For trades, home services & B2B
Quote automation that gets your quote out the same day
A customer request or a site visit becomes a priced draft in minutes. You check it and send it.
A quote that lands the same afternoon beats one that takes three days. We build quote automation around your own prices, so the write-up stops waiting for a free evening.
from $4,500 · fixed · planned go-live in 2 to 3 weeks
What is quote automation?
Quote automation, also called automated quoting, quotation automation or sales quote automation, is software that turns a customer request into a priced quote without anyone retyping it. It reads the request, looks up your prices, drafts the quote in your format, sends it once you approve, and follows up if the customer goes quiet. AI quote automation adds a model that can read free-text emails and notes.
Why automate quotes at all?
Quoting is where jobs slip away. The request comes in, and the quote waits until someone has a free evening to write it up. By then the customer may have booked whoever replied first.
Retyping causes its own trouble. A line gets missed, or an old price gets copied across from the last quote. Two people quote the same job differently because the rules sit in their heads. Once the quote has gone out, nobody has time to chase it.
To set it up yourself, with what to prepare and what to measure, read our guide on how to automate quotes in a small service business.
What we build
A drafted quote from every request, RFQ or site visit, with no retyping
Your own prices and wording in every draft, line by line
An approve-and-send step, so nothing leaves without a person reading it
Quotes out the same day, while the customer is still deciding
Reminders on quotes that have gone quiet
How it works
What does quote automation automate, step by step?
It takes in the request
A call summary, a web form, an email with a parts list attached or your site-visit notes land in one place. The system pulls out who the customer is and what the job needs, then lists what is still missing.
It looks up your prices
It matches each item to your price list, including labor rates, minimum charges and any prices agreed with that customer. Similar past quotes come up beside it so you can compare.
It drafts the quote
It puts the quote together in your template, with your line items and terms. It flags any line it cannot price and leaves it blank. It does not guess.
You approve it
You open the draft and change what only you can judge, such as awkward access or a customer who will want changes. Then you approve it.
It sends the quote
The approved quote goes out from your own email address and is logged against the customer, so you can see what was sent and when.
It follows up
If the customer has not answered after a few days, a short reminder goes out. A reply stops the reminders and comes straight to you.
Before
You visit on Tuesday afternoon and mean to write the quote that evening. It goes out on Thursday. The customer had someone else's quote on Tuesday night.
After
The draft is waiting when you get back to your desk, built on your own prices. You read it, fix two lines and send it the same afternoon.
An illustration of a typical week, not a client result.
Shipped, or you don't pay the final invoice. We agree on a go-live date up front. If it isn't live by then, the final invoice is waived.
How does sales quote automation work in B2B?
The steps are the same as above. What changes is the request and where the prices live. A buyer emails a parts list, a spreadsheet or a PDF and wants prices back. A sales rep looks up each line in the catalog, checks what that customer pays and types it all into a quote.
Sales quote automation takes over the lookup and the typing. It reads the request, matches each line to your catalog, and applies the volume breaks and customer prices you have set. A line it cannot match stays blank and flagged. A discount your rules do not allow goes to a person, and the rep reads the draft before it leaves.
It tends to fit a B2B team in these cases:
- Requests arrive as emails and attachments, so someone has to read them before anything can go into your CRM or quoting tool.
- Reps quote from a catalog, and a single quote can run to many lines.
- Prices depend on the customer, the volume or a contract, and the rules live in a spreadsheet or in people's heads.
- You write hundreds of quotes a month by hand. A person still reads every draft at that volume, and the flagged lines are where they start.
If the draft also has to read stock or lead times from your ERP and write back to your CRM, it crosses several systems, and that changes the scope. The cost section below explains how.
If your reps configure products and bundles inside a CRM, look at CPQ software first. That is the job it was made for.
Quoting machined or fabricated parts from drawings works a little differently. See how small manufacturers use AI to read RFQs and draft quotes.
Where does a person stay in control?
Before anything reaches a customer. No quote leaves until someone on your team has read and approved it.
You also own the prices. The system applies your price list. It does not invent a rate or hand out a discount. Anything outside the list comes to you to price by hand, such as an unusual job or a material you have not priced before.
