Buying and selling
Quotation
The document that puts a price in front of a customer before any contract exists. Its distinctive feature is that it is an offer with an expiry: it says what is included, what is excluded, what it costs, how long the price stands, and what the customer has to do to accept. It usually attaches the seller's standard terms, so that acceptance forms a contract on known conditions rather than on the two lines in the email.
- In the catalogue
- Buying and selling
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Trades, suppliers and service businesses pricing work before it starts.
- Studios and consultancies responding to a brief with a priced proposal.
- Anyone who wants a price to stop being open-ended after a set period.
What you are deciding
- What is included, itemised
- What is expressly excluded
- The price, and whether it is fixed or an estimate
- Taxes, delivery and other add-ons
- How long the quotation stays open
- What the customer does to accept
- Which terms apply once accepted
- What assumptions the price depends on
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties and reference
- 2Scope of the quotation
- 3Exclusions and assumptions
- 4Price breakdown
- 5Taxes and additional charges
- 6Validity period
- 7How to accept
- 8Terms that will apply
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- quotation
- quote template
- price quote
- estimate
- proposal document
- bid document
Questions people ask
- Is a quotation binding?
- It is usually an offer rather than a contract: binding once accepted within its validity period, and capable of being withdrawn before that. Whether it can be withdrawn, and when, depends on local contract rules.
- What is the difference between a quotation and an estimate?
- A quotation commonly names a fixed price for a defined scope; an estimate signals an approximate figure that may move. Saying which one the document is avoids an argument at invoice time.
- Why does a quotation have an expiry date?
- Because costs move. A validity period lets the price lapse rather than sit open indefinitely, and gives a clean reason to requote.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds