The real cost of a lost quote
The arithmetic of quotes that never get sent, get sent late, or get sent and forgotten, worked step by step so you can run it on your own numbers.
Noah Ciolkosz · Published · 5 min read
Nobody keeps a ledger of the quotes they did not send. The ones priced in the truck and never typed up, the ones that went out on Thursday for a job looked at on Monday, the ones sent once and never mentioned again. They show up on no report, which is exactly why they cost more than most owners think.
This article works the arithmetic. Every number below is an illustration, chosen to be plausible for a small trades business, not a measurement of anyone's. The point is the shape of the calculation, so you can put your own figures in and see what comes out.
Start with a baseline
Pick three numbers you actually know: how many quotes you produce in a typical week, what an average job is worth, and roughly what fraction of sent quotes turn into work. If you do not know the last one, count the last twenty quotes and the jobs they became.
- Quotes produced per week
- 20
- Average job value
- $850
- Quoted value per week
- 20 × $850 = $17,000
- Quoted value per month (4.33 weeks)
- $17,000 × 4.33 ≈ $73,600
- Quoted value per year
- $17,000 × 52 = $884,000
Invented figures for a worked example. Replace every one with your own.
Quotes that never get sent
This is the quiet one. You looked at the job, you know what it costs, and the quote lives on a notepad until the evening, then the next evening, then it is a week old and the client has stopped waiting. A quote never sent has a close rate of zero, and every one is a job you had already done the hard part of winning.
- Quotes produced per week
- 20
- Share that never leave the notepad
- 10% → 2 per week
- Normal close rate on sent quotes
- 35%
- Jobs those 2 quotes would have become
- 2 × 35% = 0.7 per week
- Value per week
- 0.7 × $850 = $595
- Value per month
- $595 × 4.33 ≈ $2,580
- Value per year
- $595 × 52 = $30,940
The 10% and 35% are assumptions for the example, not measurements.
Quotes that get sent late
A late quote is not lost outright. It is sent into a smaller window. The client called three people; the one who replied the same afternoon has been talking to them for two days by the time yours arrives. Model it as a lower close rate on the late ones, not a total loss; the example assumes late quotes close at about two-thirds the normal rate.
- Quotes sent per week
- 18 (the 20 above, less the 2 never sent)
- Share sent late
- 30% → 5.4 per week
- Normal close rate
- 35%
- Assumed close rate when late
- 23% (about two-thirds of normal)
- Jobs lost to lateness per week
- 5.4 × (35% − 23%) = 0.65
- Value per week
- 0.65 × $850 ≈ $551
- Value per year
- $551 × 52 ≈ $28,650
The drop from 35% to 23% is an assumption chosen to show the mechanism. Yours may be larger or smaller.
Quotes sent and never followed up
The third leak feels least like a leak, because the quote went out and the ball is in the client's court. Except the client has a leaking tap, a job, two children, and four other things to decide this week. A quote with no follow-up usually loses, not to another tradesperson but to inertia. One short message two or three days after sending is the cheapest thing in this article. Model it as a share of unanswered quotes a follow-up would have recovered.
- Quotes sent per week
- 18
- Share that receive no reply at all
- 30% → 5.4 per week
- Share a follow-up would recover
- 1 in 5 → 1.08 per week
- Value per week
- 1.08 × $850 ≈ $918
- Value per year
- $918 × 52 ≈ $47,740
The one-in-five recovery is an assumption. Track your own: count the quotes that only closed after you chased them.
Adding it up
- Never sent
- ≈ $30,900 per year
- Sent late
- ≈ $28,650 per year
- No follow-up
- ≈ $47,740 per year
- Total
- ≈ $107,300 per year
- As a share of quoted value
- $107,300 ÷ $884,000 ≈ 12%
Every input is invented. The shape is what matters: three small habits, each forgivable on its own, compounding to about an eighth of quoted work.
What a deposit does to the arithmetic
Everything above treats a quote as a document. A quote that can be accepted and paid a deposit on from the same link changes what happens after the yes. A verbal yes is a maybe with good manners: the cousin knows someone, the money is needed elsewhere, the date never quite gets fixed. A deposit converts the yes into a booked job with money attached, and the drift on paid-for jobs is lower. The size of that gap is yours to measure; the example assumes a modest one.
- Jobs won per week (18 sent × 35%)
- 6.3
- Assumed drift after a verbal yes
- 15% → 0.95 jobs per week
- Assumed drift after a paid deposit
- 5% → 0.32 jobs per week
- Jobs retained by the deposit
- 0.63 per week
- Value per week
- 0.63 × $850 ≈ $536
- Value per year
- $536 × 52 ≈ $27,870
- Cash received at acceptance (20% deposit)
- 6.3 × $850 × 20% ≈ $1,071 per week
The 15% and 5% drift rates are assumptions, not findings. The cash row is not extra revenue; it is the same revenue, arriving weeks earlier.
That last row is not new money, but it arrives before you buy materials rather than after, and a business that receives a fifth of each job up front spends far less of its own cash financing its clients. That compounds quietly, week after week.
These are your numbers to run
Where to start
- Count last month's quotes: produced, sent, sent within a day, answered, won.
- Fix the never-sent leak first. It is the only one with a close rate of zero: send the quote from where you priced it.
- Then the follow-up. One message, two or three days after sending, every time.
- Then speed, which is easier when the quote is built from the photographs you already took on site.
- Then a deposit on every accepted quote, with refund terms visible on the link.
Ciolk OS makes those steps one motion: photograph the job, get a priced quote, send it as a link, and let the client accept and pay a deposit, which creates the job and books the work. But the arithmetic does not care what tool you use. It only cares whether the quote went out, how fast, and whether anyone asked twice.