What should a plastering quote include?

Guide · Updated 23 September 2026

Say what you are plastering onto

Two plastering quotes for the same three rooms can be a long way apart, and the difference is rarely the skimming — it is what each of you assumed was underneath. A skim over sound plaster, a strip-and-skim once the woodchip is off, an overboard on a tired ceiling and a full hack-off back to brick are four different jobs at four different prices, and a quote that just says “plaster two bedrooms” has silently picked one without telling the customer which.

So name the starting point on every line: “strip the woodchip and skim, walls only”; “overboard and skim the hall ceiling”; “hack off the chimney breast to brick, bonding coat and skim”. Each is a line the customer can stand in the room and check — and each fixes what you priced, before the cheaper quote that assumed less starts looking like the same job for less money.

Name the system, coat by coat

The customer cannot judge a skim, but they can count coats and boards. “Bonding coat, then a two-coat skim finish” is a specification; “re-plaster” is not. Where boarding is involved, say what goes up — overboarding a ceiling in 12.5mm board before the skim is a different line from skimming what is there, and the moisture-resistant board in a bathroom is worth naming precisely because it costs more than the customer’s mate said board costs.

Keep one line per room or surface, with the location on it. Walls and ceilings move at different speeds, and “hall ceiling — overboard and skim” next to “two bedrooms — strip and skim, walls only” reads as a job that was actually looked at.

Price the surprise before you open the wall

You do not know what is behind woodchip until it is off, and neither does the customer. Old paper comes away with the top coat of a hundred-year-old wall; tiles bring half the backing off; what looked like a skim turns out blown from the brick. The honest quote does not pretend to know — it states the assumption and prices the exception: “walls assumed sound once stripped; areas of blown plaster re-floated at £X per square metre, agreed before the work is done”.

That one sentence turns the worst conversation in plastering — the mid-job price rise — into a variation the customer already understood when they said yes. If the whole surface is genuinely unknowable, quote what you can see and send the rest as an estimate, saying which is which.

Drying times, and whose job the decorating is

Fresh plaster dries in days, not hours, and the customer’s next question is always the painting. Say both on the quote: how long before the mist coat can go on — and that the wait is the plaster’s, not a delay of yours — and whether decorating is included, which for most plasterers it is not. One exclusion line saves the “I thought you were painting it” call; if they want the full picture of what the next trade’s quote should say, point them at what a decorating quote should include.

Say who clears, who protects, and what is excluded

Plastering is the messiest hour a clean room will ever have, and the small domestic assumptions are where the goodwill goes. If it is not in your price, the quote should say so:

• Clearing the rooms — if the customer is emptying them before you start, write it down; it is part of the price you gave.
• Floor protection — sheeting is yours; lifting and re-laying a fitted carpet is not.
• Making good around the plaster — refixing skirting, coving, sockets and light fittings disturbed by the work.
• Damp — plastering over a damp wall hides a problem, it does not fix one; a suspect wall needs the cause treated first, and the quote should say whose job that is.

The money lines: VAT, validity and the deposit

Many plastering firms trade under the VAT threshold — if that is you, say so plainly: “not VAT registered — no VAT charged” stops the customer holding 20% back “in case”. If you are registered, show the subtotal, the VAT line and the total — showing VAT on a quote covers both. Date the offer and re-quote once it lapses (how long should a quote be valid?), and on a domestic skim the defensible deposit is the materials or nothing at all — how much deposit should you ask for makes the case.

A structure to copy

Top to bottom, a plastering 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: one per room or surface, the starting point and the system on each — strip, board, bonding, skim — with quantity, unit price and line total.
• The stated assumption, and the rate for what might be behind the surface.
• Subtotal, VAT (or “not VAT registered — no VAT charged”), total.
• Exclusions — clearing, carpets, making good, decorating, damp.
• Payment terms.

Speak to Quote builds that document from a dictated description: walk the rooms, say what each wall needs, and the line items come back with the starting point on each line and the VAT right — or absent, and stated — because you set it once. The plasterers page shows a worked example: two bedrooms stripped and skimmed, an overboarded hall ceiling and a chimney breast taken back to brick.