What should a decorating quote include?

Guide · Updated 20 September 2026

Spell out the prep

Two decorating quotes for the same house can be hundreds of pounds apart, and the difference is almost always the preparation. “Prepare and paint throughout” hides the half of the work that justifies your figure; “fill and sand, caulk gaps to woodwork and ceilings, stain-block the water mark on the landing ceiling” is a list the customer can check with their own eyes.

Spelling it out does two jobs at once. It shows the customer what the cheaper quote is leaving out, without you saying a word about the competition. And it fixes what “prepared” means before the argument — a wall that was filled and sanded is yours to stand behind; failed plaster that needed a plasterer never was.

Fix the spec: coats and products, named

“Two coats of durable matt emulsion” is a specification; “paint the walls” is not. Naming the number of coats and the kind of product — and the mist coat on new plaster, if there is any — fixes the scope of the job. It is what turns “it needs another coat” from a dispute about what was promised into a priced extra the customer can decide about, and a deep colour change that was always going to take three coats is priced as three from the start.

One line per surface, with the location on it: walls, ceilings and woodwork move at different speeds and different prices, and “woodwork, gloss — banister, skirting and six door frames” is a line the customer can count.

Say who supplies what

Materials supplied by the customer are the commonest source of a decorating dispute, and one description line settles each case in advance. Your paint or theirs — and if theirs, that the price is for labour and their choice of product is their risk. Their wallpaper hung at your rate — with its condition checked before hanging, because a fault found on the wall is an argument and a fault found on the roll is a phone call.

Say what is excluded

The exclusions on decorating work are small, domestic and endlessly assumed. If it is not your work, the quote should say so before the customer decides it was included:

• Moving furniture beyond shifting it to the centre of the room and sheeting it up.
• Taking down and rehanging curtains, blinds, mirrors and shelves.
• Making good failed plaster — filling is decorating, re-plastering is not.
• External woodwork whose condition turns out to need repair rather than paint — rotten sills are a joiner’s line, not a decorator’s.

Show VAT — or say there is none

Many decorating firms trade under the VAT registration threshold, and the quote should say so plainly: a line reading “not VAT registered — no VAT charged” reads as clarity, not smallness, and it stops the customer holding 20% back “in case”. If you are registered, show the subtotal, the VAT as its own line, and the total they actually pay. The guide on showing VAT on a quote covers both cases and the traps in between.

Date it, and tie the deposit to the materials

Thirty days is the usual validity for decorating work; print the date and re-quote rather than honouring a lapsed offer — see how long a quote should be valid for. On payment, the defensible deposit is what you have to buy before you start — the paint and the paper, not a slice of the labour — and on a small interior job that may honestly be nothing, which is worth saying too. How much deposit should you ask for makes the full case. Then when the balance is due and how to pay, one line each.

A structure to copy

Top to bottom, a decorating quote carrying all of the above reads like this:

• Your business name, address, phone, email, and any membership you hold — PDA, TrustMark — with its number.
• The word Quote, a quote number, the date, and the valid-until date.
• The customer’s name and the address of the work.
• A one-line description of the job.
• The line items: the prep first, then each surface with its coats, location, quantity, unit price and line total — who supplies the materials written on the line it concerns.
• Subtotal, VAT (or “not VAT registered — no VAT charged”), total.
• Exclusions.
• Payment terms.

Speak to Quote builds that document from a dictated description: walk the rooms, say what you see, and the line items come back with the prep on its own line, the coats in the descriptions where they fix the spec, and the VAT right — or absent, and stated — because you set it once. The painters and decorators page shows a worked example: a hall, stairs and landing with the customer’s own paper on the feature wall. If the colours are still being chosen, build it as an estimate and firm it up when they are.