A good estimate wins the job before you ever pick up a tool. Grab our free estimate template below, price it, and get it in front of the customer while they're still deciding. It gives them a clear number, protects you from scope creep, and reads like you've done this a hundred times — because you have.
An estimate is a promise with a price on it, so it has to be clear enough that the customer knows exactly what they're saying yes to. Start with your business details and theirs, a date, and an estimate number. Then describe the job in plain language — what you'll do, what's included, and just as importantly, what isn't. The line that saves you money is the one that says what falls outside the quote.
Break the price into labor, materials, and any trip or permit fees, then show a total. Add how long the work should take and when you could start, because customers buy on certainty as much as price. Put an expiry on it — "valid for 30 days" — so your quote from last spring can't come back to bite you when material prices have moved. Close with what happens next.
Here's a template you can paste anywhere, print, or fill in on your phone in the driveway. Replace the brackets with your own numbers and cut whatever doesn't apply to the job. Keep a blank master version so every estimate looks the same and you're never starting from a blank page in front of a waiting customer. The tidier and more consistent it looks, the more the customer trusts the number on it.
Lead with the description so the customer reads what they're getting before they see the price — that framing matters. Then the cost breakdown, the total, the timeline, and the expiry. A short note about your warranty or deposit terms at the bottom heads off the most common questions. Keep it to one page so nothing important gets lost. Here's the skeleton to copy:
The fastest way to lose money is to guess the total and eyeball it. Price the parts first from real numbers, add a markup you're comfortable defending, then price your labor by the hour times an honest estimate of the hours — including the annoying half-hour of cleanup nobody quotes. Add a cushion for the surprise you can't see yet, because on an old house there's always one behind the wall.
Quote a range only when you truly can't see the whole job, and say why — "final price depends on what's behind the tile." A confident single number wins more work than a wide range that reads like a guess. And never let a warm quote go cold: send it the same day while the customer still remembers the conversation and the problem still feels urgent to them.
A template gets the quote out the door, but it can't remember anything. Once you're juggling a few jobs, you want the customer, the address, and the notes in one place instead of retyped across three documents. In Workeey you enter the job — client, address, notes — and can get a suggested estimate, or ask the built-in AI to draft one, so you're adjusting a number instead of building a quote from scratch.
When the customer says yes, the job's already in your day — put it on the schedule, do the work, then invoice from the finished job in one tap, with the same line items and job photos carried over as proof. Turn on automatic payment reminders and connect Stripe so they can pay by card or bank. It all runs on the free plan to start — compare plans.
Yes. Copy it, print it, or fill it in on your phone — no account, no download, no catch. Reuse it for every job.
In practice, most trades use them interchangeably. An estimate signals an approximate price that could shift; a quote reads as more fixed. Either way, spell out what's included and what isn't.
A clear estimate with an expiry date and written exclusions protects both sides, but it isn't a contract on its own. For big jobs, back it with a signed agreement and a deposit.
Yes. Enter the job and Workeey can suggest an estimate, or you can ask the built-in AI to draft one — then you tweak the number and turn it into the invoice when the work is done.