Rip-off, or just expensive? The five-minute check
Most people asking this have one quote and a bad feeling. The feeling is not evidence. These five questions are, and you can answer them tonight.
- Does the paper say “quote” or “estimate”? A quote is the price. An estimate is a guess that is allowed to move. If it says estimate, the bill was never promised.
- Can you tell what you get? Scope, what is excluded, and the brand or model of anything they supply. A fixed price with no model named is a fixed price for the cheapest one that fits.
- Can you see how the price is built? Call-out or minimum charge, labour, materials, after-hours. A single number with nothing under it cannot be compared with anything.
- Have you got two more, on the same written job? One quote is a number. Three on the same scope is a market. Send all three the same brief and the same photos.
- Is the deposit inside your state's cap, and is the licence real? Both take a minute to check and both are the places the real losses happen.
If the quote passes all five and is still dearer than the others, it is expensive. You can say no to expensive. If it fails two or more, read on.
Write the job down once, send it to threeNine signs you are being ripped off
These are the shapes that come up again and again when people describe the job that went wrong. None of them is about the size of the number.
- It was verbal. A price on the phone, then a different one on the invoice. If it was never written down, there is nothing to hold them to.
- The bill beat the quote and nothing was signed. A change to the job is a change to the paper (below). A surprise line on the final invoice is the most common complaint of all.
- A “free quote” that turned into a call-out fee once they were standing in your kitchen. A fee is fine. A fee that appears after the visit is not.
- They will not itemise. You can ask for an itemised bill; the law says they must give you one (below). A refusal is an answer.
- Sign today or the price goes up. NSW's regulator calls this “usually a sales pitch”. Real prices for materials move over weeks, not overnight.
- Cash only, or a deposit bigger than your state allows. Deposits are capped by law in most states. A large one paid in cash is the one you never see again.
- Budget parts on a premium price. The quote said “mixer tap”; the box says the cheapest one in the aisle. Ask for the model before you accept, not after.
- Quoted without looking. A per-square-metre price over the phone for a job nobody has seen is a guess dressed as a quote. The real number arrives on the day.
- No licence number, no ABN, no GST line. If the licence is compulsory in the contract, its absence from the quote is a choice.
Five things that feel like a rip-off and are not
- A fixed price finished fast. You paid for the outcome, not the hours. A tradie who is quick is a tradie who has done it before.
- A call-out or minimum charge. Getting a licensed person to your door with a van of parts costs money before a tool is lifted. What matters is that it was said up front, and whether it comes off the job.
- After-hours and emergency rates. Friday night is dearer than Tuesday morning everywhere.
- Materials at a markup. Supplying, collecting and warranting the parts is work. It is a rip-off only when the markup is hidden or the part is not the one on the quote.
- Licensed work costing more than a handyman. Electrical, plumbing and gas work must be done by a licence holder, and the certificate you get at the end is part of what you paid for.
The bill is higher than the quote. What now?
Three questions decide it, in this order.
1 · Was it a quote or an estimate? If the paper says quote and the scope did not change, the price is the price. If it says estimate, the number was never fixed, and the argument is about whether the extra is reasonable, not whether it is allowed.
2 · Was the extra work agreed in writing before it was done? In NSW a variation “must be in writing and attached to the contract and signed by both you and the contracting builder/tradesperson”. A “while we're here” that was never priced is the line to dispute first.
3 · Ask for the itemised bill. The ACCC's words: “Consumers can request an itemised bill or account for a service.” “Consumers have up to 30 days after receiving the original bill to ask for an itemised version.” “If a consumer asks for this, the business must provide it within 7 days.” It must show “how the price was worked out”, “the number of labour hours and hourly rate, if relevant” and “materials used and the amount charged for them, if relevant”. Ask in writing, quote the 30 days, and keep the reply.
Then pay the part you do not dispute, say in writing which lines you do and why, and take the rest to your state's consumer or building body — in Queensland that path is set out in where to take a building dispute; elsewhere it is your state's fair trading or building regulator, and the same three questions are the ones they will ask you.
Source: ACCC, Receipts, bills, proof of purchase, read 22 September 2026; NSW Government, Contracts for residential building work, read 3 September 2026.
