In short: a quote consists of sender and recipient, date and quote number, a subject line with the job site, numbered line items with quantity, unit and price, subtotal, VAT (8.1 %) and total, a statement of what is and is not included, a fixed validity period (30 days is usual) and the payment terms. A free quote template to fill in is available as Word, Excel and PDF. The seven steps below show how to get there.
A good quote decides the job more often than the price does. Send a clean, clear quote within 24 hours and you look professional before you’ve lifted a single tool. This guide covers what belongs in a trade quote, which mistakes cost you jobs, and how to massively speed up the whole process. Three fully costed example quotes from painting, plumbing and landscaping are further down, ready to copy, with quantities, rates, VAT and the exclusions that belong underneath the total.
Seven steps to a quote
- Take the enquiry and qualify it. Who is the client, owner or tenant? When does it need to be finished? Is there a budget? Two minutes on the phone save you a quote that never had a chance.
- Measure and photograph on site. Areas, heights, access, substrate, parking. Photos replace scribbled notes and later prove what the place looked like beforehand.
- Build the line items. Every part of the job becomes a line with quantity, unit and unit price. Eight honest lines beat one lump sum nobody can follow.
- Include materials and subcontractors. Purchase price plus your margin. Do not forget consumables, disposal and travel, the items that go missing most often.
- Price the hours at the right rate. Not what the competition charges, but your cost-covering rate. The hourly rate calculator works it out from your fixed costs and productive hours.
- Write the exclusions and the validity period. What is not included, what happens when something unexpected turns up, how long the price holds.
- Send within 24 hours and follow up. Speed beats polish. A good quote tomorrow wins against a perfect one in ten days.
What belongs in a trade quote?
A complete quote in Switzerland usually includes:
- Your company details: name, address, phone, email, and, if you’re VAT-registered, your UID number with the VAT suffix.
- Customer details: name and address of the client, plus the property address if it’s different.
- Date and quote number: for queries and your own filing.
- Description of work: individual line items with quantity, unit (hours, m2, flat rate) and unit price. The more concrete, the fewer disputes at the end.
- Prices: subtotal, VAT (standard rate 8.1%) and total in CHF, cleanly formatted (e.g. CHF 4’850.00).
- Validity: 30 to 90 days is common. Without a deadline, Art. 5 OR binds you only until you can expect a reply sent properly and on time to arrive, a vague line that invites disputes. A clear date removes the doubt.
- Payment terms: payment deadline (e.g. 30 days net), and any advance payments for bigger jobs.
- Exclusions: what’s not included? Time-and-materials work, unforeseeable extra work (e.g. contamination found under the old flooring), material price changes.
Three quotes to copy
Three jobs, three trades, three ready-made line-item sections. All the figures are example prices for 2026 and do not replace your own costing: your hourly rate follows your fixed costs, your material prices follow your buying terms. What you can take over is the structure. Make the preparation visible, give materials and disposal their own lines, never forget the travel, and put the two or three sentences that keep the rest of the job calm underneath the total. As a print-ready document with your letterhead, it is the quote template.
A word on the rates: hourly rates differ markedly between trades and between regions. In the city of Zurich or in Geneva they sit above the figures below, in rural areas below them, and a plumbing business with an emergency service, a service van and a stores room costs differently from a painting business. So take the example prices as a structure and put your own figures in once you have adopted the layout.
1. Painter: repainting a 3.5-room flat
Occupied flat, 150 m2 of wall and ceiling, repainted white, substrate in good condition. The customer does not move out during the work, the furniture is pushed into the middle of the rooms and covered.
| No. | Work | Qty | Unit | Price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Protect furniture, cover, mask | 6.0 | h | 95.00 | 570.00 |
| 2 | Clean substrate, fill small cracks | 3.5 | h | 95.00 | 332.50 |
| 3 | Primer on walls and ceilings | 150 | m2 | 7.50 | 1’125.00 |
| 4 | Two topcoats, white, matt | 150 | m2 | 15.00 | 2’250.00 |
| 5 | Materials (emulsion, acrylic, tape) | 1 | lump | 480.00 | 480.00 |
| 6 | Final clean and disposal | 2.0 | h | 95.00 | 190.00 |
Subtotal: CHF 4’947.50
VAT 8.1%: CHF 400.75
Total incl. VAT: CHF 5’348.25
Three things make this quote better than a lump sum of CHF 5’350: the customer sees that preparation is almost a fifth of the cost, they can drop line 6 if they would rather clean up themselves, and you can justify the final invoice line by line when something turns out to be more or less work.