Follow-up stays under your control too. You choose when reminders go out and can switch them off for a single quote. A customer's reply always goes to a person.
Print shops price from their MIS or press and finishing rules, and the same split applies there. See how print quote automation reads emailed print requests and leaves the math to your rules.
What do you need to provide to automate your quotes?
- A price list. A spreadsheet is enough if it has your labor rates, materials, minimum charges and the markups you apply. If you sell products, that means your catalog and the prices agreed with each customer.
- Past quotes. A batch of recent ones, won and lost, so the drafts match how you price and how you word things.
- The tools you use. We need access to the inbox or form where requests arrive and the template your quotes go out in. If quotes should also land in your accounting or job software, we need access to that as well.
- Time with whoever quotes today. Some pricing rules live in one person's head, and we need them written down.
If your prices only exist in your head or in old PDFs, writing them down is the first job. We do that with you, and it adds time.
If getting prices and past quotes in order is the sticking point, read why your data is usually the hard part.
How much does quote automation cost, and how long does it take?
Most quote automation fits our Automation Starter. That is one workflow, built for you, from $4,500 at a fixed scope, with a planned go-live in 2 to 3 weeks. There is no retainer.
Some quotes have to travel through several systems, for example from a web form into job software and on into invoicing. We scope those as a Build Sprint, from $16k at a fixed scope, in 4 to 6 weeks.
Either way we scope it on a call first, and the price is fixed before work starts.
If you are still comparing quoting apps with a build, read our guide to choosing AI quoting software.
Who is quote automation not a fit for?
Skip it if you send a handful of quotes a month. The write-up is not what costs you time, and a build will not pay for itself.
It fits badly when every job is a one-off with nothing to price from. With no price list and no similar past work, the draft would be mostly blanks.
If your quotes are simple and a standard quoting app covers them, buy the app. It costs less than having something built.
If your quotes already go out the same day, look at follow-up before you automate the write-up.
Start with how an AI sales assistant keeps chasing quotes that have gone quiet.
More questions about quote automation
Is quote automation the same as CPQ software?
No. CPQ stands for configure, price, quote. It is sales software for companies with large product catalogs, and it usually runs inside a CRM. Quote automation is the wider idea of getting a quote written and sent without retyping. A ten-person service business rarely needs CPQ. It needs its own price list and a draft step that works with the inbox it already has.
Is quote automation the same as an automated quote generator?
Not quite. A quote generator on a website usually asks the customer a few questions and shows a price from fixed options. We build the step behind that. It reads an email, a form or your notes, drafts the quote and waits for a person to approve it. If your jobs can be priced from a few fixed options, an instant-quote form does the job for less than a build.
Do I need quoting software, or should I have quote automation built?
Start with quoting software if your quotes follow a standard pattern and one tool covers them. A build earns its price when your pricing has rules a template cannot hold, or when a quote depends on information spread across tools that do not talk to each other.
Can AI write a quote from site-visit notes or a voice memo?
Yes, from typed or dictated notes. It pulls out the items and measurements you recorded and prices them from your list. Photos are useful as a record, but do not rely on AI to measure a room from a picture. The measurements still come from you.
Can automation carry on from the quote to the order and the invoice?
Yes, if you want it. Once the customer says yes, the details can pass into your order, job or accounting software, so nobody types them again. That crosses several systems, so we scope it as a Build Sprint, and the price is fixed before work starts.
Will automated quotes read like a template?
They read like your quotes, because the draft uses your template and the wording of quotes you have already sent. You can edit any line before it goes out.
How accurate are AI-generated quotes?
The prices and the arithmetic come from your price list, so they are as accurate as the list. The mistakes to watch for happen when the request is read, such as a wrong quantity or a missed item. That is why a person checks every draft before it is sent.
How does automated quote follow-up work for a trades business?
Each sent quote gets a reminder schedule you choose, for example a nudge after three days and another after ten. The message is short and comes from your own address. Any reply stops the reminders and lands with a person, so nobody gets chased after saying no.
See how your quotes would run
Book a call and bring a recent quote. We'll walk through how it would be drafted from your own prices and tell you whether it fits the fixed-price Automation Starter.