Few topics split trade forums like this one. Half the room swears free quotes are the cost of marketing; the other half bills for every site visit and reports zero regrets. Both are right, about different jobs. The mistake is a single policy for work that spans a fence panel and a full rewire, a loyal repeat client and a serial quote-collector. What follows is the framework the calmer threads converge on: classify the visit, price the diagnosis, credit the fee, and disclose everything before the wheels turn.
Split visits into three types
Type one: specification visits for defined work, measure the deck, scope the bathroom. These are sales calls; free is usually right, filtered hard by the phone-qualification from our estimates guide. Type two: diagnostic visits where finding the problem is skilled labour, the intermittent fault, the mystery leak. This is billable work wearing a quote costume; charge for it always. Type three: design or consulting visits, layouts, staging, compliance advice. Charge, and price it as expertise, because whoever wins the job, your thinking is being used.
The credited fee: the fairest middle
For diagnostics and borderline cases, the model that customers accept most readily is the call-out or assessment fee credited against the job if you proceed. It filters the price-shoppers, pays for your fuel and hour either way, and costs the serious customer nothing extra. Script it plainly at booking: "There is a 95 dollar assessment fee which comes off the job if you go ahead." Disclosed that way, refusal rates are far lower than owners fear, and the refusals were mostly visits you wanted to lose.
Know your market, then position, not follow
Norms vary by trade and country: free quoting dominates residential building work in most markets, while service trades, appliance techs and locksmiths bill call-outs routinely. Survey three local competitors, then decide where the norm helps you. If everyone quotes free, a charged assessment with a credible expertise story can position you upmarket; if everyone charges, free specification visits become a genuine differentiator for the big jobs where you want volume. Consumer protection bodies are relaxed about either model provided fees are disclosed upfront, the single rule that appears in every guideline like those from the Consumer NZ family of organisations worldwide.
Whatever you charge, quote like a professional
A paid assessment that produces a scrawled number on a card is a refund request. The deliverable that justifies the fee: written findings, options with prices, assumptions and exclusions, photos, validity date, delivered same-day from the van through your quoting flow. Same-day professional quotes convert at a premium regardless of whether the visit was paid, our quoting guide covers the anatomy, and speed is doubly important when the customer has already invested in a fee.
Track the policy like the experiment it is
Run the numbers quarterly from your quote pipeline: visit-to-quote rate, quote-to-win rate, and revenue per visit hour, split by free versus charged. Owners who do this usually keep a hybrid: free specification visits for defined work above a value threshold, charged assessments below it and for all diagnostics. The data settles the forum argument for your business specifically, which is the only version of the argument worth winning.
Frequently asked questions
Will charging for quotes scare off customers?
It filters more than it scares: disclosed assessment fees mainly deter bargain-hunting comparison shoppers, which is the point. Present it plainly with the credit-against-job clause and serious customers barely blink, especially for diagnostic work where they can feel the expertise being consumed.
What is a fair call-out or assessment fee?
Anchor it to your hourly rate plus travel reality: enough to cover the visit either way, low enough that crediting it against a won job feels generous. In most markets that lands somewhere between half and one full charge-out hour, disclosed at booking, credited on acceptance.
Free quotes are standard in my trade. Am I stuck?
You still control the filter: phone qualification, photo-based pricing for the standard jobs, and quote windows that batch visits efficiently. Reserve free site visits for defined work above a value threshold, and the free-quote norm stops being a tax on your evenings.
The bottom line
The pattern across every topic on this blog repeats here: the businesses that win are not working harder, they are keeping better records and letting systems carry the routine. Start with one change this week, measure it for a month, and let the results argue for the next one. And if you want the whole loop, scheduling, field app, safety and invoicing in one place, start a free SKEDS trial and test it on a real week of your own jobs.
Key takeaways
- Classify visits: specification free, diagnostics charged, consulting priced as expertise
- Credited call-out fees filter fairly and offend almost nobody
- Survey local norms, then position deliberately against them
- Paid or free, deliver written same-day quotes with assumptions
- Review win rates and revenue per visit hour quarterly
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