Should you charge for quoting?

Not for a quick look. Yes for a survey, a design, or anything that takes more than an hour of skilled time.

Free quoting is a marketing cost, and like any marketing cost it stops making sense past a certain size. Twenty minutes and a look at a fuse board is marketing. A half-day survey producing a specification the client could hand to a competitor is work, and work is chargeable.

The clean way to handle it: charge for the survey, and credit the fee against the job if they go ahead. The client risks nothing if they hire you, and you are not funding their shopping around if they do not.

The default: no, for the work you want

A free quote is a sales cost. You are buying the chance to win a job, and the price is an hour and some fuel. For most trades, at a reasonable conversion rate, that is a cheap way to buy work — and charging removes you from consideration by customers who are getting three quotes, which is most of them.

When charging is right

The distinction is between a quote and a piece of work. If producing the number requires expertise, time or a deliverable the customer could take elsewhere, you are being asked to work for free.

• Diagnostic visits. Finding the fault is the skilled part. Charge for the diagnosis and credit it against the repair if they proceed.
• Detailed specifications or drawings. A schedule of works a customer can hand to a cheaper contractor is a deliverable, not a sales document.
• Long-distance visits. Beyond a reasonable radius, charge for the visit and credit it on acceptance.
• Repeat quoters. Someone on their fourth quote who has never booked is not a prospect.

Credit it against the job

The structure that works nearly everywhere: "The assessment is £85. If you go ahead, it comes off the invoice." The customer risks nothing if they proceed, you are paid for your time if they do not, and the conversation about it is short because the offer is obviously fair.

Put the credit on the final invoice as a visible line rather than silently reducing the total — it reminds them you kept your word.

Say it before you travel

A charge mentioned on the phone is a term. The same charge mentioned on the doorstep is an ambush, and a customer who feels ambushed will not book you regardless of the number. One sentence when they call: "There's an £85 call-out for the assessment, which comes off the job if you go ahead."

What charging does to your enquiry mix

Volume drops and conversion rises, often substantially. You lose the people collecting numbers and keep the ones who have decided to do the work. Whether that is good depends on whether your constraint is enquiries or hours. A trade with a full diary and no time to quote speculatively should charge. One trying to fill next month should not.

The middle option

Free for a straightforward visit and a headline price; chargeable for a detailed specification. That splits the difference honestly: the sales activity stays free, the deliverable does not. It also gives you something to offer the customer who wants more detail than a quote normally carries — which is often a sign of a serious buyer.

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