You've had a proper look. You know the job. In your head it's eleven hundred quid, maybe twelve hundred with the extra bit of chasing out. Then they say "so, roughly, what are we talking?" and you hear your own voice say "nine hundred, but I could probably do it for eight-fifty if you're not in a rush." Nobody asked for a discount. You handed it over for free, before the kettle had boiled.
This is the most expensive two seconds in the whole job. The survey was right. The materials list was right. The price was right. What went wrong is that you said it out loud to a real person who was stood there looking at you, and the discomfort got out first. It's not a confidence problem, it's a preparation problem, and it's fixable with about twenty minutes of sums and a handful of sentences you've said enough times that they come out flat.
Why the number comes out wrong
Three things usually cause the wobble, and they're all fixable.
You're working it out while they watch. Mental arithmetic in front of a customer is a terrible place to be. You round down because rounding down feels safer than looking uncertain.
You've never actually said the number before. The first time your mouth forms "two thousand, three hundred pounds" should not be in front of the person paying it. Say it in the van first. Sounds daft. Works.
You're bracing for the silence. There is always a pause after a price. People pause because they're thinking about their money, not because you've offended them. If you fill that pause, you'll fill it with a discount.
Do the sums before you're stood in the kitchen
You can't say a price calmly if you're not sure it's right. Before you go out quoting, get these written down somewhere you can see them — a note on your phone is fine.
| What to fix in advance | Why it stops the wobble |
|---|---|
| Your day rate, and your half-day rate | You stop guessing labour on the spot |
| Minimum call-out charge | Small jobs stop being done at a loss to be polite |
| Standard prices for your ten most common jobs | Most of what you're asked is on that list |
| What you add for materials, waste and running about | The margin stops disappearing into the price |
| Whether your prices include VAT, and how you say it | No fumbling, no nasty surprise at invoice |
If quotes are getting rushed because the phone goes all day while you're on a ladder, that's worth solving separately — some people put a proper answering service or an AI receptionist on the line so calls get taken with the details written down, and the price gets worked out from the van rather than blurted out mid-job. Either way, the rule is the same: never price something in the ninety seconds after your phone rings.
The exact words
The straight price
"Right — for that job, it's one thousand, two hundred pounds. That covers the labour, the materials and taking the old one away. I'll email it over in writing tonight so you've got it."
Then stop talking. Full stop. Not "…but obviously if that's too much." Not "…is that alright?" Say the number, say what's included, say when the written quote lands, then close your mouth.
When you honestly can't give a fixed price
"Until I've got the floor up I can't give you a fixed price and I don't want to make one up. Based on what I can see, I'd expect it to land between eight hundred and a thousand. If it goes past a thousand I'll stop and ring you before I do anything else — you'll never get a bill you haven't already agreed to."
VAT
If you're VAT registered, say it in the same breath as the number, every time: "That's £1,200 plus VAT, so £1,440 all in." Domestic customers think in the total. Give them the total.
Asking for the deposit
"I take 25% up front to order the materials, and the rest on completion. I'll send bank details with the quote."
When they say it's more than they expected
"I understand — it's a lot of money. That's what it costs to do it properly, and it's the price I can stand behind. If the budget's the issue, we can look at doing the urgent bit now and the rest later. What I can't do is take money off and do a worse job."
The three seconds after you say it
Count them. One, two, three. Look at the wall, look at the boiler, look at your notes — not at their face, because watching their face is what makes you crack. Whoever speaks first in that pause usually loses money, and it doesn't need to be you.
If the silence goes past about five seconds and it's getting awkward, hand it back to them with a question that isn't about price: "Do you want me to put that in writing so you've got it to think over?"
A checklist for the next quote you give
- Day rate, half-day rate and minimum charge written down before you leave the yard
- Say the number out loud in the van once before you go in
- Never give a price in the first ninety seconds of a phone call
- Say the total the customer will pay, VAT included, not the trade figure
- Say what's in the price — labour, materials, waste, certificates such as Gas Safe or Part P where they apply
- Say the number, then stop talking
- No discount unless something comes out of the job in return
- Follow up in writing the same evening, with the same figure you said in person
When this won't work, and when to get proper advice
Being calm about your price doesn't rescue a price that's wrong. If you're not covering your costs, no amount of steady delivery fixes that — that's a numbers job, not a nerves job, and it's worth an hour with an accountant.
It also won't work where price genuinely isn't the deciding factor. Insurance work, letting agents, main contractors and some public-sector jobs run on their own rates and paperwork, and confident delivery won't move them.
Get proper advice on the things that sit around the price rather than in it. Whether you need to be VAT registered, and when, is a question for an accountant or HMRC — not for a forum. Work agreed in a customer's home carries rules about written information and cancellation rights; your trade body or a solicitor will tell you what yours need to say. And if you're changing your terms on deposits or stage payments, check they line up with your insurance and your trade registration before you start using them.
None of that changes the core of it. Work the number out when you're calm, say it once, and let the quiet do its job.
