What should a landscaping quote include?

Guide · Updated 23 September 2026

Price the ground, not just the surface

The patio the customer is imagining is the last hundred millimetres of the job. Underneath it is the half of the price they cannot see: the dig-out to depth, the cart away, the skip on the drive, the sub-base delivered and compacted in layers. Put each on its own line — “excavate 20m² to 250mm, remove spoil”, “100mm compacted Type 1 sub-base” — because the cheaper quote is almost always cheaper here, in the layers that decide whether the paving is still flat in three winters. An itemised ground build-up is how the customer sees that without you saying a word about the competition.

Specify the build-up, layer by layer

“Lay a porcelain patio” is a wish; “100mm compacted sub-base, full mortar bed, 20mm porcelain, jointed and sealed” is a specification. The same discipline applies to everything with layers: the membrane under the gravel, the depth of topsoil under new turf, the sleeper planter’s foundation and fixings. Layers are what the customer cannot check after the event — so fix them on paper before it, where they are also your answer if the finished level or a settling slab is ever questioned.

Name the materials, and who chooses them

“The grey porcelain they chose”, the sleeper size and treatment, the turf grade, the aggregate — named on the line they belong to. Naming does two jobs: the price is tied to a product, so a switch to the more expensive stone is a variation rather than an absorbed cost; and supply is settled — if the customer is buying the paving themselves, the quote says so, along with the fact that quantities ordered against your measurements are theirs to get right if they change the layout after ordering.

Say where the water goes

Every hard surface you lay sends its rain somewhere, and “towards the kitchen” is the wrong answer. State the levels and the drainage as their own lines: falls away from the house, the channel drain across the threshold, where the downpipe discharges, soakaway or existing gully. It is one or two lines on the quote — and the difference between a finished job and a flooded-doorstep phone call the following January. If the design came as a drawing, quote from it and say so — quoting from the plans covers the take-off, revision numbers included.

Price what is under the ground as a provisional sum

No one knows what is under a lawn until the digger does: buried rubble, roots, an old concrete base, a soft spot that swallows sub-base, a service where no service should be. The honest quote says what it assumed — “normal digging conditions, no buried obstructions” — and carries a provisional sum or a stated rate for the exception, agreed before extra work is done. Builders have handled this for a century and a builder’s quote shows the same machinery; a garden is a small building site, and pricing it like one reads as experience, not caution.

The money lines: stages, VAT and validity

Landscaping runs for days or weeks outdoors, so the payments should follow the work, not the calendar: a deposit against materials (how much deposit should you ask for), a stage when the ground works are done, the balance at completion — and a line saying the programme moves with the weather, because it will. Show VAT properly — subtotal, VAT line, total if registered, “not VAT registered — no VAT charged” if not (showing VAT on a quote) — and date the offer: materials and skip prices move, and a dated quote is what lets you re-quote instead of honouring March’s prices in June.

A structure to copy

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

• Your business name, address, phone, email, and any membership you hold 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, in build order: dig-out and muck away, sub-base and build-up, each surface and structure with its materials named, planting and turf — quantity, unit price and line total on every one.
• The stated ground assumption and the provisional sum or rate for obstructions.
• Levels and drainage — where the water goes.
• Subtotal, VAT (or “not VAT registered — no VAT charged”), total.
• Exclusions — and that the programme moves with the weather.
• Payment stages tied to the work.

Speak to Quote builds that document from a dictated description: walk the garden, say what is coming out and what is going in, and the line items come back in build order with the layers on their own lines and the VAT right — because you set it once. The landscapers page shows a worked example: a twenty square metre porcelain patio with the dig-out and sub-base priced openly, a sleeper planter and forty square metres of returfing.