Now read the quote itself
Everything above is about the price. What follows is how to read the document the price sits on — the eight lines, the shapes a price can take, the two lines that are legally allowed to move, and what a quote leaves out.
The eight lines, and what each one is telling you
Most quotes carry the same eight things. The left column is what you are looking at. The right column is what to do about it.
| The line | What it means, and what to ask |
|---|---|
| Business name and ABN | The legal entity you would be contracting with. It has to match the name on the licence and the name on the bank details. Three different names is three questions. |
| Licence number | The one line you can check yourself in a minute, free, on your state's register. If it is absent, ask for it in writing before anything else. |
| Scope of work | What they are actually doing. Vague scope is where every argument starts. “Renovate bathroom” is not a scope; a list of what is removed, what is installed and what is left alone is. |
| Exclusions | The most useful paragraph on the page and the one most often missing. Ask directly: what is not in this price? |
| Allowances — prime cost items and provisional sums | Lines that are estimates rather than prices, and are allowed to move later. See below. |
| The price, and whether GST is in it | A price that does not say either way is a price you cannot compare against another one. |
| Payment terms | Deposit, then stages. Payments should attach to work finished, not to weeks passing. |
| Dates | A start date and a finish date. “A few weeks” is not a date and cannot be enforced. |
Three price shapes, and only one of them is fixed
Before comparing two quotes, work out which shape each one is. They are not comparable across shapes.
| Shape | What it commits to | Where it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed price (lump sum) | One amount for the whole job. Building Commission NSW: “the builder or tradesperson agrees upfront to a fixed amount for the whole job.” | Only through a signed variation, or an allowance line |
| Fixed price with allowances | One amount, but some items inside it are estimates | Every prime cost item and provisional sum, up or down |
| Cost plus | Actual costs, plus an agreed margin. No total is being promised. | Everywhere. There is no ceiling in the document. |
The two lines that are allowed to move
A prime cost item and a provisional sum are the two ways a fixed price legally moves without anybody doing anything wrong. Consumer Affairs Victoria defines them like this:
- Prime cost item — “A fitting (for example, a basin) included in the contract but your client has not selected the actual item or the price is not known when the contract is signed.”
- Provisional sum — “A reasonable estimate of the cost of carrying out work if you cannot give a definite price when signing the contract (for example, supply and installation of air conditioning).”
In Victoria the builder must set out “a detailed list of the prime cost and provisional sum items” with “a breakdown of the cost estimate for each item”, and must disclose “how you will calculate any extra amount charged for these items, and the exact extra amount to be charged.”
So there are three questions per allowance line, and they are the same three every time: what is the allowance, what does it actually buy, and what is added on top if it is exceeded. A quote with a long list of allowances and no answers to those is a quote with no total in it.
Source: Consumer Affairs Victoria, Changing a domestic building contract price, read 3 September 2026 (page last updated 8 July 2025).
Above a threshold, the quote cannot be the only paper
Each state sets a price above which a written contract is compulsory, and above a second, higher line the contract has to carry a great deal more. Two examples, read at the regulators that set them:
| State | Written contract required | The bigger contract |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | Contract price over $5,000 including GST, “or unknown but the reasonable market cost of the labour and materials is more than $5,000” | Over $20,000 — must include a five clear business day cooling-off period, a progress payment schedule and a termination clause |
| QLD | Work valued over $3,300 (a Level 1 contract) | $20,000 or more — a Level 2 contract, with the QBCC Consumer Building Guide handed over before signing |
| Everywhere else | Different figures, different names. Check your own state's regulator before treating either line above as yours. | |
Both regulators also require the licence number in the contract itself. NSW's small-job contract must carry “the parties' names, including the name of the holder of the contractor licence” and “the contractor licence number”; Queensland's Level 1 contract must carry “names of the contracting parties including the name and licence number of the building contractor”.
If the number is compulsory in the contract, there is no good reason for it to be absent from the quote.
Check the licence number, every stateWhat is missing is the useful part
Reading a quote is mostly noticing what is not on it. Go through this list against the document in front of you and ask about every gap.
- Exclusions. Rubbish removal, making good, painting after the patch, reconnecting what was disconnected.