Watch out for:
- Preparation as its own lines. Covering and filling come to CHF 902.50 here, a good fifth of the quote. In a lump sum the customer only sees the square-metre price for the painting and compares it with the price of a tin at the DIY store.
- Make the substrate an exclusion. Old distemper, woodchip paper, nicotine or damp all need a blocking primer and quickly cost half a day more. One sentence does it: if the substrate turns out to differ from what was visible at the site visit, we bill the extra work on a time-and-materials basis, agreed with you beforehand.
- Write down occupied or empty. An occupied flat costs you furniture moving, phased work and daily tidying up. If the quote does not say which condition you assumed, the extra effort becomes your problem. More examples for your trade on the page for painters.
2. Plumber: a small bathroom refit
6 m2 bathroom, tub out, shower in, basin and WC replaced. Plumbing work only: tiling, painting and electrics are awarded separately by the client. The fixtures are in as a budget figure, because the brand is still open.
| No. | Work | Qty | Unit | Price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Remove tub, basin, WC, cart away | 12.0 | h | 110.00 | 1’320.00 |
| 2 | Adapt supply and waste pipes, wall frame | 16.0 | h | 110.00 | 1’760.00 |
| 3 | Fixtures and taps, budget (brand open) | 1 | lump | 4’200.00 | 4’200.00 |
| 4 | Install, connect, silicone work | 14.0 | h | 110.00 | 1’540.00 |
| 5 | Sundries, seals, fixings | 1 | lump | 380.00 | 380.00 |
| 6 | Disposal of old fixtures and rubble, skip hire | 1 | lump | 620.00 | 620.00 |
Subtotal: CHF 9’820.00
VAT 8.1%: CHF 795.42
Total incl. VAT: CHF 10’615.42
The time-and-materials clause underneath the table is not optional: work that only becomes visible once the wall is open, corroded risers or missing waterproofing for instance, is not included and is billed on a time-and-materials basis at CHF 110.00 per hour, agreed beforehand.
Watch out for:
- Fixtures as a budget, not as a price. Write down the figure you costed with, plus the sentence saying that any difference on the brand the customer picks appears one-to-one on the final invoice. That lets them take their time in the showroom without your quote falling apart.
- Name the interfaces. Who tiles, who paints, who fits the socket next to the mirror? Write down what you are not doing and whether you take on the coordination. The most expensive hours of a bathroom refit are the ones where nobody knows who is up next.
- Never quote without a time-and-materials clause. Behind a bathroom wall from 1985, anything is possible. Without the clause you pay for the surprise yourself; with it you make a call and the customer decides. More on the page for plumbers.
3. Landscaper: a hedge and a new lawn
Terraced-house garden, the old thuja hedge is already out, 22 running metres of new hedge, 180 m2 of lawn to sow. Access available for the mini excavator.
| No. | Work | Qty | Unit | Price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dig planting trench, prepare soil | 22 | rm | 28.00 | 616.00 |
| 2 | Plant hedge, privet 100/125 cm, plants included | 22 | rm | 74.00 | 1’628.00 |
| 3 | Prepare lawn area, level, roll | 180 | m2 | 6.50 | 1’170.00 |
| 4 | Sow lawn, starter fertiliser | 180 | m2 | 4.20 | 756.00 |
| 5 | Disposal of spoil and green waste | 1 | lump | 480.00 | 480.00 |
| 6 | Travel and machine transport | 2 | trip | 145.00 | 290.00 |
Subtotal: CHF 4’940.00
VAT 8.1%: CHF 400.14
Total incl. VAT: CHF 5’340.14
Travel is deliberately its own line here. Two trips with a trailer and a mini excavator are a real block of cost, and folding them into the square-metre price makes you look more expensive than the competitor who bills them separately later.
Watch out for:
- Settle establishment and aftercare. Who waters the new lawn for the first six weeks, who cuts the hedge in the first year? State that aftercare is not included, or quote it as its own line. It is the most common dispute in landscaping, because a scorched lawn always looks like a defect.
