Skip to the page
TailGateBid
EspañolLog in
Menu

Estimate, quote or bid?

You will hear all three used for the same paper: the one that says what you will do and what it will cost. The dictionary draws no hard line between them, so do not count on the word to tell your customer whether the price can move. Say that on the paper itself: what would change the price, and until what date it holds.

By TailGateBid. .

What each word tells your customer

  • Estimate

    Merriam-Webster gives it two meanings that both fit a job: a rough calculation, and a statement of what work will cost (estimate). Your customer may hear either one. That is the trouble with the word.

  • Bid

    A price offered, in the same dictionary (bid). The Federal Trade Commission uses it for the same papers: it tells homeowners to get multiple estimates and, in the next line, not to choose the lowest bidder automatically (How To Avoid a Home Improvement Scam).

  • Quote

    In the same dictionary, to quote is to state a price, the way one is stated for a stock (quote). Nothing in the entry says that price is fixed. If yours is a price that will not move, the word alone does not say so. Write it on the paper.

Which one to send

Use the word your customers use. Then make the paper say what the word cannot.

If the price can move, say on the paper what would move it, and that you will ask before it does. If the price is fixed, say so, and say until what date.

Your state may set what an estimate or a contract has to say. "Contract requirements vary by state," the FTC tells homeowners on that same page. Ask your state's contractor board or consumer agency.

Whatever you call it, the paper should answer these

  • What will be done, and what will not.
  • What it costs, line by line and in total.
  • Whether that price can change, and what would change it.
  • Until what date the price is good.
  • How the customer says yes.

How to write one, part by part, with one filled in.

The same paper in Spanish

If your customers or your crew speak Spanish, there are three more words for it.

"Estimado" is the one closest to the English. The Spanish academies' dictionary of American Spanish gives it as taken from "estimate", and marks it for the United States, among other countries, as a rough calculation of what a job will cost (estimado).

"Cotización" comes from "cotizar", which the academies' general dictionary gives as to put a price on something (cotizar). It is the word TailGateBid uses in Spanish.

"Presupuesto" is, in that dictionary, a calculation made ahead of time of what a job will cost (presupuesto). It is the word the FTC uses on the Spanish version of its page: Cómo evitar una estafa de mejoras del hogar.

A dictionary of the Spanish spoken in the United States, from the Instituto Cervantes at Harvard, sets the three side by side. Under "budget", which it records as said in Spanish in California, Florida and New York, it gives "estimación de costo" and "presupuesto", with "estimado" as another way to say it.

TailGateBid sends each customer's quote in English or in Spanish, whichever you set for them.

What TailGateBid calls it

A quote. It can carry a date it is good until, and after that date your customer's link says it has expired.

When your customer approves, the name they gave, the date and time, the signature when there is one and the network address it came from are kept with the quote. Whether that record is enough for your purposes is for you to decide.

Once approved, a quote can no longer be edited. A change after that goes on a change order, which your customer approves before the work is done. How a quote is built and signed.

After the job the paper is an invoice, and an invoice is not a receipt: how to write an invoice.

This page is about words, not law. It does not say whether an estimate, a quote or a bid holds you to a price. That is a question for your state, not for a dictionary.

Sources

Related

In TailGateBid the paper is a quote, and it can carry the date its price is good until.

Quotes