# How to quote a job when the client brief is incomplete: a decision tree Source: https://korrel.ai/blog/quote-job-incomplete-brief Published: 2026-08-12 Updated: 2026-08-10 Topic: how to quote a job when the client brief is incomplete Tags: proposals, estimating --- ## Key points - An incomplete brief has three pricing responses: price it firm, price an allowance, or refuse to price. - Classify every requirement as explicit, implied, assumed or missing before you put a rate against anything. - A stated allowance needs three parts: the assumption, the quantity covered, and the rate beyond it. - Refuse to price anything where the missing answer changes the method rather than the quantity. - An assumption is only chargeable later if it was written down, dated and specific enough to disprove. A brief with holes in it is not a reason to walk away. It is a reason to price differently. Knowing how to quote a job when the client brief is incomplete comes down to sorting the gaps before you touch a rate. Some items you price firm. Some you price with a stated allowance. Some you refuse to price at all until somebody answers a question. Guessing better is not the skill. Recording which pile each item went into is the skill, because that record is what makes the difference chargeable when the assumption turns out wrong on site. ## Why does a vague brief produce such different prices? Because every estimator fills the gaps differently, and almost nobody writes down what they filled them with. Look outside the trade for the clearest version of it. A publication that reviews briefs for client-side buyers reports that [the same brief was priced at 15 pages by one firm and 45 by another](https://commissioningdesk.com/why-agency-quotes-vary-so-much/). The brief had listed "key services" without giving a number. Neither firm was lying. They had quoted two different jobs. The same thing happens on a house. "Rewire throughout" might be 42 sockets or it might be 68. "Make good" might be a smear of filler or a full skim across three rooms. The client holds one picture. You hold another. The tender comparison sheet shows neither, because it only carries the totals. Jobs coming in heavy? Read the briefs they were priced from before you blame the build, which is the diagnostic behind [why quotes keep going over budget](/blog/why-quotes-go-over-budget). ## Sort the brief into four piles before you price Read it once with a pen. Mark every requirement as one of four things. **Explicit.** The client wrote it down. "Replace the consumer unit" is explicit. **Implied.** The client did not write it, but the job cannot happen without it. Scaffolding for a first-floor window replacement is implied. **Assumed.** You have filled a gap with a judgement of your own. The client has not confirmed it and may not know the question exists. **Missing.** You need it, it is not there, and no assumption is safe enough to stand in for it. Korrel's proposal workspace carries those four labels on every requirement, and lets you turn any assumption into a dated clarification question sitting beside the scope. That is the point of classifying at all. Not tidiness. Traceability. | Class | What it means | How you price it | What appears on the quote | |---|---|---|---| | Explicit | Written in the brief | Firm | A priced line | | Implied | Necessary but unstated | Firm | A priced line, described | | Assumed | Your judgement fills a gap | Allowance with a stated basis | Allowance, assumption, rate beyond | | Missing | No safe assumption exists | Not priced | A named exclusion and an open question | ## What can you price outright? Anything explicit or implied where the quantity is fixed and the method is yours to choose. Fixed quantity is the test. If you can count it, measure it or stand in front of it, price it firm and carry your margin. A client picking a different tap does not change your labour. Your build sequence is not their business and should never become a variation. Implied items belong in this pile too, and they are the ones that get left off. Waste removal. Protection and dust sheeting. Making good around a new opening. Price them and name them, because an implied item that nobody wrote down becomes a free item the moment somebody asks about it. Comparison is the reason to be strict about this pile. A client holding three quotes is not reading your method statement. They are reading four figures and a total, and the firm that quietly left out skips and protection looks cheaper than you on every one of those numbers. Naming the implied work is how you keep that comparison honest without dropping your price. ## What do you price with a stated allowance? Anything you can bound but not fix. State the assumption, state the quantity it covers, and state the rate that applies beyond it. An allowance is not a hedge. It is a priced boundary with three parts: - The assumption in plain words: "assumes existing joists are sound and at 400mm centres" - The quantity or value it covers: "allows for 6 metres of new noggin and 2 sister joists" - The rate beyond it: "further remedial joinery charged at the hourly rate in section 4, plus materials" Get all three in and the allowance does two jobs at once. The client gets a number they can compare against a rival quote. You get a pre-agreed rate for the day the floor comes up and the joists are not sound, which turns an awkward conversation into arithmetic. Adding a flat percentage for vagueness is the weaker version of the same instinct. It buries the risk inside one number. The client cannot see it, so they will not pay it twice, and you cannot bill against it when the risk lands. ## What should you refuse to price? Anything where the missing answer changes the method rather than the quantity. These are the items where an assumption stops being a bounded risk and becomes a coin toss. Refusing to price them is not weakness. It