Challenges Getting Accurate & Competitive Quotes — Anyone Else?
Hey everyone. Wanted to start a conversation around something I think a lot of us deal with daily. Getting quotes right is hard. Too high and you lose the job. Too low and you regret winning it. A few challenges I keep running into: Translating plans and site conditions into accurate material and labor costs Material prices changing between quote and job start Knowing what the market will bear in your area Finding customers who care about quality, not just the cheapest bid I've been using Jobber to streamline the quoting side. Building out templates, tracking job history to compare estimated vs. actual costs, and following up on open quotes automatically. It's helped, but the estimating accuracy piece still takes real discipline. Would love to hear from the community: What's your quoting process start to finish? How do you handle rising material costs in your pricing? Where are you finding your best customers? Any Jobber features that have helped you quote faster or more accurately? Drop your experience below — whether you've got it figured out or you're still grinding through it like the rest of us. 👇
How do general contractors create detailed quotes for full remodel projects?
Are there any general contractors/remodelers using Jobber? My plumber and electrician use it but it's a lot simpler for them to produce a quote then me. Just curious how easy and or productive it is to produce a detailed quote for a complete remodel for instance including electrical, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, and paint plus my materials and labor for framing and finish etc.Quoting for contract cleaning for Apartment Complexes
I’m currently looking to expand into contract cleaning for apartment complexes and would love to hear how others in the industry approach pricing and structuring these types of agreements. I understand that apartment contracts can vary a lot depending on factors like unit size, condition, frequency of service, and whether it’s turnover cleans, common areas, or full-property maintenance. I want to make sure I’m pricing competitively while still protecting my time, labor, and overall business profitability. For those of you with experience in this area: How do you typically structure your pricing for apartment complexes (per unit, hourly, or flat contract rate)? Do you offer different pricing for standard turns vs. deep cleans or heavily soiled units? How do you account for things like pet hair, excessive buildup, or damages when quoting? Do you build long-term contracts with set pricing, or adjust pricing based on each unit’s condition? What’s your approach to quoting common areas like hallways, offices, or laundry rooms? Do you require walkthroughs before giving a final quote, or provide estimates upfront? How do you ensure you’re not underbidding larger contracts? I’m especially interested in learning how to balance competitive pricing with maintaining high-quality, detailed work—since we focus more on deep, time-intensive cleaning rather than quick surface-level jobs. Any advice, examples, or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated!
From Estimate to Excellence: Quoting In Cleaning Services
Quoting in the cleaning business is more than just pricing - It sets the tone for professionalism and trust. A good quote should be clear, fair, and based on factors like square footage, level of cleaning needed, and frequency, and any specialty services deep cleaning, move-outs, etc. Using a system or software like jobber helps streamline the process by keeping quotes consistent,organized,and easy for customers to approve. It also allows businesses to respond quickly, which can be the difference between winning or loosing a job. Accurate quoting protects your time and profit while giving clients confidence in your services. When your pricing is based on real effort, not guess work, you avoid undercharging, reduce stress on jobs, and create consistency across your business. It ensures every job make sense financially, allowing you to grow without over working or cutting corners.
How to change the quantity of optional line items in a Jobber quote?
On the optional line items is there any way to make them so that the customer can change quantity. So for instance we are a electrical contractor and as an option they could add dimmers but that is something they would pick the quantity to so like I would put qty. as 1 and they could change it.
Quotes can be the wrong tool. Estimates avoid disputes, protect margins, and elevate professionalism
Quotes and Estimates are fundamentally different, and not having both options is genuinely problematic for us. Fudging it by adding exception language to a document labeled as a Quote communicates that we aren’t committed to the quote, that we can’t accurately assess or execute our own services, and that we don't have the basic ability to simply send the correct type of sales form. Every workaround risks the sale and our professional image. How do you protect yourselves when a job clearly requires an Estimate instead of a Quote? Would having the option to create either a Quote or an Estimate, so you can send the correct sales document for each job, help you run your business more effectively? I believe some people are employing entirely different software for quotes and estimates. Considering that the ability to send an Estimate is a critical and basic business requirement, would it make sense for Jobber to add the simple option of changing the word "Quote" to "Estimate" when needed? They could still fall under the heading of "Quotes" in the UI, because only the word on the form being sent to the client, and the word used in the related message, needs to change. That's simply front-end work to implement and not a major feature update. The beauty of web-based applications is that it is programmatically easy to add simple functionality to expand the capabilities of basic features that affect nearly all users, requiring only a willingness to spend a little time improving the product's core functionality: helping us grow and manage our businesses.
