How to write a paving quote

A quote is not just a price. It is the document that negotiates for you when you are not in the room, and the one that defends you six months later when the customer remembers the job differently. Here is the process that works on paving work — starting with the word you put at the top of the page.

In UK practice the two words carry different weight, and customers know it. A quote is a fixed price for a defined scope — once it is accepted, that is what they pay, whether the week goes well or badly. An estimate is your best considered guess, and the final figure can land somewhere else.

Both are honest ways to price a job. The trouble starts when a document is headed "quote" and then treated as an estimate on the final invoice, because the customer read the first word and stopped there.

On paving there is usually a clean split. Quote the part you can see and measure: area, blocks, kerbs, laying, cutting. Treat the part you cannot see as an assumption — normal excavation, no unexpected concrete, no soft spots — and give unit rates for anything beyond it. That way the price is firm where it can be and honest where it cannot.

On a paving job you buy materials before you earn anything, and they are a big share of the money: on a 50 m² drive coming to around £4,750, blocks and sub-base account for roughly half. A deposit against materials is normal and fair — it just has to be in the quote, not raised at the door on day one.

Tie payments to milestones rather than dates: a deposit on ordering, the balance on completion. A milestone can be checked; a date slips with the first week of rain and the arguing starts. Say how you want to be paid — bank transfer, sort code and account number on the document, a reference the customer can use — and give a due date of 14 to 30 days rather than "on receipt". If the customer signs at their own kitchen table, consumers get a short statutory cancellation window, so get their written go-ahead before you start inside it.

Say what your figures do with VAT. Registration becomes compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12 months; below that you quote a plain price and note that you are not VAT registered. Above it, the quote shows net, 20% VAT and the total — and the homeowner will compare the total, so lead with it.

If you are laying for another contractor rather than for the householder, the work falls under CIS. They deduct a slice of the labour element of your payment and pass it to HMRC against your tax; materials are not deducted from. Keep labour and materials on separate lines so the deduction is worked out on the right number, and allow for the gap in your cash flow.

If the customer will not pay a deposit, that is their right, but then the risk moves: let them order and pay for the materials in their own name. Fronting a pallet of blocks for a job that gets cancelled is not something you are obliged to do.

This is the most common source of a fallout and almost all of it is preventable with one sentence written in advance. The customer adds two metres of path halfway through, or you find an old concrete footing under the lawn. The work gets done, and nobody agreed what it costs.

Put it in the quote: work beyond the agreed scope is charged at the unit rates in this quote. The rate is then settled before anyone needs it, and the only thing left to discuss is quantity. For anything substantial, send a short written variation — even two lines of email and a reply saying "yes, go ahead" is enough.

Work that is written down nowhere turns, at payment time, into work the customer thought was included.

Knocking money off the total is the worst way to give ground, because it comes straight out of your margin. Negotiate the scope instead: a smaller area, a cheaper block, kerbs on two sides rather than four, the customer clearing the spoil themselves. An itemised quote lets you show that in a minute — a one-line "driveway, supplied and laid" does not.

If they are holding a cheaper quote from someone else, ask what depth of sub-base it allows for. Almost the only place to save real money on paving is under the blocks, and that saving shows up two winters later, in ruts.

For the shape of the document itself see the sample paving quote, for figures the contractor rate guide, and for the build-up behind them how to price a paving job.