An agent that reads each request, works out what the job involves, and brings you a priced bid to approve.

The quote you send tomorrow is the job somebody else booked today.

A request for a price comes in while your estimator is on a site, or after the office has closed. It sits. By the time someone reads it, works out the scope, prices the materials and writes it up, the customer has already taken a number from a firm that answered the same day. The work was winnable, and the only thing that lost it was the wait.

Your agent starts the moment the request lands. It reads what was sent, pulls out what is actually being asked for, notices what is missing or does not add up, prices each part of the job against your own price list and labour rates, and checks how work of this shape has priced out for you before. What reaches you is a bid with its reasoning attached and the judgment calls marked, ready for you to approve or adjust.

An estimating tool waits to be opened and filled in. Your agent reads the request and works the quote out.

A quoting tool is a form. Somebody still has to open it, read the customer's request, decide what the job involves, look up what each part costs on your price list, type the numbers in and check the total. The tool does the arithmetic. A person does everything that comes before the arithmetic, and that is the part that eats the afternoon.

Your agent does the part before the arithmetic. It reads the request in the customer's own words, works out what the job actually is, finds what is missing, prices it against your price list, and produces the bid. What you do is approve it.

Three businesses, and the request that lands on an ordinary Tuesday.

A commercial landscaping company. A property manager writes, "the front of the building looks a state, can you sort it and give me a price." That is not a scope, it is a complaint. Your agent reads it against the photos attached, works out that "sort it" means clearing the overgrown beds, hauling away what it takes out, and replanting, prices the disposal and the plants from your own rate list, and marks the one thing it cannot see from a photo for a person to confirm on site. The customer could describe how the front looks. Only the trade knows that "sort it" is a day's work for three people plus a disposal run.

A promotional products supplier. A request comes in for "some branded stuff for a conference, maybe two hundred people." Your agent works out what that spec is actually missing: which items, which decoration method, how many colours in the logo, and the quantity break that changes the unit price. It prices the combination that fits the budget hinted at, and flags the rush charge if the conference date leaves no room. The customer knew they had two hundred people. They could not know that embroidery, a second logo colour and a two-week turnaround each move the price on their own.

A custom upholstery shop. A photo arrives of a worn sofa and two armchairs with "how much to recover these." Your agent works out the fabric yardage each piece takes, reads from the picture that the sofa cushions have gone flat and will need new foam, and prices the fabric and the labour from your rates, the repair included, though the customer did not mention it because they did not know to. It brings back a bid that separates the recovering from the foam, so the customer sees what each part costs. Nobody buying a recovered sofa knows how many metres of fabric it swallows or that the springs are the real job.

Requests arrive as a sentence and a photo, not as a filled-in form.

The way a customer asks for a price is rarely the way you need it to place a quote. They send a line of text, a photo, a forwarded email, a rough measurement, sometimes a voicemail transcribed to a note. The real scope is in there, wrapped around detail that does not matter and missing the measurement that does.

Your agent reads all of it. It takes the request in whatever form it arrives, pulls out what is actually being asked for, and puts it in the shape your estimate needs, so the job is understood before anyone starts pricing it. It works from the customer's words rather than making the customer learn yours.

It starts on the request the moment it lands, at two in the afternoon when your estimator is on a roof and at two in the morning when the office is dark, so the pricing is already moving before anyone is free to look.

The hard part of a quote is deciding what the job really involves, and noticing what the customer left out.

Half of estimating is filling the gaps the customer did not know were gaps. They tell you the outcome they want and leave out the measurement, the access, the finish, the quantity, the thing that doubles the labour. An experienced estimator reads the request and knows at once what still has to be pinned down before a number means anything.

Your agent does that reading. It works out what the job actually involves from what was sent, lists what is still missing, and asks the customer the one or two questions that decide the price rather than sending back a blank form. Where the request contradicts itself, a quantity that does not match the photo, a finish that does not go with the material, it catches it and settles it before it prices anything.

