A three bed semi and a Sunday evening
You looked round a three bedroom semi on Thursday. The customer wants the hall, stairs and landing, two bedrooms and the lounge. The hall has a high stairwell that needs a tower or a platform, the lounge ceiling has cracks, the woodwork throughout is gloss that has yellowed, and the customer wants satin instead. You wrote it on the back of an envelope.
On Sunday you price it. You work out days per room from experience, add a day for the stairwell, add for the woodwork, round it up and send a total. The customer asks what the cost would be without the lounge. You have to work it out again.
Why decorating quotes are hard to get right
Painting prices depend on details that vary from room to room: wall and ceiling area, height, amount of woodwork, the state of the surfaces, the number of coats and whether the colour change is dramatic. Experienced decorators judge this well, but judging it again each time is slow and hard to delegate.
- Room measurements are not taken, or are taken inconsistently.
- Prep, such as filling, sanding, caulking and stain blocking, is added as a lump sum.
- Coats needed for a strong colour change are not reflected in the price.
- Woodwork, doors, skirtings and spindles are priced by eye.
- Quotes give one total, so customer changes mean repricing from scratch.
What guesswork pricing costs
Underpriced rooms mean working days you are not paid for, usually on the jobs with heavy prep. Overpriced quotes lose work. Slow quotes lose customers to decorators who got back sooner. And a single total gives the customer nothing to work with if they want to trim the job, so some walk away.
It also keeps the business dependent on one person. While pricing lives in the owner's head, nobody else can quote, holidays mean quotes stop, and growth is limited by how many evenings one person can spend pricing. A consistent method is the first step to letting someone else in the business prepare quotes for the owner to check.
The survey and pricing tool we build
- On the phone, each room is recorded with dimensions, ceiling height, and counts of doors, windows, radiators and lengths of skirting and architrave. Photos attach to the room.
- Condition is recorded per surface from simple options: good, minor filling, cracks, previous poor work, water staining. Each option carries your prep allowance.
- Colour change and finish are recorded, such as dark to light or gloss to satin, which sets the number of coats by your rules.
- Access needs, such as a stairwell needing a tower or platform, add the time and equipment you set.
- The pricing uses your own rates per square metre, per door, per metre of skirting, or per day, however you prefer to price.
- The quote lists each room with its price, so the customer can see the breakdown and drop or add rooms without a new quote.
| Item | Recorded | Priced by |
|---|---|---|
| Walls | Area, condition, colour change | Your rate, coats by rule |
| Ceilings | Area, cracks, staining | Your rate plus prep |
| Woodwork | Doors, skirting, architrave, spindles | Per item or per metre |
| Access | Stairwell, height | Time and equipment you set |
| Prep | Condition per surface | Your allowances |
How quoting changes
The survey on site takes a little longer, and the quote afterwards takes much less time, sometimes finished in the van. Two similar houses are priced the same way. Customers see a clear breakdown by room and can change the scope themselves. And as you record how long jobs really took, your rates get sharper.
Is this your quoting?
- You price in the evenings from notes.
- Prep is guessed as a lump sum.
- Customers ask for prices without certain rooms, and you start again.
- Similar jobs have been priced quite differently.
- Only you can price a job.