- Approvals. Who applies, who pays the fee, and whether the price assumes approval is already granted.
- Access and site conditions. What the price assumes about parking, scaffolding, power, and what is behind the wall.
- Who else is coming. Subcontractors by trade, and whether their licences and insurance are the head contractor's problem or yours.
- Certificates at the end. The compliance paperwork for electrical, plumbing or gas work, named.
- What happens if something is defective. Statutory warranties apply whatever the quote says — but a quote that mentions them is a quote written by someone who has thought about it.
- How long the quote stands. Prices for materials move. A quote with no expiry can be withdrawn the day you accept it.
Payment stages, not weeks
Building Commission NSW puts it in one line: “Progress payments must match the work carried out and, for cost plus contracts, be supported by receipts or other verifying documents.” Above $20,000, NSW requires “a progress payment schedule” in the contract at all.
The reading is simple. A payment schedule tied to stages finished pays for progress. A schedule tied to calendar weeks pays for time, and there is nothing in it that requires the work to have advanced. Ask for the first shape.
The deposit sits ahead of all of that and is capped by statute in most states — NSW is blunt about its own: “Under NSW home building law, the maximum deposit you can be asked to pay is 10 percent.” The caps, state by state, are on deposit limits for home jobs.
Source: NSW Government, Contracts for residential building work, read 3 September 2026 (page last updated 29 April 2026).
A change to the job is a change to the paper
Once work starts, the quote stops being the live document and the variation does. NSW requires that variations “must be in writing and attached to the contract and signed by both you and the contracting builder/tradesperson”, and the Consumer Building Guide adds the part people forget: “Almost all will impact the contract price.”
Consumer Affairs Victoria describes a variation as a change either side wants, or one “the building surveyor orders after the contract has been signed and building has started” — and written agreement is required before the work starts.
The practical rule for a home owner: agree the price of the change before the change happens, in a message you can find again. A verbal “while we're here we'll do the…” becomes a line on the final invoice that you did not price.
Three things on a quote that should slow you down
NSW publishes its own warning signs. Two of them are about the quote itself:
- A contractor who “encourages you to sign a contract quickly to avoid a price increase. This is usually a sales pitch.”
- A quote “which seems extremely low compared to others.”
The third is not on the quote but arrives beside it: a contractor who “suggests you get an owner-builder permit while they organise all the building work for you”. NSW's reading is that this “could be a ploy if they don't have the right kind of licence, can't get home warranty insurance or want to avoid responsibility”. It moves the legal responsibility for the build onto you, which is why it is worth recognising in the same conversation as the price.
What you are owed regardless of what the quote says
A quote cannot contract out of the consumer guarantees. Whatever the document says, the ACCC states the three that apply to a service:
- “Service providers must carry out all services using an acceptable level of care and skill.”
- “Services provided, and any resulting products, must be fit for any stated purpose.”
- “Services must be supplied within a reasonable time, if there's no agreed time frame.”
The last one is the argument for getting a finish date onto the quote. With an agreed time frame you are arguing about a date; without one you are arguing about what “reasonable” means.
Source: ACCC, Consumer rights and guarantees, read 3 September 2026.
Comparing two quotes
Three quotes on three different scopes are three guesses, not three quotes. Building Commission NSW's advice is to write the job down first: “Provide at least 3 contractors with the same information so you can easily compare the quotes”, because “If you don't specify exactly what you want in the beginning, the quote may only include the cheapest products and materials.”
Then compare in this order: same scope, same exclusions, same allowances, same GST treatment, same dates. Only after all five line up does the total mean anything. Paste the quotes in and see them lined up — the lines one prices and another leaves out, and where the money differs.
Line the quotes up side by sideGeneral information for Australian home owners, not legal advice, and not an opinion on any particular quote or contract. Yamate is software; it does not vet, rank or recommend any tradesperson, and no regulator has reviewed this page. Every quoted sentence above is the regulator's or the ACCC's own, read at their own pages on 3 September 2026 (the reading guide) and 22 September 2026 (the itemised-bill rule) and linked in the section it appears in. Contract thresholds, deposit caps and warranty rules differ in every state and change over time — check your own regulator before relying on a figure. Yamate sells software to tradespeople and lists them in this directory.