Another Contractor Quoted Cheaper? The Bakery Van Text

2026-10-27

The text arrives while you're third in the bakery queue.

Hi Marta, just so you know, another firm quoted us $1,400 less for the patio. Can you do anything on the price?

You read it once in the shop and again on the pavement. Then you sit in the van with a cheese roll you no longer want. The engine is off and the radio is quiet.

Marta is made up for this story, but you may know her. She lays patios and builds raised beds, with one helper on busy weeks. She quoted this job nine days ago, standing in a client's garden with a tape measure and a pencil behind her ear.

The number in your head

Here is what goes through your mind in the first minute. You don't think about the work. You think: Was I too high? Am I the expensive one? Do they think I'm cheating them?

Then comes the second wave. I could drop the price. Then I'd still get the job.

The stomach-knot version of that thought is the quiet one: I'm not even sure what my number was made of.

That last part is the real trouble. Marta remembers the quote the way you remember a dream. The paving, the sand, the edging and the skip were in there somewhere. So was the day and a half of digging, and she thinks she added a bit for the drive out. She had worked it out on the back of a delivery note, and the note is in the glove box under a flask lid and a parking ticket.

So what can she say? She can't defend a number she can't take apart. She can only feel it wobble.

What a cheaper quote really asks

A cheaper quote is rarely a verdict on you. It might leave out the skip. It might assume the ground is easier than it looks, or it might come from someone who doesn't count their own wages. It could also be a fair price from a firm with a bigger van and lower overheads.

You can't know any of that from a text message. But you can feel what it does to you. It turns a normal Tuesday into a small trial where you are both the defendant and the accountant.

Marta types a reply. Sure, let me see what I can do. She deletes it. She types My price is my price. She deletes that too. It sounds like a door slamming.

The third draft says Happy to look at it again. She stops with her thumb over the arrow. If she presses it, she has already agreed to move. She knows that from the last time. She dropped a price on a hedge job to "keep things friendly" and spent two Saturdays resenting the hedge.

She puts the phone face down on the dashboard and eats half the roll.

The pause that changes the call

Some minutes later she does something small. She doesn't answer the text. She drives home, makes tea, and opens the quote again.

It isn't a good moment to be doing this, but it's the one she has. She goes through what she'd put in: what the materials cost her, how many hours two people would really need, and what was left after both. She sees that the job is not padded. It's already thin. There is a little room somewhere, but not $1,400 of it.

She sees something else, and it surprises her. She can say it. Not defensively, not with a lecture. She can write Here is what my price covers, here is what I'd change if you want it cheaper, and here is what I won't cut. All of it can be said in a warm voice, because she can see it.

The feeling is a lot like finding the light switch in a room you've been walking through with your hands out. Nothing in the room has changed. You can just see the furniture.

She calls instead of texting. The client, Mr Brandt, sounds relieved to be talking to a person. Marta describes what the quote includes and what the other one might not. She doesn't run the other firm down. She offers a smaller version of the job for a lower price, with the same standard, and she says, "If the other quote suits you better, that's a fair choice."

He says he'll think about it, and that is a perfectly honest ending. She doesn't know yet whether she gets the job. Her pulse is normal, though, and she hasn't promised anything she'd regret.

A different Monday

Picture the version of this week where the text still arrives. A cheaper quote is still a cheaper quote. The difference is that the job sits in front of you as a clear page: materials, hours, the margin you need, and what's already been paid or is still owed.

You read the message and breathe out. You know your floor. You know what you could trade away and what you couldn't. You can say yes to a smaller job or no to a bigger discount, and neither answer costs you your evening.

That is what's worth having. Winning every job isn't the point. The point is that you can look at your own number without flinching, even on a day when someone else's is lower.

Marta files the quote in a folder with the job's receipts. Later, when she's laying edging in the rain for another client, she does not think about Mr Brandt's text at all. It is a small thing, but she notices.

If that was you in the van

If you recognised yourself in the bakery queue, there is a calm way to price jobs on site, keep materials and receipts in one place, and see your real margin and who still owes you. It's a simple Excel sheet called Quote It Right – Job Quote, Materials & Margin Sheet. It's made for people who quote from the van, not from an office.

If it doesn't help, there's a 30-day money-back promise, no questions asked. Next time the text arrives, you may just feel steadier.

An illustrative story, written with AI assistance.