You quote a panel swap at $2,568. The other guy quotes $2,300. You lose. You assume it was the price.
Usually it was not. It was that both quotes said roughly the same thing — a sentence and a number — so the only thing the homeowner could compare was the number. Quoting is not pricing. It is giving someone enough information to choose you at a higher price.
The nine lines
A quote that closes has nine parts. Most trade quotes have three.
- Scope in plain language. What you are going to do, in sentences a homeowner can read aloud. Not "supply and install CU".
- What's included. The parts, the labor, the permit, the make-good, the clean-up. Spell it out even when it is obvious to you.
- What's excluded. The single highest-value section in the document, and the one nobody writes.
- Allowances. A named budget for anything the customer has not chosen yet.
- Assumptions and access. What has to be true for this price to hold.
- The price, with tax stated. One number, broken down enough to be believable.
- Payment schedule. Deposit, stage, final — with amounts, not percentages alone.
- Timeline and lead time. Start window, duration, and what you are waiting on.
- An expiry date. Thirty days. Copper and breaker prices move.
A worked quote: 100A to 200A service panel upgrade
Here is the arithmetic behind the $2,568, the way it should appear on the page:
- Labor: 14 hours at $95/hr = $1,330
- Panel, breakers, grounding, conduit and fittings: $780 at cost, supplied and warranted at $1,053
- Permit and utility disconnect coordination: $185, billed at cost
- Total: $2,568 plus applicable sales tax
The markup on materials is 35% — $780 x 1.35 = $1,053 — and you do not need to print the percentage. What matters is that the customer can see the permit is at cost, which makes the rest read as honest rather than padded.
Notice the labor line shows hours. A homeowner has no idea whether a panel swap is a two-hour job or a two-day job. "14 hours" answers the question they are actually asking, which is "why does this cost more than my dishwasher?"
The exclusions list that ends arguments
Everything below is something that has cost an electrician money on a job like this:
- Drywall repair, patching, texture and paint around the new panel location
- Remediation of asbestos, knob-and-tube, or aluminum branch wiring found once the wall is open
- Upgrades required by the inspector that are outside the described scope
- Utility company charges for a service drop or meter change
- Correcting pre-existing violations on circuits not being touched
- Generator, surge, or EV-charger provisions unless listed above
That last category is the one that turns a profitable job into a loss. If the authority having jurisdiction requires something you did not price, you want a line in the quote — agreed in advance — that says who pays for it. Something like: "Where the AHJ requires work beyond the scope above, we will stop, price it in writing, and continue only on your approval." Nobody argues with that sentence at signing. Everybody argues about it on day two.
Worth knowing: NFPA provides free read-only online access to the National Electrical Code at nfpa.org/free-access, so if a customer disputes that an upgrade is required, you can both look at the same text.
Allowances: how to quote work the customer hasn't decided on
On a kitchen lighting job the customer has not picked fixtures. Do not guess, and do not quote labor only. Use an allowance:
"Fixture allowance: 6 fixtures at $120 each = $720, included in the price below. Fixtures over that budget are billed at our cost plus 20%; anything under is credited back on the final invoice."
Now the customer knows exactly what happens if they fall in love with a $400 pendant: 400 minus 120 equals 280, times 1.20, equals $336 extra on that one fixture. They can do that sum themselves before they shop, which is the whole point. Allowances do not stop change orders. They make change orders unsurprising, and unsurprising change orders get paid.
Payment terms, written as money
"40% deposit" is a percentage. "$1,027.20 due on acceptance, balance of $1,540.80 due on completion" is a decision. Write the dollars.
Check the arithmetic yourself: 2,568 x 0.40 = 1,027.20, and 2,568 minus 1,027.20 = 1,540.80. Customers will check, and a quote whose numbers add up is a quiet argument that the rest of your work does too.
Three options beat one price
Where the job allows it, give three:
- Essential — the panel swap as specified: $2,568
- Recommended — panel, whole-home surge protection, and two dedicated kitchen circuits: $3,340
- Complete — the above plus a 240V garage circuit ready for an EV charger: $4,180
Three options changes the customer's question from "yes or no" to "which one", and it gives them somewhere to go other than your competitor when they want more. It also protects the base price: the $2,568 stops looking expensive the moment there is a $4,180 next to it.
Be honest about what belongs in the middle tier. If surge protection is genuinely a good idea on that property, say why in one line. If it is not, leave it out — a padded middle option is obvious, and it costs you the whole quote.
The expiry date
"This quote is valid for 30 days." Two reasons. Material prices move, and you do not want someone accepting a copper-heavy quote five months later at last spring's price. And a date creates a reason to follow up that is not nagging: "your quote expires Friday — want me to re-issue it or hold the price?"
What this actually costs you
A quote with all nine parts takes about twenty minutes longer than a quote with three. If you send six quotes a week, that is two hours. At the $95 rate above, those two hours are worth $190 of capacity — which one extra won job a month more than covers.
Flint turns your job notes into a full quote — scope, exclusions, allowances and terms — in about a minute; try it free at ask-flint.com.