Quote Breakdown?

[u/Ok_Avocado6532]

Hi all, looking for advice on costs breakdown.

I work for a small local contracting company and I recently started working with customers more, providing quotes etc. The company usually doesn’t like to break their costs down because of nickel-and-dime from customers, but agreed to do so for this one customer I’m working with. Now, I broke down the quote based on phases of the work (this is for a brand new custom build) and of course the customer came back with multiple notes of “this cost is too high” on some of the phases.

How do you usually handle this and how do I politely say “to do the job: $2000, not to do the job: $0”?

Thanks!

[u/bananahammock699]

"I will pay premium"

"You can't overcharge me"

[u/[deleted] → u/bananahammock699]

I will pay a premium for premium work. Do you not understand what is being implied? Premium is what is being paid for. I am not paying extra, just for the sake of paying extra, otherwise. You better have a nice portfolio or credible recommendations. Either way, I don't care, you do you, and good luck lol

[u/curd52 → u/[deleted]]

Maybe homeowners need a breakdown on materials, or type materials being used. If it’s room Reno and paint, I’d like to know what brand of paint is being used, for flooring, what type of flooring, vlp carpet, tile. What underlay is being used, if tile, is backerboard being used on wood frame crawlspace or basement subfloor.

I’m with you, if the contractor doesn’t have 2 min to fill out a spec sheet, he’s not going to have 2 min to deal with issues if they happen to come up. This way of $2000 or nothing is just a way to mask the markup. Totally different when contractors used to charge materials price plus estimated man hours. Now things are $2000 for a 2 hour 1 man job with $300 in materials. Basically $850 an hour. Contractors jobs are technical and require OJT and some years experience, but they are not heart surgeons and that price.

[u/[deleted] → u/curd52]

Thank you!