By the time it prices the job, it is pricing the real job, not the half of it the customer happened to describe.

A number is only worth sending if it is built on your own prices and how you have priced this work before.

A quote that uses an out-of-date price or forgets the disposal fee is worse than a slow quote, because you are bound by it. The price has to sit on your own price list, your labour rates, and how work of this shape has come out for you in the past.

Your agent prices against those. It takes each part of the job to your own price list and rate card, applies your labour rates and your margins, and checks the total against how similar jobs have priced for you before, so a number that comes out oddly high or low gets a second look rather than being sent. Where you mark up a certain kind of work, or never quote below a floor, it applies the rule. It works from the prices you keep, so when you update your list, the quotes update with it.

The bid it produces is one you can stand behind, because it is built on your own prices and your own history, not a guess.

The quote arrives ready to send, with the reasoning shown and the judgment calls marked for you.

The last step is yours. What the agent brings you is a finished bid: the scope it worked out, the line items, the prices it used and where they came from, and the total, with anything it had to assume or decide marked so you can see it at a glance.

Your agent hands it over the way your best estimator would hand you a quote to sign off, with the working shown rather than a bare number. You approve it as it stands, adjust a line, or send it back for the one thing it flagged. Where you let it, it can send the approved quote to the customer itself and log that it went. What it never does is send a price you have not seen when the job falls outside the rules it was given.

A quote that goes out the same day, built on real costs and checked against your history, is the one that wins the work while the customer is still deciding.

Reads the request · works out the scope · prices it against real costs · brings you a bid to approve

It runs the estimate from the request to the bid, and stops where the sign-off is yours.

• It reads the request in whatever form it arrives, a line of text, a photo, a forwarded email or a transcribed voicemail, and pulls out what is actually being asked for.
• It works out what the job really involves, including the parts of the scope the customer did not know to mention.
• It notices what is missing or contradictory and asks the one or two questions that decide the price, rather than sending back a blank form.
• It prices each part of the job against your own price list, the material prices and rates you already keep and update, rather than going out to shop the market.
• It applies your labour rates, your margins and your pricing rules, including any floor you never quote below and any markup you always add.
• It checks the total against how work of this shape has priced for you before, so an odd number gets a second look instead of being sent.
• It produces a bid with the reasoning shown, the line items, the prices and where they came from, and marks anything it had to assume or decide.
• It brings the bid to you to approve, and where you allow it, sends the approved quote to the customer and logs that it went.
• It stops rather than guessing when a request falls outside its rules, and brings it to you with what it has already worked out.

Your rates, your suppliers, your margins, and how you price each kind of work

How you price is particular to you. Your labour rates, the suppliers you buy from, the margin you hold, the work you mark up and the floor you never go below, and which jobs you would rather see yourself before a price leaves the building.

Your agent is built against those rules. It prices the way your estimator prices, uses the suppliers and rates you actually use, and when your costs move or your margins change, it changes with you.

Every quote is logged with its working, and you decide what it sends on its own

Each estimate is recorded with the reasoning attached: the scope it read, the prices it used and where they came from, and the total it reached. You can read back exactly how any bid was built.

You set how much it does by itself. It can price and send within the rules you give it, or hold every quote for you to approve before it goes, or send the routine ones and bring you only the large or unusual jobs. Where it is unsure, it does not improvise a number. It brings you what it has worked out and waits, so a customer is never sent a price you would not have stood behind.

Who this is for

This suits any business that wins work by quoting it, where the request comes in loose and the price depends on reading it right. Trades and services whose customers describe an outcome and leave the scope to you. Suppliers whose price turns on quantity, specification and what materials cost this week. Shops whose real job is the part the customer could not see. Anyone whose best estimator is the person who reads a vague request and knows at once what the job actually is and what it should cost.

If the quote that goes out first is the quote that wins, the estimate is the thing to build first.