Is a quote legally binding?
A quote is an offer, not yet a contract. While it sits unaccepted you can withdraw it or correct it. The moment the customer accepts — signature, email, text, or a tap on an accept button — there is a binding agreement at that price, and “I underpriced it” is not usually a way out of it. An estimate is different: it is an indication rather than a fixed-price offer, so a customer saying yes to an estimate does not lock the figure.
What “binding” actually means
A contract needs three things: an offer, acceptance of that offer, and something of value moving each way. Your quote is the offer. The customer’s yes is the acceptance. Their promise to pay and yours to do the work are the value. Once all three exist, you are both committed — you to do the described work for the stated price, them to pay it.
Nothing has to be signed, stamped or witnessed. An acceptance by text is as real as one on paper, and a verbal yes on a doorstep counts too. The difference is not whether it binds but whether you can prove it later — which is why a written acceptance with a date on it is worth having even between people who trust each other.
Before it is accepted, you can still change it
An offer can be withdrawn or revised any time before it is accepted, as long as the customer is told before they accept. So if you spot that you have priced twelve downlights and quoted for six, the fix is to send the corrected quote straight away and say in plain words that the earlier one no longer stands. Do not leave two live versions in someone’s inbox and hope they pick the right one.
A valid-until date does this in advance: once it passes, the offer is closed and you can re-price without an argument about going back on your word. The guide on how long a quote should be valid for covers how to pick the period.
After it is accepted, the price is the price
This is the part that costs people money. Once a fixed-price quote has been accepted, the risk of the job taking longer or costing more than you thought is yours — the second fix running to three days instead of two, or the merchant putting copper up the week after. That risk is exactly what the customer is paying a fixed price to avoid.
The practical answer is not to fear quoting — it is to quote off a description specific enough that you know what you have committed to. A line that says “rewire” can mean almost anything. Lines that name rooms, counts and fittings define the job, and a defined job is one you can price and stand behind.
What if the price was an obvious mistake?
There is a narrow exception in English law where a contract may not stand because one side knew, or plainly ought to have known, that the other had made a mistake — £45 typed where £450 was meant, for a job nobody could do for £45. The bar is genuinely high: it is about mistakes so obvious the customer could not honestly have believed the figure, not about prices you now regret. Do not plan around it. Check the total before you send, and if you find an error afterwards, say so immediately rather than after they have accepted. For a specific dispute, Citizens Advice is the free starting point.
Extra work is a variation, not a favour
Most disagreements are not about the original quote at all — they are about what got added to it. When the customer asks for two more sockets while you are on site, that is a variation to the contract, and it needs agreeing before you do it. A text saying “two extra doubles in the hall, £90 on top, ok?” and a “yes” back is enough. What is not enough is doing the work and putting it on the final bill: you are then asking somebody to pay for something they never agreed to buy, and they can say no.
The 14-day cancellation right that catches trades out
If the contract is agreed away from your business premises — in the customer’s home, which is where most trade work is agreed — the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 normally give a consumer 14 days to cancel, and require you to tell them about that right in writing. Two consequences are worth knowing before they bite:
- If you do not give that notice, the cancellation window does not close on time. It can extend by up to a year, which means a customer can cancel long after the job feels settled.
- If they want you to start inside the 14 days, get that in writing too. Without their express request to begin early, starting work during the cancellation period is at your own risk.
This applies to consumers, not to commercial customers, and it sits alongside the quote rather than replacing it — the price still binds; the customer simply has a window in which they may walk away.
Quote or estimate: the word is not a magic spell
What matters is whether you offered a fixed price, not which word sits at the top of the page. Printing “estimate” above what reads in every other respect as a firm offer will not protect you, and calling a rough indication a “quote” may well bind you to it.
| When the customer says yes | Quote | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| The price | Fixed at the figure you gave | Still an indication |
| If your costs rise | Your risk to absorb | Can be reflected in the final bill, within reason |
| What is agreed | A contract at that price | A contract to do the work at a reasonable price |
The quote vs estimate guide goes into when to send which. Speak to Quote numbers the two differently — Q2026-001 against E2026-001 — and prints a line on an estimate saying the final price may vary, so the document cannot quietly disagree with what you meant.
What makes a quote easy to stand behind
None of this requires a solicitor — only a document specific about what was offered, and a record of when it was accepted:
- In writing, dated and numbered, so there is one version and everyone can name it.
- Itemised, so “the job” means something checkable rather than one line nobody can argue about precisely.
- A valid-until date, so the offer closes by itself.
- Payment terms on the document, so when payment is due is part of what was agreed rather than a later conversation.
- A record of acceptance, with the date on it.
That last one is the one people skip. A quote sent from Speak to Quote gives the customer a read-only copy with an accept button, and accepting stamps it with the date and time, emails you, and marks the job accepted in your history — so the record exists without anyone remembering to make one. The electrician page and the builder page show the finished document.
One caveat
This is general information written for tradespeople rather than lawyers, and it describes the position in England and Wales — Scotland and Northern Ireland differ in places, though the 2013 Regulations apply UK-wide. It is not legal advice: if real money is in dispute, take advice on the facts.