What to say when sending an estimate, in a text and in an email
The message that carries an estimate needs four things: the scope in one line, the price, how to accept it, and the date the price holds through. A contractor who sends the file with nothing written around it is asking a customer to work all four out on their own, and most of them put it off instead.
The four things the message has to carry
Scope in one line, first, so the customer can tell at a glance which conversation this is. People collecting bids talk to three companies in the same week, and by Thursday the names have run together. "Exterior repaint, body and trim, two coats" does more work at the top of a message than any greeting.
The price, written in the message itself and not only inside the attachment. A number that lives behind a download is one half the recipients never reach on the first pass, because the first pass happens on a phone, standing up, in the middle of something else.
How to accept, in one sentence naming one action. Sign at the link, reply with a yes, or call the office. Pick whichever one the business actually runs and say only that one. Two options is a decision, and a decision is a reason to close the message and come back later.
The date the price holds through, written as a calendar date rather than a number of days. The reasoning behind the window, and how to word it on the proposal itself, is in how long a contractor estimate is good for. In the message, it is one clause.
The text that goes with a proposal link
A text is the right carrier when the lead arrived by phone or by text, which covers most residential work. It gets read in under a minute, so the whole thing fits in four lines and the price appears before any scrolling happens.
The pattern, with the blanks filled from the job:
Hi [first name], the estimate for the [exterior repaint, body and trim] is at the link below. [$8,450], good through [October 31]. Tap sign at the bottom if it looks right, or reply with questions and they get answered today. [link]
Five things are doing work in those four lines: the name, so it does not read as a blast; the scope, so it is placeable; the number, so nothing has to be opened to learn it; the date, so there is a clock; and one action, worded as a tap rather than a commitment. The offer to answer questions is the part contractors drop first and should not. A homeowner stuck on a line with no obvious way to ask will pick the bid they understood instead.
The email version, and when email is the right one
Email wins when the estimate has to be forwarded or filed: property managers, general contractors, office staff buying on behalf of somebody else, and any job where the person reading it is not the person signing it. Those readers need a subject line that survives being passed along.
Subject: [123 Alder Street] exterior repaint estimate, good through [October 31]
Hi [first name],
Attached is the estimate for [the exterior repaint, body and trim, two coats]. The total is [$8,450] and it holds through [October 31].
To move ahead, [sign at the link in the proposal] and a scheduling window gets confirmed from there.
Questions on any line are welcome, including the ones about what was left out of the scope on purpose.
That last line exists because commercial buyers compare exclusions as closely as totals. Inviting the question is how an honestly priced bid survives next to one that left out prep and said nothing.
What to leave out
No apology for the number. Softening language in front of a price reads as an opening bid, and the customer who was fine with it a second ago now wonders what it could be instead.
No essay about method. The walkthrough was the time for that, and explanation stacked on a price reads as a defense of it.
No discount before an objection has been raised, no manufactured deadline, and no held schedule slot unless a slot is genuinely being held. A date that turns out to be flexible teaches a customer that every other date in the file is flexible too.
No chasing in the same message either. The estimate goes out clean, and the follow-up starts on its own clock a few days later, which is laid out in the five-touch estimate follow-up.
How the Bellingham companies run it
We run painting and flooring companies in Bellingham, and the sending message is a saved template with four blanks in it: scope, number, date, link. Whoever priced the job fills the blanks and sends it from the number or the address the customer already has. Nobody writes one from scratch, because a message written from scratch at the end of a long day is the one that goes out with no price in it.
The habit that took longest to break was sending the proposal as a bare attachment with "here you go" above it. Those sat. The same proposal with scope, price, date and one action above the link started coming back signed, and the follow-up got easier because there was something specific to refer to. That is four lines, written once and reused, which is the kind of fix the rest of this site is about. The clock the customer is judging starts earlier, covered in how fast a contractor should send an estimate.
A free look at how estimates go out
The free audit covers your site, local search, response time, quoting, and follow-up, then ranks what is worth fixing first. Joshua replies within one business day, and the written findings usually follow within a week.