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Contractor estimate checklist
Check an estimate in the order you built it: site notes and measurements, the scope in the customer’s own words, exclusions and allowances, materials and labor hours, then travel, disposal and permits. Check the margin on the final price, write the deposit, payment terms, start window and a good-until date, attach the site photos and set the follow-up date before you send it. Exclusions matter most, because whatever you leave unsaid the customer assumes is included.
Edit the estimate list
Run it before each estimate goes out. Cross off permits or allowances when the job has none, and add your trade’s own lines, such as coats and sheens for painting.
Contractor estimate checklist
- Customer name, job address and the best way to reach them
- Site notes: access, parking, pets, power, water and where debris goes
- Measurements room by room or area by area, checked a second time
- Scope in the customer’s words, one line for each piece of work
- Exclusions: what they could assume is included but is not
- Hidden damage: what happens if you open up rot, mold or bad wiring
- Materials at today’s supplier prices, waste and consumables added
- Allowances for anything not chosen yet, and what happens over them
- Labor hours per task, with setup, protection and cleanup counted
- Travel, parking, dump fees, equipment rental and any second trip
- Permit: needed or not, who pulls it and its fee on its own line
- Margin checked on the final price, not markup added to cost
- Deposit amount, what it holds and when it is due
- When the balance is due and how you take payment
- Start window and how many working days the job takes once started
- Good-until date written as a calendar date
- Site photos attached, with problem spots marked
- Read it as the customer will, with nobody there to explain it
- Follow-up date in your calendar before you press send
What do contractors forget to put on an estimate?
The costs that never show at the site visit: travel and parking, dump fees, equipment rental, the second trip to touch up or wait out a dry time, the setup and floor protection every morning, and the tape, caulk, blades and sandpaper a job goes through. None of them is big alone. Together they are the gap between the margin you planned and the one you end up with.
Then add one line for what nobody can see yet: rot behind the trim, a subfloor that flexes, wiring that is not to code. Say that if you find it, you stop, show the customer and price the fix before carrying on. Written into the estimate, that line is a plan the customer has already read. Raised for the first time with the wall open, it sounds like an upsell.
What should a painting contractor’s estimate include?
Each room by name and the surfaces you will paint: walls, ceiling, trim, doors, closets. List the coats, the paint line and sheen, the prep you priced (filling nail holes is not skim-coating a damaged wall) and who moves the furniture. Spell out ceilings. Bold Coat’s Chicago examples put walls alone in a 12 × 14 bedroom at about $770 and walls plus ceiling at about $1,070 (checked October 2026), so “paint the bedroom” leaves a $300 question open.
What payment terms belong on a contractor estimate?
The deposit, what it pays for and when it is due. Then when the balance falls due, tied to something the customer can see, such as the punch list sign-off, rather than a calendar date. Longer jobs can add progress payments at stages: demo done, rough-in inspected, cabinets set. Say how you take payment. Before you settle on a deposit percentage, check your state’s rules; California, for one, caps the down payment on home improvement work.
Frequently asked questions
What is an allowance on a contractor estimate?
A set amount for something the customer has not picked yet, such as tile, a vanity or light fixtures. Write what it covers (material only, or supplied and installed), the amount, and what happens either side of it: anything over is added to the bill, anything under is credited. An allowance set low to win the job comes back as an argument at the tile store.
How long should an estimate be good for?
As long as you can hold your material prices and your schedule, and no longer. Write a date (“good until November 14”) rather than a number of days the customer has to count. If they come back after it, recheck the supplier prices and your calendar, then confirm the price in writing or send a revised one.
Should an estimate show labor and materials separately?
Show what the customer is choosing between, not how you built the price. Rooms, quantities, product names and allowances let them compare quotes fairly. Your hourly rate and your markup on materials invite haggling line by line, and a materials total invites an offer to buy them at the store. If a customer asks for the split, give the two totals.