Free UK quote calculator
Work out what to charge for a job: labour, materials, additional costs, markup and VAT, added up as you type. No account, no email, no card.
Your quote
- Labour
- £0.00
- Materials
- £0.00
- Additional costs
- £0.00
- Subtotal
- £0.00
- Markup or contingency
- £0.00
- Discount
- £0.00
- Net quote
- £0.00
- VAT (not applied)
- £0.00
No VAT applied
The calculator is free and needs no account.
How the calculation works
The order matters, and it is shown line by line so you can check it. Labour, materials and additional costs are added to give a subtotal. Markup is applied to that subtotal. Any discount comes off after the markup, which is the honest way round: a discount should eat into your margin rather than be quietly marked back up. VAT, if you add it, is calculated on the net figure after the discount.
Labour
Start from your own rate and the time the job will genuinely take, not from what you think the customer will accept. If you are quoting a fixed price for the labour, use the fixed option and put your number in directly.
Estimate the time honestly. Shaving days off because the total looks large is how a won job turns into a job you regret.
Materials and additional costs
Materials go in at what they cost you. Additional costs are everything else the job consumes: travel, parking, congestion charges, skip hire, plant, a subcontractor's day. These get forgotten more often than anything else and they come straight out of your profit when they are.
Markup is not margin
This catches people out, so it is worth being precise. Markup is a percentage added on top of your costs. Margin is the percentage of the final price that is profit.
Add 50% markup to 100 pounds of cost and you quote 150 pounds. Your profit is 50 pounds on a 150 pound price, which is a 33% margin, not 50%. If you want a specific margin you need a higher markup than that number suggests.
Contingency
The markup field doubles as contingency. Ten to twenty per cent covers the things that reliably happen: access problems, a material that has gone up, the extra half day nobody planned for. If nothing goes wrong, you have earned it.
Discounts
A discount comes straight off your profit, not off your costs. Before dropping the price, consider reducing the scope instead. Removing a line teaches the customer what the money buys; cutting the number teaches them your first price was not real.
VAT
Add VAT only if you are VAT registered. If you are not registered you must not charge it. Where you are registered, show net, VAT and gross separately so the customer can see what they will pay, and remember that a VAT-registered customer can usually reclaim it while a consumer cannot.
Whether you need to register, and at what point, depends on your turnover and your circumstances. This calculator does not decide that for you, and GOV.UK is the authoritative source.
What this calculator is not
It is arithmetic, not advice. It does not know your market, your overheads or your tax position, and nothing here is accounting, tax or legal advice. For anything that turns on your particular circumstances, speak to an accountant.
Common questions
- How do I calculate a quote for a job?
- Start from what the work costs you. Take your day or hourly rate multiplied by the time the job will take, add materials at what you pay for them, add any additional costs such as travel or skip hire, then add a markup percentage to cover overheads, risk and profit. Apply any discount after the markup, and add VAT at the end only if you are VAT registered.
- What is the difference between markup and margin?
- Markup is a percentage added on top of your costs. Margin is the percentage of the final price that is profit. They are not the same number. A 50% markup on 100 pounds of cost gives a 150 pound price, and that is a 33% margin, not 50%. Quoting on markup and reporting on margin is a common reason businesses think they are more profitable than they are.
- Should I add VAT to my quote?
- Only if you are VAT registered. If you are not registered you must not charge VAT. If you are, show the net amount, the VAT and the gross total separately so the customer can see what they will actually pay. Whether and when you need to register depends on your turnover and circumstances, and GOV.UK is the authoritative source.
- Should materials include markup?
- Usually yes. You are carrying the cost of the materials, the time to source them and the risk if a price moves between quoting and buying. Pricing materials at exactly what you paid means that part of the job earns you nothing. How much to add is a commercial decision rather than a rule.
- What should a customer quote include?
- Your business details and the customer's, a quote number, itemised lines rather than a single figure, the VAT treatment, a valid-until date, and your payment terms including any deposit. Itemising is what makes a later change in scope chargeable rather than awkward.
- Can I turn the quote into an invoice later?
- Yes. Once a quote is accepted, Vizivo's quote to invoice converter carries the parties, line items and prices across and recalculates the totals, so nothing is retyped and the figures cannot drift between the two documents.
Once you have your number
A figure is not a quotation. Clients say yes to a document with itemised lines, a validity date and clear terms.
Where this fits
Quoting, chasing and invoicing are one job spread over a few weeks. These are the steps, in order.
- Work out the priceYou are hereNo account neededAdd up labour, materials and markup to reach a number you are happy with
- Write the quoteTurn that number into an itemised quotation with terms and a validity date
- Chase itSend the follow-up that gets an answer, without sounding desperate
- Convert to an invoiceThey said yes. Carry the accepted quote across with the totals recalculated
- Invoice from scratchOr raise a compliant UK invoice directly when there was no quote