How many quotes should I get?

Who this is for

• Anyone about to request quotes for the first time
• Landowners with two quotes wondering whether a third is worth the time
• People whose quotes vary so widely they cannot be compared

The short answer

Three is a reasonable default because it usually reveals the spread without consuming a fortnight. Two gives you no sense of whether either is typical; five rarely tells you more than three did.

The number matters far less than whether the quotes describe the same work. Two bids for different scopes are not competing offers, and comparing their totals is comparing nothing.

The most useful output of the exercise is not the price. It is the union of what all three contractors mentioned — because between them they will raise site issues no single one did.

If all three quotes are close and describe the same scope, you have a reliable picture. If they vary by a large multiple, the difference is nearly always in one of four decisions rather than in efficiency.

What changes the answer

• How assessable the site is before work starts
• Whether more than one trade is involved
• How well you have defined what you want
• How much local capacity exists
• How reversible a poor outcome would be

Where large gaps actually come from

Before concluding anything about a contractor, check these four. A large spread is almost always one of them rather than a difference in efficiency or greed.

What a third quote adds that a second does not

With two quotes you have a range and no idea where the middle is. The third is what turns a range into information.

It also acts as a check on scope. If two contractors mention something the third did not — a drainage problem, a buried fence line, a stem larger than it looks, an access constraint — you have learned something about your property that no single visit would have revealed.

That is the genuine argument for three: you are buying three independent site assessments, and only paying for one of them. Treat the visits as free surveys and the exercise pays for itself even before the pricing.

Beyond three the returns fall off sharply, and you start consuming goodwill. Contractors talk to each other in small markets, and a landowner collecting seven bids acquires a reputation.

Making the quotes comparable

The single highest-value thing you can do is brief all three identically. Otherwise you receive answers to three different questions.

• Write one sentence stating what the ground has to be capable of afterwards, and give it to everyone.
• Provide the same measurements to each: access width, overhead clearance, largest stem diameter.
• Ask each of them the same four questions about outcome, exclusions, material destination, and below-grade work.
• Say the same thing about the material decision to each, or explicitly ask each to price both ways.
• Do not share the other quotes’ numbers — share the scope descriptions instead, so each can explain their difference.

When fewer than three is reasonable

The default is not a rule, and there are situations where insisting on three is counterproductive.

In thin markets there may genuinely be only one or two contractors with the right equipment within a sensible travel distance. Collecting a third quote from someone unsuited to the work produces a number, not a comparison.

On small, straightforward jobs the cost of the exercise can exceed what it saves. A half-day of brush work is not worth three site visits from anyone’s perspective.

And where you have used a contractor before, on similar work, with a documented result you were happy with, that history is worth more than a competing bid from a stranger. Verification is about reducing uncertainty, and prior experience already reduced it.

Treating the visits as free surveys

The most underrated return on collecting several quotes has nothing to do with price.

Each contractor who walks your property is performing a site assessment, at their cost, from a different professional vantage point. One notices a drainage problem. One recognises the old fence line from the species growing along it. One points out that the largest stems are bigger than they look from the drive.

Between them they will surface issues no single visit would have, and none of them charges you for it. Keeping notes from each visit and pooling what was mentioned is often worth more than the price comparison.

It also improves the brief. By the third visit you can describe your own property in the terms contractors actually use, which makes every subsequent quote more accurate.

What drives the cost

Common mistakes

• Comparing totals before confirming the scopes match
• Briefing each contractor differently and then comparing the answers
• Reading the lowest number as efficiency rather than as a narrower scope
• Sharing competitors’ prices rather than their scope descriptions
• Collecting quotes from the wrong trade category

Questions to ask a contractor

• Which of the four decisions does your price assume?
• What did you notice on site that I should know about?
• What is expressly excluded from this total?
• If I asked for the material to stay instead, what changes?

What to do next

1. Write the one-sentence end-use statement before contacting anyone
2. Brief all bidders identically, with the same measurements
3. Work the four-decision table against each quote you receive
4. Use the quote comparison tool to line up what you hold

Questions people actually ask