- Plants can go at the reduced rate. Live plants are subject to the reduced VAT rate of 2.6%, and they do so even when supplied in combination with work at the standard rate, provided they are invoiced separately (Art. 25 para. 2 VAT Act). In the quote above the plants sit inside line 2 and therefore run at 8.1%. To use the reduced rate, the plants need a line of their own.
- Spoil and disposal with an exclusion. Removal is billed by weight or volume, and what is in the ground is never known in advance. State the quantity you assumed and the rate per cubic metre in case there is more. More examples on the page for landscapers.
A complete landscaping example with indicative prices is in the article Landscaping quotes in Switzerland.
What all three have in common
The three quotes come from different trades and are still built the same way. Five patterns transfer one-to-one.
- Four to eight line items, not twenty. Fewer reads like a lump sum, more nobody reads. Group what gets carried out together, and separate what the customer could drop or do themselves.
- Preparation gets its own lines. Covering, stripping out, digging: that is the part laypeople underestimate, and the part that makes your quote explainable against a cheaper one.
- Materials, disposal and travel stand on their own. These three disappear into lump sums most often, then turn up on the final invoice where they look like an extra claim.
- The exclusions sit underneath the total. What is not included, what happens if something comes up, and at what hourly rate. Two to four sentences, and the final invoice argues itself later.
- The numbers are Swiss numbers. Apostrophe as the thousands separator, two decimal places, VAT on its own line at 8.1% and the total including VAT below it. If you are not VAT-registered, drop both lines and show no VAT at all.
The hourly rate that fits your own figures is what the hourly rate calculator works out from your fixed costs and productive hours.
Quote, cost estimate, ballpark offer or ballpark price?
The four terms get mixed up in daily use, but they commit you to very different degrees.
| Term | How binding | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Quote | A binding price you are held to for the validity period | Scope is clear, you have been on site |
| Cost estimate | An estimate; if significantly exceeded (roughly 10 % as a rule of thumb) you must say so | Scope roughly known, details open |
| Ballpark offer | A non-binding order of magnitude, often a range | First enquiry, budget check on the phone |
| Ballpark price | Pure orientation, usually a rate per unit | A price indication without a site visit |
Put the term you actually mean on the document. Calling an estimate a quote means you have given a binding price you never intended.
Ballpark offer: the non-binding order of magnitude
A ballpark offer, or indicative quote, answers “What will this cost, roughly?” before you’ve been on site. It states an order of magnitude, usually as a range, and does not bind you to any price, as long as three things hold: the title says “indicative quote” and not “quote”, the figure appears as a range rather than an amount, and one sentence records that the site visit is still missing. Legally that rests on Art. 7 para. 1 OR, under which an offer does not bind the offeror if an express reservation to that effect is attached to it.
Without that reservation, the rules on contracts for work apply: a price determined exactly in advance is a fixed price (Art. 373 OR), and an approximate figure must not be exceeded disproportionately, or the customer may withdraw from the contract (Art. 375 OR).
How to word one, a worked example, the email that goes with it, and what the much-quoted 10 per cent rule of thumb is actually worth are all in the dedicated guide Indicative quote.
Flat rate or time-and-materials?
Both have their place:
- Flat rate: good for clearly defined work (painting a room, replacing a sink). Customers love the predictability, and you carry the risk if something comes up. So list your exclusions explicitly.
- Time-and-materials: right for unclear scope (renovations, repairs with an unknown cause). Give an hourly rate and an estimate as a range, so the customer knows what they’re signing up for. How to calculate your hourly rate properly is covered in the guide How to calculate your hourly rate.
Text template: the frame around the numbers
Any software or an Excel sheet can build the line items. The text around them is what makes the difference. The full template to print or use as a PDF is at quote template; if you’d rather keep working on your computer, the same page has a Word template and an Excel template to download. This structure has proven itself:
Dear Mrs Muster
Thank you for your enquiry and for the site visit on 15 July. We’re pleased to quote you for the painting work discussed at your home at Beispielstrasse 12, as follows.
