For builders
A £50,000 extension deserves more than three lines and a total, but writing the twenty-line breakdown is a full evening's work and it always lands on a Sunday. Talk through the job the way you walked it, and get back a structured estimate with stages, sums and exclusions already laid out.
Your price includes the scaffold, the skips and the making good. Theirs does not, and it is £6,000 cheaper on paper. Without a breakdown you have no way to show that, and you lose a job you were never actually more expensive on.
They moved the door, then asked for a rooflight, then changed the bricks. Every one of those was a nod in a doorway, and none of it is written down when the final account lands.
Three or four hours to price properly means the fourth enquiry of the week never gets a number at all. That is not a pricing problem, it is a paperwork problem, and it quietly caps how much work you can win.
A real example
On the left is what you would actually write down. On the right is what your customer receives.
rear ext 4 x 5 kitchen diner. trad build cavity, facing brick to match existing, get a sample up before they order. strip founds 1m deep, building control on speed dial. RSJ across the back wall 5.2m 203 x 133 with padstones, needling and props. 2 rooflights + 3m bifolds. warm flat roof, single ply. 75 liquid screed over the insulation, their own ufh loops by others. NOT doing the kitchen units, they have their own fitter. scaffold 3 weeks, skip every fortnight. 11 weeks start to snagging. party wall - neighbour on the left is attached, they need an award sorted before we dig
| Item | Qty | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Site set-up, welfare, temporary protection and CDM duties | 1 job | £1,400.00 |
| Strip foundations, excavate, concrete and muck away | 22 linear m | £4,620.00 |
| Cavity wall to DPC in engineering brick | 1 job | £3,200.00 |
| Cavity superstructure, facing brick and blockwork, insulated | 46 m² | £8,970.00 |
| Supply and install 203 x 133 RSJ, padstones and fire protection | 1 each | £2,450.00 |
| Form structural opening, needling and temporary support | 1 job | £1,850.00 |
| Warm flat roof, firrings, insulation and single-ply membrane | 20 m² | £3,300.00 |
| Rooflight, supplied and installed | 2 each | £2,300.00 |
| 3m aluminium bi-fold doors, supplied and installed | 1 each | £4,800.00 |
| Plasterboard, skim and second fix joinery throughout | 1 job | £5,600.00 |
| 75mm liquid screed over insulation | 20 m² | £840.00 |
| Scaffold, erect, hire and dismantle | 3 week | £1,140.00 |
| Skip hire and waste transfer notes | 6 each | £2,040.00 |
| Site management and labour | 11 week | £12,650.00 |
| Total before VAT | £55,160.00 | |
An illustration using typical UK rates, not a price list. TradeScribe prices from the rates in your own notes and your saved day rate.
These are the lines that come up again and again on a builder's estimate. Mention any of them in your notes, however briefly, and they come out properly worded.
An estimate is an informed projection that can move as the job reveals itself; a quote is a fixed offer that binds you once the client accepts. On extensions almost nobody can honestly fix the price before the foundations are open, so most builders issue an estimate with firm rates and a small number of provisional sums. Say on the document which one it is, because a client who thinks a quote is a quote will hold you to it.
Yes, and state the assumption it is based on. Something like 'foundations priced to 1,000mm depth; additional depth charged at £210 per linear metre' tells the client exactly what could change and by how much. That single line prevents the most common argument on any extension, because the client has already agreed the mechanism before you hit clay.
Put a variation clause on the estimate saying that any change to the agreed scope is confirmed in writing with a price before it is carried out. Then actually do it, even if it is a photo of a note sent by text. The cost of a two-minute message is nothing against the cost of arguing about a rooflight at the final account.
You should flag it as the client's responsibility and exclude it from your price. Excavating within three metres of a neighbouring structure, or cutting into a shared wall, usually needs notice served and often a surveyor's award. Builders who quietly absorb this end up funding a surveyor they never budgeted for, and holding up their own start date.
Separate, always. They are the two costs a cheaper competitor is most likely to have left out, and showing them makes your total comparable rather than just higher. It also means that if the job overruns for reasons outside your control, you have a clear basis for the extra hire.
Free, no card, no account needed for the first one.
Try it now