New to Jobber, Quotes including pictures worth it?
Hey guys, I wanted to hear your thoughts on jobber quotes not including pictures for estimates in the core package? We are a full service property maintenance & Landscaping company. Anybody switch from core to grow because of it? We have a small team but growing. Last crm did have this feature on their middle plan and our clients loved it. It was extempore helpful to us as well. Was wondering if this is something we should switch to that would make a huge difference?
Request for Quote building using hidden subtotals
As a handyman/general contractor, I only base my quotes per job/task and not time and materials. I do not want the client to see the price of labor, cost of materials, or other line items except the Job task itself and the price. In order to build an accurate quote, I have to build all of this in a spreadsheet (labor, materials, etc) and copy over the grand total. If I need to make a revision, I have to go back to the spreadsheet and redo the calculations. It would be very helpful to have a way to build a quote with hidden sub line items that can be changed. Quickbooks has a estimate feature called bundling. Example: Tile Backsplash Installation $2,575 (hidden below) Labor 12 $165 $1,980 Tile 1 $350 $350 Mastic 1 $30 $30 Grout 1 $30 $30 Misc 1 $20 $20 Does anyone else struggle with this or have an efficient workaround?
How do locksmith businesses handle vehicle key pricing with hundreds of SKUs? What's your quoting strategy?
Hello, I run a locksmith company and Jobber has been fantastic beyond description for my business for Residential and Commercial work. However I do an extraordinary number of vehicle keys. My problem here becomes that there are Thousands and thousands of skus for car keys. I have one of the smallest inventories I know and its still almost 600 SKUs of just car keys for various Y/M/M. To put it into perspective, my supplier has 165 different Keys just for Ford. The pricing for them is all over the place too from a few cents to several hundred dollars. My old system was designed around this so while you did have to build the pricing database, you could quickly quote by Year, Make, and Model. Does anybody have any ideas I can try to implement to help with this pricing strategy because right now my workflow is flawed. I have to put all the information into the old system to pull the price out, then transfer that data over to jobber after the phone call is over. I use the custom fields for Y/M/M so that if I need to find Honda keys I can search "Honda" but I need a way to quickly set up jobs because this is about 50% of my business. Some examples below: 2016 Honda Civic: If your car has a Push-To-Start, we can make you a key for $260.00. If your car used a key to turn the ignition, we can make you a Remote key for $205.00 or a basic key with no buttons for $175.00. If you have a working key and want a spare, we can make a Push Start key for , a Remote key for $175.00 or a basic key for $145.00. All prices are before tax and this price may change if additional parts or service are required. 2005 Cadillac Escalade Your key should cost $95.00 plus tax if the locks are factory original and you had one key that opened the doors and started the ignition. If you just need a spare key cut, the price is $85.00 plus tax. This price may change if additional parts or service are required. 2007 Mazda CX-7 If your car has a Push-To-Start, we can make you a key for $325.00. If your car used a key to turn the ignition, we can make you a Flip key for $265.00 or a basic key with no buttons for $165.00. Your vehicle originally required 2 keys to run correctly and we may not be able to bypass this. If you have a working key and want a spare, we can make a Push Start key for $295.00, a Flip key for $235.00 or a basic key for $135.00. All prices are before tax and this price may change if additional parts or service are required.Add Category & Subcategory Structure to Pricebook Items for Faster Field Quoting
We’d love to see Jobber’s pricebook evolve to include Category and Subcategory fields that can be used to organize services and products within quotes and invoices. Currently, line items can only be classified as “Service” or “Product.” This flat structure makes it difficult for technicians in the field to quickly find the right line item when quoting or invoicing on site. Other trade service platforms (like Housecall Pro) allow items to be uploaded with a “Category” and “Subcategory,” which can then be used to filter or browse within the app. Adding this capability to Jobber would make a major difference for trades with large or detailed pricebooks — especially electrical, HVAC, and plumbing contractors. Example use case: Our team is building a standardized pricebook with over 1,000 items. If we could categorize items (e.g., Devices → Switches → Single Pole or Breakers → AFCI → 20A), our field techs could easily quote small jobs or extras on the spot without relying on estimators. This would: Reduce office workload by enabling accurate in-field quoting and billing Improve efficiency and consistency across the team Buy back time for company owners and estimators to focus on higher-value tasks Suggested Implementation: Add optional “Category” and “Subcategory” fields to the pricebook import/export template Allow field staff to filter or browse line items by category when adding items to quotes or invoices This would be a huge workflow improvement for growing teams trying to scale quoting in the field while maintaining accuracy and consistency.
