Instant quote calculator for your trade website

An instant quote calculator (sometimes called a price estimator) lets customers answer a few questions on your website and see a rough price for their job straight away. You get their details and answers as a lead. For trades, it’s one of the most useful things you can add to a website, because it answers the first question almost every customer has: “roughly how much?”

How an instant quote calculator works

1. A customer lands on your website and clicks something like “Get an instant price”.
2. They answer a few simple questions: what work they need, how big, how many, access, whether to take the waste away.
3. They enter their name, email, phone and postcode, and agree to be contacted.
4. They see a price range, labelled as an estimate, confirmed after a visit.
5. You get an alert with their answers, any photos and the range they saw.

Behind the scenes, each answer adds an amount, a percentage or a price per unit to a starting price, then a minimum charge and any tax are applied.

Why trades use them

• More enquiries from the same visitors. People who would have left to find a price somewhere else get one from you instead.
• Better enquiries. Customers who still get in touch after seeing a range are ready to talk about the job. Fewer wasted site visits.
• The details up front. You know the job size, access and postcode before you ring back, so you can prioritise.
• It works out of hours. Customers can get a price at night or at weekends, when you can’t answer the phone.

There’s more on the reasons in should tradesmen put prices on their website?

What to look for in a quote calculator

Generic form builders can do simple calculations, but trades need a few things that general tools often don’t have:

• Ranges, not single prices, so you’re not tied to a figure before you’ve seen the job.
• Questions that adapt, so a customer who chooses “stump grinding” isn’t asked about tree height twice.
• A “site visit needed” outcome for jobs you’d never price unseen.
• Photo uploads, so customers can show you the job.
• Local details: your currency, tax (VAT, GST or sales tax) shown your way, and the postcodes and wording customers in your country expect.
• Lead management: alerts by email or text, and a simple list or board to track each enquiry.
• Easy installation: one line of code, a WordPress plugin, or your own estimator page if you don’t have a website.

How to set one up

1. Start from your trade. Pick the questions that change your price most. For tree work: type of job, height, number of trees, nearby buildings or power lines, access and waste.
2. Set your prices. Use your normal pricing as the starting point. Our guide to pricing a job and free pricing calculator help.
3. Set a minimum charge so small jobs still pay.
4. Test it as if you were a customer, with a few typical jobs. Check the ranges match what you’d actually quote.
5. Add it to your website where people look for prices: the home page, each service page and your contact page.
6. Tell people about it: on your Google Business Profile, social media and a QR code on your van.

Using RoughFigure

RoughFigure is an instant price estimator built for trades. It comes with ready-made templates for tree surgeons, landscapers, gardeners, fencers and more, with questions and starting prices you change to your own. Customers see a ballpark range, you get the lead with their answers and photos, and you can let them book a site visit. You can see every feature or compare plans.

Questions

Will customers think the estimate is a fixed quote?

Not if it’s labelled clearly. Show it as a range, call it an estimate, and say the price is confirmed after you’ve seen the job.

Do I need a website?

No. Most estimators, including RoughFigure, give you your own estimator page to share on social media, WhatsApp and your Google Business Profile.

How accurate does it need to be?

Accurate enough that most real quotes land inside the range. Compare the ranges with your actual quotes every month or two and adjust.