Said It Here

How to stop wasting time typing quotes and estimates

Typing quotes manually late at night is a massive daily time sink, particularly when a single estimate requires multiple back-and-forth revisions. Attempting to use limit pricing often confuses clients about the actual cost and results in ignored quotes with no call backs. This leaves you losing potential jobs and constantly second-guessing if your rates are too low.

Overview
People affected3 accounts across 1 forum
Workarounds found3 items attempted
Community agreement4 total upvotes

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    typing them up manually late at night
    Did this help you?
  2. 2
    Setting a 'maximum limit' or 'not to exceed' price so the client knows the worst-case scenario
    Did this help you?
  3. 3
    Charging a very low flat rate to guarantee securing the job
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In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/smallbusiness3 people · October 2026 – November 2026

“I gave a quote for a 25ft tall and 15ft wide tree with a complete clean up for a limit of $1,000 and no call back.”source ↗

“And now I am cutting down some 30ft trees for $100 each four in all with no clean up just bucking the trees. Is that to low?”source ↗

“I'm trying to be fair but I think the limit is confusing my clients, because a $1,000 price limit job could only be a $500 job.”source ↗

That_Delivery2180 · r/smallbusiness · 5 upvotes

“Thank you. I heard about the limit pricing and it sounded good at the time. But as I used it, I was getting a bad feeling about it.”source ↗

That_Delivery2180 · r/smallbusiness · 1 upvotes

“Estimates. Just can waste so much time in a day”source ↗

RocMerc · r/smallbusiness

“for me its the 10pm quote typing, half an hour that never feels like work so it never gets fixed. what do you do when the quote needs three back and forths, still manual?”source ↗

davidjones145 · r/smallbusiness

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised