How long should a quote be valid? A guide for contractors
2026-10-11 · 6 min read
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In March you quoted a homeowner for a new water heater and a pressure relief valve. She said she'd think about it. The quote went out as a PDF with your logo, the price, and nothing about how long that price was good for.
On a Tuesday in August she calls. The old one finally gave out, she found your quote in a kitchen drawer, and she'd like to go ahead at that price. Since March your supplier has raised the cost of the unit twice. Now you have two bad options: eat the difference or explain over the phone why the paper in her hand is wrong. Either way the job starts with an awkward conversation that a single line on the quote would have prevented.
How long should a quote be valid?
For most residential repair and replacement work, 30 days is a sensible default. Go shorter, 7 to 14 days, when the price leans on equipment or materials that move often or when you know a supplier increase is coming. Go longer only when your costs are stable and the customer's decision is slow for a reason you understand, like a homeowner waiting on an insurance adjuster.
Treat those numbers as starting points. The right window is roughly how long you can hold your own costs without losing money on the job. If you buy from a supply house that gives you 30 days' notice on increases, a 30 day quote is honest. If you find out the morning you pick up the part, it isn't.
| Kind of quote | A reasonable window | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Service repair, parts on the truck | 30 days | Your costs barely move in a month |
| Equipment replacement (water heater, furnace, AC) | 14 to 30 days | Equipment prices change, and you often hear late |
| Larger jobs with material lists (repipes, sewer lines, remodels) | 14 to 30 days, with a note on materials | Lumber, copper, and pipe can swing |
| Maintenance plan or recurring work | Until the plan's next renewal date | The price is tied to the term |
| Ballpark over the phone | No written date; confirm on the visit | It was never a firm price |
If you give phone ballparks, the ballpark vs on-site estimate post covers when those help and when they hurt.
What leaving the date off costs you
An open-ended quote keeps your price alive forever, at least in the customer's mind. Most of the time that doesn't matter, because most people decide inside a few weeks. The ones who come back months later are the ones who cost you, because they come back after your costs have moved.
The second cost is quieter. Without a date, there's no natural reason to follow up. You either chase every open quote on gut feel or, more often, you don't chase any of them, because calling to ask "did you decide yet?" feels pushy. A date gives you a reason that isn't pushy at all: "Your price is good through the 14th. Want me to hold a slot for you before then?" She learns something she needs to know, and you haven't pushed her.
The third cost is the paperwork itself. If you add a date but nobody tracks it, you end up worse off than before. A customer calls on day 40, nobody checks, and you honor a stale price by accident. Or you remember the date only after a supplier increase and look like you're making it up.
What a quote with a working expiration date looks like
Writing the date on the quote is the easy part. The value comes from what happens around it. When I set this up for a shop, these are the steps:
- The date goes on every quote automatically. Whatever tool builds your quotes adds "Valid through" plus a real calendar date, set from the kind of job. Nobody types it, so nobody forgets it.
- Each open quote has a record. The customer, the job, the amount, the date sent, and the date it expires all sit in one list you can sort, whether that list lives in your field service software or in a spreadsheet the system keeps for you.
- Follow-up runs off the date. A short text or email goes out a few days after the quote, another about a week before it expires, and a last one the day before. Each one stops the moment she replies or books. The quote follow-up email templates have wording you can start from, and the call vs text post covers which touch should be a phone call.
- On the expiry date, the quote is marked expired. If she hasn't answered, she gets one plain message: the quote has lapsed, and if she still wants the work, you'll refresh the price. The message doesn't invent a new deadline or lean on her.
- You get a Monday list. Quotes expiring this week, with amounts, so you can decide which ones deserve a personal call.
- A late call gets checked, not guessed. When someone calls about an old quote, whoever answers can see right away whether it's still valid and what was promised.
| Moment | How it often goes now | With a working date |
|---|---|---|
| Quote goes out | Price and no date | Price plus "valid through" a real date |
| A week later | Nobody follows up | A short check-in, written in your words |
| A week before expiry | Nothing | A reminder with the date in it |
| Customer calls in month five | You argue with a PDF | You can see it expired and offer a fresh price |
| Monday morning | Open quotes live in your head | A list of what's expiring this week |
None of this needs new software if your current quoting tool can export or send data somewhere. More on what this looks like for heating and cooling shops is on the HVAC automation page.
What stays human
The system keeps track of dates. Every pricing decision stays with you.
Whether to honor an expired price is a judgment call, and sometimes the answer is yes. A repeat customer, a neighbor who has sent you three referrals, or a quote that lapsed two days ago probably gets the old number. The system flags those cases and leaves the call to you.
Re-pricing is yours too. When a quote has expired and the customer wants to go ahead, someone who knows the job has to check what the unit and materials cost today. And when a customer calls upset that her quote expired, she should reach a person who can explain it.
The legal side is also yours. How an expiration date holds up if a dispute ever goes further depends on your state and how your quote is worded. If that worries you, ask your attorney to look at the language once. The date is still worth having either way.
Want your quotes to follow themselves up?
I'll add the expiration date to the quotes you already send, set the follow-up to run off it, and send you the Monday list of what's about to lapse. Builds start at $500 one-time, then a flat monthly from $99 after an included run-in period, and you can cancel. Or start with a free 20 minute process audit and we'll trace what happens to a quote from the moment it leaves your truck. Send me a note here.