Should I offer free quotes or consultations?

The answer turns on one thing: whether what you are giving away is information about the price or the work itself. Pricing a job is usually a cost of selling and should be free. Diagnosing, designing or advising is the job, and giving it away is not marketing — it is working for nothing.

The line that matters

Ask what the customer walks away with if they do not hire you.

• They walk away with a number. That is a quote. Free is right — it is how they choose, and refusing to give one loses you jobs you would have won.
• They walk away with an answer. A diagnosis, a plan, a design, a specification they could hand to someone cheaper. That is the work. Charge for it.

Most disputes about this are really confusion between the two. "Free consultation" that turns into an hour of professional advice is a service being given away under the label of sales.

When free is clearly right

• Straightforward pricing visits where you are measuring and quoting, not solving.
• Anything you can do remotely in minutes — a price from photographs, a rough figure over the phone.
• When you are new and need the conversations more than you need the hour.
• Where everyone in your trade does it and charging would simply remove you from consideration.

When charging is better

• When the visit itself is valuable. A survey, a diagnosis, a design consultation — the customer gets something whether or not they proceed.
• When travel is significant. An hour each way for a job that may not exist is a real cost.
• When you are busy. The purpose of a fee changes when your problem is too many enquiries rather than too few.
• When free attracts the wrong people. If most visits go nowhere, the fee is not deterring buyers; it is deterring browsers.

The reframe worth holding: a fee does not mainly deter people. It filters them. Someone willing to pay £50 for a proper assessment is telling you they are serious, which is information you cannot otherwise buy.

The version that works for most people

Charge, and credit it against the work.

"The survey is £75. If you go ahead, it comes off the final bill."

That is nearly free to a real customer, expensive to a tyre-kicker, and it turns an awkward conversation into a straightforward one. It also means the visit is paid for on the jobs that do not proceed, which is where the cost actually falls.

Qualify before you travel

Whatever you decide about money, the bigger saving is not going at all. Three questions, asked before booking anything, remove most wasted visits:

1. Where is it? Are they inside the area you actually cover.
2. What is the rough budget? Asked plainly, without apology. If they will not say, offer a range and ask whether it is the right ballpark.
3. When are they looking to do it? "Sometime next year" and "next month" deserve different amounts of your time.

Asking about budget feels rude and is not. It saves both of you an afternoon, and most customers answer honestly when the question is matter-of-fact.

Free samples and trials

Same principle. A sample that demonstrates quality — a tasting, a swatch, a test patch — is marketing and costs you little. A "free trial" that delivers the actual outcome is the job, and people who take the free version rarely convert to the paid one, because they already have what they wanted.

If you offer something free, make it small, bounded and clearly a preview rather than a portion.

What to say when you charge and they hesitate

Explain what the fee buys, not why you need it:

"It's a proper hour on site with a written assessment at the end, which is yours whether or not you use me. It's £75, and it comes off if you go ahead."

Do not apologise, and do not justify with your costs. If someone will not pay a modest fee for real value, they were unlikely to pay for the work either. What to say when someone asks for a discount covers the same instinct.

Whatever you choose, say it up front

The worst version of this is ambiguity. A customer expecting free who is charged feels tricked; a business expecting to charge that does not say so ends up giving it away resentfully.

Put it on the website and in the first reply. "Quotes are free. Full surveys are £75, refunded against the work." One line, no awkward conversations.

The bottom line

Give away the price; charge for the work. If the customer walks away with an answer rather than a number, that is a service. Charge a modest fee, credit it against the job, qualify on area, budget and timing before you travel, and publish the rule so nobody is surprised. See also how to price your work.