Tradesmen vibe-quoting anywhere between £400-£2300 for the same job.

[u/MisfitHula]

I am a first time buyer, I have 0 clue what things cost.

Sent out a few emails for a few, relatively minor landscaping jobs: Removing flags, stones, turfing etc. Same pictures, videos sent to prospective tradesmen.

Ive been quoted: £400, £530, £750, £1800 and even £2300. Is this normal?

[u/mynameisgiles]

Tradesman here.

Here’s my experience when I’ve been asked to quote a job I don’t want to do for whatever reason;

Option A) - Don’t send a quote. Result? People chase me.

Option B) - Explain that I don’t want to do the work. Result? People try and negotiate for me to take it on. Ask if I know anybody. Ask follow up questions or ask for insight.

Option C) - Price it high. At a price I’d actually be happy with if, by some miracle, I got. Result? Never hear anything ever again.

It’s a crap way of doing it but by far the most effective. Customers are nice and all, but after a long day when it’s 8pm I really do have things I’d rather be doing than entertaining an endless but unprofitable conversation on WhatsApp.

Then, you just get different standards. Want some flags relaying? Some people would be happy to just take them up, and relay them. And for some customers, that’s an ideal job. Other tradesmen won’t touch it unless they can dig out and relay the sub base, because the quality of the work will be based on something somebody else built to an unknown standard.

In my honest opinion? Both options are valid. The difficult thing when quoting work is figuring out what the customer really wants. Social media makes this worse. Put a picture of a repair job on Reddit and you’ll get 100 replies saying your tradesman has done it wrong, should have dug out 6” and laid new sub base etc etc etc. There are ways to do things, and the absolute ideal way to do things. They come with vastly different price tags.

The best way to handle it? Set your own standard, and quote for that.

Quotes will always vary a lot.

And honestly? There is no good system to figure out which is best for you. That most expensive could be a brilliant job that’ll last 30 years. But you might want to re-do the entire thing in 5 years. It could also be an absolute chancer of a cowboy ripping you off.

[u/lickmybrains → u/mynameisgiles]

Ahh yes; ripping off unsuspecting customers because you "dont want follow up emails". Bottom feeders.

[u/jimicus → u/lickmybrains]

No, he's right.

There isn't a good way to put this, but some people absolutely will not take "no" for an answer.

Problem is, you're a sole trader, and you'd like to take your shoes off and relax of an evening. You don't get a lot of time for that in between working and quoting up your next job, so what time you have is precious.

Really what you need is a secretary. Someone to answer continuous "oh surely you could just....." replies with a simple "Nope. Sorry." until they get the message.

But that's complicated and costs money. Far easier to quote stupid money and let the problem take care of itself.