Quoting prices over the phone: what to say before you've seen the job

When a caller asks over the phone what the job will cost and you haven't seen it, give them the parts of your price that don't depend on what you find - what you charge to come out, your hourly rate, any minimum - and book the visit that lets you price the rest. They hang up with numbers you will stand behind, and you hang up with a booking.

The plumbing trade advice I found says not to quote prices over the phone, while Dutch consumer advice has told people to deal only with plumbers who give a price in advance. I read them as talking about different numbers: the Consumentenbond's own phone round counted the firms that gave rate information. The booking is won in the gap between them.

Should you quote a price for a job you haven't seen?

For the job itself, the trade press says no. Richard DiToma, writing in PHCP Pros in November 2022, put it flatly: "contractors cannot give the actual price they would charge over the phone for tasks they have not seen themselves." Once you see the job, he argues, the phone price may turn out too low to cover your costs. Raise it and you look untrustworthy; hold it and you lose money. "That's two ways to lose."

The Million Dollar Plumber podcast goes further. Its episode 316, from May 2021, answers the question "with a resounding No!", with, among its examples, a "leaking water heater" that turns out to be the water softener next to it. Its hardest line is this one: "If they really need the price over the phone, it's not the customer for you."

I agree about the job. A leak described down a phone line is a guess about what sits behind a wall, and a number built on that guess is the one that later has to move.

Why "no price on the phone" can cost you the booking

In an article published in August 2019, the Dutch consumer association Consumentenbond reported that it had rung 70 plumbing firms, and that more than half gave no information about their rates. Plumbers who belonged to the trade association Techniek Nederland were the ones who most often did. The Consumentenbond's advice was to deal only with firms that give a price in advance.

Six years on, in July 2025, the Dutch consumer programme Kassa suggested that anyone who needs a tradesperson at home ask beforehand whether to expect extra costs, and how high they are.

So a firm that answers every price question with "we'd have to see it" can sound, to that caller, like the firms that gave the Consumentenbond no rates. That is my reading rather than something the phone round measured, but it is why I would not follow the podcast's line to the letter.

What can you tell a caller about price before you visit?

Everything that does not depend on what you find when you get there:

• What it costs to come out. Your call-out charge, or a first hour if that is how you bill it, and whether it is dropped when the customer goes ahead with the work.
• Your hourly rate, and when it changes. If evenings and weekends cost more, say where the line falls; setting out-of-hours rates has its own post.
• Any minimum charge, so a short job surprises nobody.
• What happens at the visit: when they will get a price for the work, and whether anything is done before they agree to it.

DiToma recommends the first of those in exactly that shape: a minimum service-call fee, and he suggests telling the customer they "only have to pay ... if they come out and no other services are purchased at that service call visit". He argues that answering this way also sorts your callers for you: "Window shoppers who were only comparing prices probably won't call."

Every number on that list is yours to set before the phone rings, which is what lets you say it without hedging.

What do UK and Dutch law expect you to tell them?

The price, or how it will be worked out. Before a consumer is bound by the contract, the UK's Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 require a trader to give or make available "the total price of the goods, services or digital content inclusive of taxes, or where the nature of the goods, services or digital content is such that the price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, the manner in which the price is to be calculated". That is Schedule 1, for on-premises contracts, and regulation 9 requires it only where the information is "not already apparent from the context", and not for a day-to-day transaction performed immediately; Schedule 2 carries the same price wording for distance and off-premises contracts.

The Dutch Civil Code says the same about price in article 6:230l and, for distance and off-premises contracts, article 6:230m: the total price including taxes or, where it cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, "de manier waarop de prijs moet worden berekend", the way the price is to be calculated. I checked those two countries for this post and no others.

Both texts tie the duty to the moment before the customer is bound, which may come later than the call. The call is where the question gets asked, though, and in my reading a call-out charge plus an hourly rate is a manner of calculating the price.

Give callers every number that doesn't depend on what you find, and keep the one that does for the visit.

If you do give a figure, say what kind it is

Northern Ireland's official business-advice service, nibusinessinfo.co.uk, draws the line between the two: "a quotation is an agreed fixed price", while "an estimate is the approximate price that may change". It tells businesses to give both in writing and to "state clearly whether it is a quotation or an estimate". A ballpark said down the phone has no label and no paper trail.

In the Netherlands, when the job is aanneming van werk and no fixed price was agreed, the expectations you raised about the price are written into the rule itself. Under article 7:752 BW, in the Civil Code's rules for aanneming van werk (the contract to make and deliver a physical work for a price, article 7:750 BW), a customer who agreed no price, or only a guide price (richtprijs), owes a reasonable one. Setting it takes into account the prices you usually charged at the time and "de door hem ter zake van de vermoedelijke prijs gewekte verwachtingen": the expectations you raised about the likely price. Where a guide price was agreed, lid 2 of the same article lets you go over it by no more than 10%, unless you warned the customer as early as possible that it was likely to run further over. Whether a figure said on the phone counts as a guide price, or as one of those expectations, is a question I would put to a lawyer before relying on either answer.

What should you say when a caller asks the price?

Something like this, with your own numbers in the brackets:

"I can't give you a fair price for the job until someone has seen it - a leak like that could be the valve or the pipe behind it, and I'd rather not guess. What I can tell you now is how we charge: [call-out charge] to come out, then [hourly rate] an hour[, and the call-out is dropped if you go ahead]. Once we've seen it, you get the price before we start. Shall I book you in?"

Three things are doing the work there. The reason comes first, so the refusal sounds like care. The numbers you can stand behind come next. And the question at the end turns a price enquiry into a booking, which is where the Million Dollar Plumber episode lands too: "With a good phone process, you turn a request for a price into a visit."

If the caller pushes for a total anyway, give a figure only for work you sell at a fixed price, and say whether it is a quotation or an estimate. For anything else, the visit is the answer.

What should an AI receptionist say when a caller asks the price?

SwiftGuard's voice agent is instructed never to "quote or estimate a price". It captures the problem "in the caller's words" and leaves the costs for your team, whose job its rules describe as confirming "any costs on the callback". Then it can book the visit. Its instructions are to offer only open times it has just found on your connected calendar, and to note the urgency on the booking when a call sounds urgent - "a leak, no heating, no hot water". The rest of the call is in how the agent handles a call from start to finish.

That leaves one honest gap. The same rule keeps the agent from saying your call-out charge, so a caller who wants that number before booking will not hear it from the agent. Put it where they can find it - on your website, or in the first sentence when you ring back.

Write your numbers down first

Before you change a word of what you say on the phone, write down what you charge to come out, your hourly rate and any minimum, and whether the call-out is dropped when the customer goes ahead. If you cannot fill one of those in, that blank is the answer your callers are missing. Once the list exists, say it the same way on every call and put the same numbers on your website - then see how SwiftGuard answers and books the call when you can't.