How I price a job, and why I won't guess over the phone

By Eduardo Tinajero · 19 August 2026

The most common question I get is some version of “roughly, what would that run me?” It is a completely fair question, and I understand why people ask it. I still will not answer it off a phone call, and I would rather explain why than sound like I am dodging.

The same repair can be a morning or it can be two days

Take a hole in a hallway wall where a bookshelf came off. If the wall is flat, the texture is a common one, and the paint is a colour I can match or you have the tin in the garage, that is a short visit. Patch, float, feather it out, match the texture, and you will not find it afterwards.

Now change one thing at a time. The wall is a knockdown texture that was sprayed by hand fifteen years ago, so matching it means practising on a board until it reads right. Or the paint has faded unevenly and a spot repair will always show, so the honest fix is to cut in and roll the whole wall. Or whatever the shelf was anchored into has moved, and there is a reason it came off that patching will not solve.

Nothing about that is unusual. It is just that the job I would be quoting from your description and the job that is actually on your wall can be different jobs, and you are the one who ends up absorbing the difference.

What you get instead

I come and look, and then you get the scope and the price in writing before anything starts. The quote is free and you are not committed to anything by getting one. What is written down is what I am going to do and what it costs, so there is no conversation at the end about what was or was not included.

For a lot of smaller work I can do this from photographs, which saves us both a trip — there is a whole post on which photos actually help.

The three things that genuinely change a number

• Access. A ceiling repair at standard height and the same repair over a stairwell are not the same job. One needs a step ladder, the other needs staging built before a single tool comes out.
• What is behind it. Sometimes opening a wall shows you why the problem happened. That is a good thing to find and a bad thing to find late. If I hit something unexpected you get a call before I carry on — not a bigger invoice at the end.
• What you choose. Materials and finishes vary enormously, and that is your call to make, not mine to make for you. I will tell you where spending more actually buys you something and where it does not.

What should make you suspicious of anyone's quote

• A number with no scope attached. If it does not say what is being done, it cannot be compared to anything and it cannot be held to.
• Money asked for up front before any materials have been ordered for your job.
• Pressure to decide today, or a price that is only good if you say yes now.
• A quote that comes in far under everyone else's. It usually means something has been left out, and you will meet that something later.

Related: Home Maintenance & Repairs

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