[Line items with quantity, unit, unit price, total]
The price includes masking work, materials and final cleaning. Not included is any filler work on damage that wasn’t visible beforehand; we would charge that on a time-and-materials basis at CHF 95.00 per hour and discuss it with you in advance.
This quote is valid until [date, usually 30 days from today]. The payment deadline is 30 days from the invoice date.
We look forward to carrying out the work for you and are happy to answer any questions.
Kind regards
Short, concrete, no filler phrases. The customer knows what they’re getting, what it costs, and what happens if something comes up along the way.
Following up without being a nuisance
A third of quotes are never answered, not because the price was too high but because the enquiry got buried. Follow up once after seven to ten days, short and without pressure:
Dear Mrs Muster
A week ago I sent you the quote for the painting work at Beispielstrasse 12. I wanted to ask whether you have any questions about it or would like anything changed.
If the timing suits, we would have capacity in the week of 15 September.
Kind regards
The line about free capacity is the important one: it gives the customer a reason to answer now rather than eventually. If it stays quiet, follow up a second time after three weeks, then stop.
The most common mistakes
- Quoting too slowly. If you quote after ten days, you’re often quoting for the competition. Enquiry in, quote out, ideally the same or the next working day.
- A vague description. “Painting work, flat rate CHF 8’000” invites disputes. Individual line items build trust and make invoicing easier later.
- Forgetting exclusions. Without a written exclusion, you either pay for surprises out of your own pocket or annoy the customer with extra charges later.
- No follow-up. A quick check-in after a week isn’t begging, it’s service. Many jobs are lost simply because nobody followed up.
From site measurement to quote in minutes, not evenings
Most businesses write quotes at the kitchen table in the evening. That step can now be almost fully automated: in MeisterOffice, you dictate or type a short description of the work, and the AI builds a structured quote draft from it, with line items, prices from your master data, and clean supporting text. You review it, adjust it, and send it, straight from the app, as a PDF with your letterhead. Once the quote is accepted, one click later it becomes the QR invoice.
What this looks like for your trade is shown on the trade pages, for example for painters, plumbers or joiners. Pricing is here.
Frequently asked questions
Is a quote legally binding? Yes. A quote is an offer in the sense of the Swiss Code of Obligations. If the customer accepts within the validity period, a contract comes into being on the quoted terms. So always include the validity period and your exclusions.
Do I have to charge for a site visit or a quote? It’s common for the site visit and the quote to be free. For demanding projects with a planning component, you may agree a paid design stage, but only if that was clearly communicated beforehand.
Quote, cost estimate, ballpark price: what’s the difference? The quote names a binding price, the cost estimate is an estimate, and a ballpark offer or price is a non-binding order of magnitude. The differences are in the table above.
What is a ballpark offer? A non-binding order of magnitude given before the site visit, usually as a range. It helps the customer with their budget and helps you filter out enquiries that would never turn into a job. It only becomes binding with the quote after the on-site measurement. How to phrase one is covered in the guide Indicative quote.
Is a ballpark offer binding? No, as long as it is clearly labelled a ballpark offer and the figure appears as a range with an exclusion. A single figure with no exclusion can be read as a price despite the title. In case of doubt, what counts is what the customer could reasonably have understood.
What exactly is a quote? A binding offer that includes the work, price, terms and validity period. If the customer accepts, the contract is concluded. Germany uses the word Angebot for the same document; in Switzerland, people say and write Offerte.
How long should a quote be valid? Thirty days is the normal case, sixty to ninety when material prices are stable. Shorter than thirty looks rushed; longer than ninety is a risk you carry alone when material prices move. With no period at all, Art. 5 OR binds you only until you can expect a reply sent properly and on time to arrive, a vague line a clear date avoids.
Can I change a quote after sending it? Before the customer has accepted, yes: you may withdraw it or send a corrected version, as long as the withdrawal arrives before or with the acceptance. After acceptance it is a contract and changes need both sides to agree. A miscalculation on its own does not void it.
How do I handle variations? In writing, before you do the work. A short variation quote by email with the description, the price and a line asking for a brief confirmation is enough. Verbally agreed variations are the most common reason final invoices get disputed.
How do I quote for a service with no materials? The same way, except the lines are hours or lump sums instead of quantities. What matters is the description of work: what exactly is part of the job, what is not, and what happens if it takes longer than estimated.