual expiry date.
• Deposit. 25–50% up front is common for custom work. It filters out uncommitted clients and covers early costs. State what it secures (“reserves your start date”).
• Balance and timing. Say when the rest is due — on completion, in stages, or within a set number of days of the invoice. If you mean business days, say so; the Business Days Calculator turns “10 business days” into a date.
• Changes. One sentence such as “Work outside this scope is quoted separately before it starts” prevents most scope creep arguments.

Sending it — and following up

Send a PDF so the layout can't shift, and paste a short text version into the email body so the client sees the total and next step without opening an attachment. Name the file with the quote number and project (“QT-0042 Website redesign.pdf”).

If you've heard nothing after a few working days, a short follow-up that answers a likely question (“the content migration covers up to 30 posts; happy to quote more if needed”) works better than “just checking in”. A week before the validity date, a reminder that the price expires is a reasonable nudge.

When the client accepts, turn the same lines into an invoice with the Invoice Generator.