reads as competence, as long as you say exactly what you need and how fast you will turn it round. That distinction is worth labouring. Under time pressure it is an easy one to get backwards. A quantity you have guessed wrong costs you the difference between two numbers, and a decent allowance absorbs most of that. A method you have guessed wrong costs you the whole approach: different plant, different trades, a different sequence, a different programme. - No structural engineer's detail for a proposed opening - No confirmed drainage connection point or invert level - No asbestos survey on a property built or refurbished before 2000, which [HSE guidance says to assume contains asbestos](https://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/duty/is-asbestos-present.htm) - Party wall consent not yet started - Ground conditions unknown where new foundations are involved Write each one as an exclusion, then attach the question that removes it. "Excluded pending structural detail. On receipt of the engineer's drawing, the steel and padstones are priced within two working days." Two things happen. The client reads the quote as thorough rather than evasive. And the item stays visible instead of dissolving into a round number you later have to defend. That wording discipline is the one that keeps scope tight after the job starts too. The guide on [how to define deliverables so a client cannot expand them](/blog/define-deliverables-clients-cannot-expand) covers the sentence patterns that hold up. ## How to quote a job when the client brief is incomplete, line by line Four blocks, in this order. **Priced works.** Your firm lines, described well enough that each one is recognisable on site by somebody who was not at the meeting. **Allowances.** Each with its assumption, its coverage and its rate beyond. **Assumptions and exclusions.** A short schedule near the front, not buried in terms and conditions at the back. Client responsibilities belong here, and a [price quote that documents assumptions, exclusions and a validity period](https://www.rocketlane.com/blogs/price-quote) is harder to argue with six weeks later. **Outstanding questions.** Numbered, each with the date it was raised, and a line saying that pricing follows the answer. Now, the trade argues hard about how far to itemise anything. The case against is that [a detailed breakdown hands a competitor a shopping list](https://projul.com/blog/itemized-estimates-pros-cons/) and turns every line into a negotiation. That argument is about unit rates and markup. It is not about assumptions. Itemise your assumptions ruthlessly and keep the cost build-up behind them as coarse as you like. ## When does a wrong assumption become a chargeable variation? An assumption becomes chargeable when three things are true. It was written before the work started. It was specific enough to be proved wrong. The client had a fair chance to correct it. "Subject to site conditions" fails all three tests. "Assumes the consumer unit sits on the ground floor within 3 metres of the meter" passes every one. Find it in a first-floor airing cupboard and the variation writes itself. This is the part builders lose. Not the pricing. Most of it goes on the trail between the assumption made in week zero and the extra you want paying for in week five. Korrel links a change request back to the requirement, clarification or risk it came from. It shows the revenue, cost and margin effect before anybody approves it, and keeps an audit history of the whole exchange. So the variation arrives with its own paperwork attached. What was assumed, when it was raised, what was actually found, and what that costs. ## What to do with the next brief that lands Take twenty minutes before you price a single line. Mark every requirement explicit, implied, assumed or missing. Then count the last two piles. If more than a handful are missing, send the questions first and quote afterwards, because a quote built on five unanswered questions is a lottery ticket with your name on it. Price the rest properly. Write the assumptions where the client will actually read them, and put a rate against every one of them. More on scoping and pricing pre-contract sits in the rest of the [proposals and estimating](/blog/topics/proposals) writing. ## Common questions ### Should you quote at all if the brief is incomplete? Yes, in most cases. Price the parts that are fixed, attach a stated allowance to the parts you can bound, and exclude anything where the missing answer would change your method. A quote that shows its own boundaries gives the client something they can actually compare, which a round number with no explanation does not. ### What is a stated allowance in a builder's quote? A stated allowance is a priced amount tied to a written assumption, with a rate for work beyond it. It differs from a bare provisional sum because it names what you assumed, not just what you set aside. Three elements make it usable: the assumption in plain words, the quantity or value covered, and the rate that applies once that quantity is exceeded. ### How do you charge for work caused by a wrong assumption? Point at the written assumption, show what was actually found, and price the difference at the rate you already published. That only works if the assumption was specific. 'Subject to site conditions' proves nothing. 'Assumes joists at 400mm centres' is either true or false the moment the floor comes up. ### What should never be priced from an incomplete brief? Anything where the missing information changes the method rather than the quantity. Structural openings without an engineer's detail, drainage without a confirmed connection point, and any property built or refurbished before 2000 without an asbestos survey belong in the exclusions. Name the exclusion, name the question that removes it, and give a turnaround for pricing it once answered.