Quoting
Firm prices and risk
Web app4 min readUpdated
A firm price is what you will charge if the home matches the photos, a range is confirmed when you arrive, and the risk score on each photo quote tells you which of the two the photos support.
A price from photos is a promise made without seeing the home. This article is about deciding which promise to make. For how photo quotes arrive and how to send one, see Photo quotes.
Firm price or range
A firm price is the price you will charge if the home matches the photos. The quote carries your firm-price terms, so the customer reads the condition alongside the number. The built-in wording says the price holds as long as the home matches the photos, and that you may revisit it before you start if there are rooms the photos did not show, if the condition is very different, or if work is added that the quote does not list.
A range is your price, plus and minus your range width (15% unless you change it), rounded to whole dollars. The quote says the final price is confirmed when you arrive and see the home. Use it when the photos are good enough to be useful and not good enough to bet on.
Either way, the customer gets an ordinary quote: the rooms and tasks from your library, priced by your engine, accepted online like any other. See Pricing a quote for how the engine prices rooms.
How the risk score works
Each photo quote gets a score from 0 (nothing left to guess) to 1 (mostly guessing). It adds up seven things, each with a fixed weight:
| What it looks at | Weight | Riskier when |
|---|---|---|
| How sure the read is | 30% | the photos are dark, partial or hard to read |
| Rooms not photographed | 20% | a room you require is missing from the photos |
| Condition | 15% | the home looks heavily soiled |
| Size uncertainty | 10% | the square footage estimate is a wide band |
| Price above your usual | 10% | the price is well above your typical quote |
| Past overruns | 10% | jobs like this ran over before |
| New customer | 5% | you have never worked for them |
Past overruns are not measured yet, so that part counts as zero for now.
Some findings rule out Low risk whatever the score says, because they are exactly what a person should look at:
- the bedrooms or bathrooms found don't match what the customer said the home has, more or fewer,
- some photos are screenshots, stock pictures or not of a home at all,
- a photo could not be read (too large, damaged or missing), so it may show something the price leaves out,
- a photo was kept out of the read because it shows a person or a document, so it may show something the price leaves out too,
- a room the photos show, or a task added to one, is not in your library, so it cannot be priced,
- the property looks commercial,
- the photos don't make clear the property is a home,
- nothing priceable was found.
The review page shows the score, each part of it, and any of these findings, so you can see why a photo quote landed where it did.
Choosing a preset
Settings > Photo quotes > Risk appetite decides where the badges change color:
| Preset | Low risk up to | Check first up to | Above that |
|---|---|---|---|
| Careful | 0.15 | 0.45 | High risk |
| Balanced (default) | 0.25 | 0.55 | High risk |
| Bold | 0.35 | 0.65 | High risk |
Low risk also needs every room you require in the photos. Start on Balanced. If you find yourself adjusting most firm prices after the visit, move to Careful; if almost nothing ever changes, Bold saves you looks you do not need.
Which rooms you require is set on the same screen: the kitchen and every bathroom by default, and every bedroom if you want it. Change it and the photo quotes waiting on you are scored again under the new rule.
Wording your terms
Your firm-price terms are saved on each quote when it is sent, the way a quote's own terms are, so changing them later does not change a promise already made. Good terms are short and specific:
- Say what the price is based on: the photos the customer sent.
- Say what would change it: rooms or areas the photos did not show, a condition very different from the photos, or added work.
- Say when you would raise it: before you start, never after.
Leave the box empty to use the built-in wording, in English or Spanish to match the quote. Only an owner can change the terms or the preset, because together they decide what the company can lose on a price it sends.