How to Write a Quotation

How to write a quotation: step by step

1. 1

   Confirm what the client actually wants

   Before quoting, make sure you understand the deliverable, the deadline and any constraints. Most quoting disputes trace back to a misunderstanding at this stage, not to arithmetic.

2. 2

   Add your business and client details

   Your business name, address and contact details, plus the client business name and the person who will approve the spend. Quote to the decision maker where you can.

3. 3

   Give it a quotation number and dates

   Assign a reference such as QUO-001, set the issue date, and set an expiry date for the quoted price.

4. 4

   Describe the work in itemised lines

   Break the job into line items with clear descriptions, quantities and unit rates. Write descriptions the client would recognise, not internal shorthand.

5. 5

   State inclusions and exclusions explicitly

   List what the price covers and, just as importantly, what it does not. Revisions, travel, materials, third-party fees and rush work are the usual culprits.

6. 6

   Add tax, discounts and the total

   Apply your tax or VAT rate and any agreed discount, and show the total clearly. Make it obvious whether the headline figure includes tax.

7. 7

   Set out payment terms and send it

   State your deposit requirement, payment terms and any late payment interest, then export the quotation as a PDF and send it to the decision maker.

Quotation, estimate or proposal?

These get used interchangeably and should not be. A quotation is a fixed price you commit to for a defined scope, and once accepted within its validity period it is generally binding. An estimate is your best approximation where the scope is genuinely not yet fixed, and it can change. A proposal is a quotation plus the persuasion: executive summary, approach, deliverables, timeline and signatures.

Label the document for what it actually is. Calling an approximation a quotation is how you end up absorbing a cost overrun you never agreed to.

What every quotation should contain

The structural elements are consistent across industries, even when the pricing model is not.

• The word "Quotation" clearly on the document
• A unique quotation number and the issue date
• A validity or expiry date for the quoted price
• Your business name, address, contact details and tax number where applicable
• The client business name and the approving contact
• An itemised description of the work with quantities and unit rates
• A clear statement of what is included
• A clear statement of what is excluded
• Subtotal, any discount, the tax rate and tax amount, and the total
• Payment terms, including any deposit
• What happens if the scope changes

The validity period is not optional

A quotation without an expiry date is an open-ended commitment. Material costs move, your availability changes, and a client can reasonably accept a six-month-old quote at a price that no longer works.

Fourteen to thirty days is normal. Say it plainly: "This quotation is valid for 30 days from the issue date." For work exposed to volatile input costs, shorten it and say why.

Exclusions are what protect you

Most scope disputes are not about what was in the quotation. They are about what the client assumed was in the quotation. The fix is to write the assumption down.

If you are quoting design work, say how many rounds of revision are included and what an extra round costs. If you are quoting a physical job, say whether materials, waste disposal, travel and parking are included. If there is a deadline, say what a rush request costs.

A short exclusions list reads as professional, not defensive. It tells the client you have done this before.

How much to itemise

There is a real tension here. Too little detail and the client cannot see what they are paying for, so the price looks arbitrary. Too much and they start deleting lines, or benchmarking each one against a cheaper supplier.

A reasonable default is to itemise by phase or deliverable rather than by task or hour. "Discovery and wireframes — $1,200" invites a conversation about value. "6 hours at $200" invites a conversation about your hourly rate. The first is a better conversation to have.

Where a client genuinely needs a line-by-line breakdown, give it, but consider marking optional items clearly as optional so the core scope stays intact.

Handling scope changes

Add one line covering what happens when the job changes, because it usually does. Something like: "Work outside the scope described above will be quoted separately and agreed in writing before it begins."

That sentence turns an awkward mid-project conversation into a procedural one. You are not renegotiating, you are following the process the client already accepted.

Following up

Most quotations are not rejected. They are simply never answered, because the person who requested it got busy. One short follow-up roughly a week later recovers a meaningful share of them.

Keep it light and useful rather than pressing: check they received it, offer to walk through anything unclear, and mention the expiry date as a natural deadline. If the answer is no, ask what it came down to. Price, timing and scope fit are very different problems, and only one of them is about your rate.

After it is accepted

Get the acceptance in writing, even if it is just a confirming email. Then keep the quotation, because it is now your scope document and the reference your invoice should point back to.

When the work is done, invoice against the accepted quotation and reference its number. Matching the invoice to a quote the client already approved removes the most common reason invoices get queried.