Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainYooh
I disagree with pretty much everything in your post, Azure.
I am a civil engineer and I have worked on all sides of the industry for over thirty years, as a contractor, consultant and a client. Never once I was allowed to charge for providing an estimate. Never once I have paid for one. We procure hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts annually now, ranging from $500 to $000,000's and we have never paid ONCE for obtaining an estimate from a contractor, no matter how small or how big. None of our competitors do either.
Estimating is part of winning the business covered by corporate overhead cost. Your overhead cost should be included in your bid; as simple as that. If you are hungry, your estimate will be close to your costs, so that you can feed the machine and keep working. If you are busy, you estimate is fat and you give it to make more profit than normally (or you decline to bid all together).
So, no, it is not a common practice in the industry. It is an anomaly and it is becoming a practice for shady outfits, who try to profit from providing a quote rather than from providing a service.
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Well I respectfully disagree.
The industry I am involved is is rapidly moving towards charging for bids & ESPECIALLY for tendered drawings that require any time of time commitment.
Why should I spend a couple days putting together a comprehensive bid package that includes drawings, prices & other specifications only to have someone take all that information down the road and get someone else to do it for 5% less?
Funny enough I have noticed that if you live in the free estimate work you get pure garbage for drawings, pricing that rapidly increases with he long list of change orders that come along after because the specifications coming from the architectural side especially are clearly the work of someone who knows he is not getting paid to actually do his job properly.
If you work with repeat clients who are trusted and know the process I would not charge for any kind of estimating work either. But if a home builder or general contractor comes along and wants pricing on a project that requires a big time commitment from our side, we do reserve the right to charge for drawings.
Our experience is it has removed the tire kickers from wasting our time and leaves us with more time to focus on clients we want to work with.