Should I charge for quotes when self-employed?

Most self-employed people I talk to have done at least one quote that went nowhere. Two hours of measuring, a tidy PDF, and then silence.

So, should you charge for quotes? My answer: usually no, sometimes yes, and never as a surprise.

Should I charge for quotes? It depends on the job

Think of a quote as part of your marketing. Say you're a cleaner. A customer sends a WhatsApp asking for a price for a three-bed house. You ask five questions, reply with a number in ten minutes, and you win it two times out of three. Charging for that would be silly. You'd lose the job to someone who answers for free.

Now say you're a joiner asked to design and price a full kitchen fit. That's half a day of site visit, measuring, drawings and phone calls to suppliers. Giving that away to anyone who asks is a bad habit. Some of those people only want a number to wave at their regular builder.

My rule of thumb is simple:

• Under 30 minutes of work: free. It's the cost of doing business.
• Half a day or more: charge a fixed fee, or take a deposit.
• Anything in between: ask yourself if the customer is serious. If you can't tell, a small fee will tell you.

Those numbers are my opinion, not a law. Adjust them to your trade.

What the law says about quotes

I couldn't find anything from Citizens Advice or GOV.UK that says whether you may or may not charge for a quote. So I won't pretend there's a rule. What I can tell you is what a quote means once you give one.

Citizens Advice says a quote is "a promise to do work at an agreed price". An estimate is "the trader's best guess as to how much the work will cost". It's written for customers dealing with traders, and I checked it on 21 October 2026.

Here's what that means for you. With a quote, Citizens Advice says the trader generally can't charge more unless they told the customer extra work was needed and the customer agreed to pay more. Costs rising after you quote isn't a good enough reason. If your quote has a mistake that wasn't obvious to the customer, they can hold you to it.

With an estimate, the final price should be reasonable. If the bill ends up much higher, the customer can dispute it.

That's a good reason to be careful with the word "quote". If you mean "roughly £800 to £1,000", call it an estimate. If you mean "£950 and that's final", call it a quote, and write down what it covers.

If you do charge, say so first

Whatever you decide, tell the customer before you start. Not after.

Something like this works on WhatsApp:

Happy to quote. For a job this size I do a site visit first, and that's £50. If you go ahead with me, I take it off the final bill.

It's short and polite. It also filters out the people who were never going to hire you.

Taking the fee off the final bill is my favourite way to do it. The customer doesn't feel like they're paying twice. You get paid for your time if they walk away. And it nudges people to say yes to you rather than to a free quote from someone else.

If you already take deposits, the same thinking applies. I wrote about that in should I take a deposit as a self-employed person.

How to make free quotes cost you less

If you stay with free quotes, you can still protect your time.

1. Ask questions first. Photos, room sizes and a rough budget will often tell you if the job is worth a visit.
2. Use a template. Write your quote once, then change the numbers. Don't start from a blank page each time.
3. Put an end date on it. "This quote is valid for 30 days" stops old prices coming back to bite you when costs change.
4. List what's included and what isn't. It's the easiest way to avoid a row about extras later. If you need a reminder of what goes on paperwork, see how to write an invoice as a sole trader.
5. Follow up once. A message two or three days later is polite, and it often turns silence into a yes or a no. Either answer is useful.

My take

I don't think charging for every quote is realistic, and I don't think giving away every quote is smart either. The fix is to pick a line, tell people where it is, and stick to it.

One more thing that's easy to miss. If you charge a fee for a site visit, write it down like any other payment, so your records stay complete.

At Vcents, we build a way to send a payment request on WhatsApp and get paid by bank transfer. A quote fee or a deposit is just another request. Send it, and the customer pays from their banking app.

Sources

• Citizens Advice: Problem with building work, decorating or home improvements, fetched 21 October 2026. The page shows no publication date.
• Citizens Advice: Paying call-out charges for building work and other repairs, fetched 21 October 2026. Checked for any rule on charging for quotes. It has none.