THE SHORT ANSWER
A quotation issued into a three-way comparison converts at roughly 25 to 35 percent. Where you are the only quote, or clearly the first and most thorough, that rises to 45 to 60 percent. The two biggest levers are speed of issue and post-issue follow-up, not price. Most contractors send a document and wait, which is why a single structured follow-up call two days later moves this number more than any discount does.
Quote to job is where margin is decided, and it is the stage most small businesses leave entirely to chance. The survey is done properly, the document is written carefully, and then it is emailed into silence with a closing line hoping to hear from you soon. Whatever happens next happens without you in the room.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. On a trade where jobs are worth ten thousand, moving from 28 to 38 percent on the same forty quotations a year is four extra jobs and forty thousand in revenue, from work you have already surveyed and priced. No lead source available anywhere offers a return like that, and the cost of capturing it is a diary reminder.
The numbers, at a glance
Quoting against two other firms: modelled at 25 to 35 percent conversion
Sole or clearly first quotation: modelled at 45 to 60 percent
Effect of one structured follow-up call: modelled at 5 to 12 percentage points, larger than most discounts achieve
Effect of issuing within 48 hours of survey: modelled at 8 to 15 percentage points against a document sent after a week
The number of competing quotes explains most of the variance
Everything else is second order. Three comparable quotations on a kitchen means three roughly competent businesses splitting the same decision, and no amount of presentation makes that a two-thirds proposition. The realistic ambition in a genuine three-way is to be chosen slightly more often than chance, and consistently doing that is a strong business.
Which is why the position you occupy matters more than the document you produce. Arriving first, with a survey booked before the other two have rung back, is worth more than any refinement of layout or wording. It is also why exclusivity upstream and speed downstream are the same argument: both are about reducing the number of people standing in the room when the decision is made.
The follow-up nobody makes
A quotation is a document, not a conversation, and documents do not answer questions. The homeowner reads it, does not understand line four, assumes it means the expensive thing, and quietly discounts you. Two days later a two-minute call asking whether anything needs explaining recovers a meaningful share of those, at no cost.
Day 2 after issue. Call to check it arrived and offer to walk through anything unclear. Not a chase, a service call.
Day 6. One email adding something specific: a photograph of comparable work, or a note on lead time for the materials involved.
Day 12. Ask directly where the decision stands and whether they need anything from you to make it.
Day 21. Close the file politely, and state how long the pricing stands. Roughly one in ten replies here.
Why discounting moves this number less than people expect
Price is rarely the sole reason a homeowner picks one contractor over another at this stage, because by the time three quotations are on the table they have usually converged within fifteen percent of each other. What separates them is confidence: clarity of scope, responsiveness, whether the person who visited seemed to have done this exact job before.
Cutting five percent to win therefore buys a small increase in conversion and a guaranteed reduction in margin on every job you would have won anyway. The better trade is to spend the same five percent on something visible, such as removing a caveat, including a warranty extension, or specifying a component the competition has left vague.
Combining the two rates into cost per job
Neither rate means much alone. Multiply them. Fifty percent lead-to-quote and thirty percent quote-to-job means fifteen percent of enquiries become work, so roughly seven leads per job. At a lead price of EUR 70 that is about EUR 470 of acquisition cost against a job worth several thousand.
Now improve only the second number to forty percent. Twenty percent of enquiries become work, five leads per job, about EUR 350. The acquisition cost fell by a quarter without buying anything or changing supplier, purely because a follow-up call got made. This is the calculation worth putting on a wall.
Raising quote to job without touching price
Issue every quotation within forty-eight hours of the survey, and treat that as a hard rule.
Book the day-2 explanation call at the moment you send the document.
Put a stated validity period on every quotation so there is a natural reason to speak again.
Ask every lost enquiry who won it and why, and write the answer down.
Review the loss reasons quarterly and change one thing about the document, not the price.
How these figures were built
These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote.
How Flock Leads prices this
Quote-to-job rate is what converts a lead price into a cost per signed job, so it is worth calculating before choosing how much volume to commit to.
Starter - 10 leads for EUR 750, which is EUR 75 per lead
Growth - 25 leads for EUR 1,750, which is EUR 70 per lead
Scale - 45 leads for EUR 2,925, which is EUR 65 per lead
Pro - 70 leads for EUR 4,340, which is EUR 62 per lead
Max - 90 leads for EUR 5,400, which is EUR 60 per lead
No retainer, no contract term, and no lead sent to a second business. Unused volume rolls over under the Flock Lead Promise.
Want leads like this in your pipeline?
Flock runs the campaigns, screens the enquiries and hands you only the ones that match your service area, job size and capacity. You pay per lead, not per month.
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Related answers
Frequently asked questions
Should I ask why I lost?
Always, and by phone rather than by form. Roughly half will tell you, and the reasons cluster tightly enough that twenty answers reveal a pattern. The most common answers are rarely price alone; they are availability, clarity of scope and how quickly someone came back.
Does a fancier quotation document help?
Marginally, and far less than speed. Clarity beats design: a scope the homeowner can read without a glossary, a single total, an explicit list of what is excluded. Elaborate brochures mostly signal that the overhead is being paid for somewhere.
What if my rate is above 60 percent?
Either you are quoting almost unopposed, which is excellent, or you are underpricing. Check by raising quoted prices five percent on the next twenty jobs and watching the rate. If it barely moves, you have been leaving margin on the table for some time.
How does job size affect the benchmark?
Larger jobs convert lower and take longer, because more comparison happens and more people are involved in deciding. A twenty thousand kitchen and a two thousand painting job should not share a target, and averaging them together hides both. Split the benchmark by value band before judging anybody against it.
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