How to write an estimate on your phone, in the driveway
The estimate that wins is the one that arrives while the customer is still interested. That means from your phone, before you drive off.
Interest peaks the hour you leave. An estimate that goes out that evening feels like you want the job. One that goes out Thursday feels like you are busy. The way to send it the same hour is to write it on your phone, sitting in the truck, before you pull away.
What a phone estimate needs
- Your company name, phone, and license if you have one.
- The customer name and job address.
- The scope, as a short list.
- One price.
- A timeline.
- Payment terms with the deposit.
- A way to accept it that works on their phone.
That is the whole list, and all of it fits on a phone screen. What it does not need is a letterhead, a logo, three fonts, or a PDF attachment that opens as a tiny preview.
Type it the way you would text it
"repl 50 gal water heater, haul off old, new expansion tank, permit incl. $2,400. 1 day." Thirteen words. That is enough for a tool to lay out as a proper scope with your name on it. Typing a formal document on a phone keyboard is what makes people wait until they get home, and then forget.
What to avoid
- A price with no scope, by text. It reads as a guess and gets shopped.
- A photo of a paper estimate. Hard to read, impossible to accept.
- A PDF attached to a text. Downloads on Android, tiny on iPhone, cannot be signed.
- Sending it two days later from the office. By then they have called the next guy.
Send it as a link, not a file
A link opens a page on their phone with everything on it and a button to accept. They can find it again next week. It can tell you when it was opened. A file can do none of that. How to send an estimate by text covers the words to put in the message.
Then stop thinking about it
If the link can tell you when they open it, and a follow-up goes out on day 3 and day 7 without you, the estimate is done the moment you send it. You are on to the next job. That is the real reason to write it on your phone: not speed for its own sake, but getting it out of your head.
BidWriter Pro is built for exactly this. Type the job, tap Write, text the link. See what your customer gets without signing up.
Free, no account: job price calculator, markup vs margin, hourly rate, and 84 sample estimates.
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