Should I give bids/estimates at no charge?

I've been struggling with this myself recently. I sat down and figured out between time and mileage put on the vehicle, if I were to actually pay someone to do it the average cost would be around $120-$130. I got this answer recently:

You should seriously consider charging for estimates when any two of these are true:

- You're spending 30–60+ minutes per estimate (drive time + walk-through + thinking + writing it up)

- You're doing multiple estimates per week that don't convert

- Customers are shopping prices or ghosting you afterward

- You're booked enough that estimate time pushes actual work later

- You're giving expert advice during estimates (not just measuring)

Estimates aren't free when:

- Gas costs money

- Time costs money

- Experience costs money

Free estimates made sense when you needed leads. They hurt when you already have demand.

I've only been in business for 2 years but this hit home with me. I'd love to hear more thoughts from those who have been at it longer than me. 

Really good topic and its something to deeply consider . 

I have lost count on how many estimates I've spent days or hours communicating with potential customer and educating on how process works and what to steer away from , just to hear " i found someone cheaper "  . Yes I do get discouraged but I also think of all the wins we get. 

I would also consider the market , are you in a big city with a saturated competition market ? 

How many pros Offer same service you do ?  

Are you giving detailed estimates with what theyll need to buy down to the last fastener or etc ? 

If im getting a big job done like an addition or remodeling , I would like as much information as possible and wouldn't mind a consultation fee . But if im getting my fence done or driveway redone , I dont need too much detail and would expect free estimates . ,( but thats just me ) 

Our company does free estimates but we have estimating crews so we give alot of estimates and doesn't take time away from projects but if youre having to take time away from what you're working on , I would charge a fee . For example my job is to give estimates all day everyday and my crews handle the job. So jobs we win make up for mytime invested .

This is something I’ve been juggling with for the past 5 years of my business. Yes, I still do free estimates, and it is something that I am considering charging a fee now. The comment3WoodsHome​ has a lot of valuable points. While my business has always been better giving free estimates, it is so timely and costly to us, gas and typically take us 20-45 minutes to drive to each quotes in a truck… gas guzzler…. 

Maybe a small fee wouldn’t hurt just to help with the gas pricing? Just worried that we would get less quotes scheduled doing this. Yet I go back to if the job is big enough, maybe that fee wouldn’t hurt and have the client think that they are serious on their skills if they are charging a fee for their time?

Im all over with it. I’d love to hear more thoughts about this!

We are only a few months in Business. We have done several Free Estimates now for commercial projects. Takes a lot of our time and sometimes we get the job sometimes we don't.  Should we charge based on the size of the project? We are in Scranton PA. 

We have been struggling with this topic as well. We are an electrical contracting company, out of Sonoma County, CA, for reference.

For residential customers, we have started charging for the estimate, usually about $150, and then if they move forward with the work, we discount the quoting fee at the end of the job. 

If it is a general contractor who does bigger jobs, we will often give them 3 free quotes, and if they don't book a job with us within those free quotes, we start charging for quotes, and again discounting the quoting fee at the end of the job.