A quote is an offer of a fixed price which, once you accept it, becomes a term of the contract. An estimate is an informed guess and can move. If no price was agreed at all, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says you owe a reasonable price for the service and no more.
Is the difference actually legal, or just custom?
Both. Neither word is defined in a statute, so a trader cannot be prosecuted for writing "estimate" at the top of a fixed price. But what the document says still determines what you owe, through two routes.
The first is ordinary contract law. If a trader offers to do a defined job for a defined sum and you accept, that sum is the agreed price. Calling the piece of paper an estimate does not undo an agreement the two of you plainly reached.
The second is section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which makes anything a trader said or wrote about the service binding as a contract term where you took it into account in deciding to enter the contract. A price given to you in writing, on which you based your decision, is exactly that kind of statement.
What if there was no price at all?
This is the case people assume leaves them at the trader’s mercy, and it does not. Section 51 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that where the contract does not fix a price and none is settled by the way the parties have dealt with each other, "the contract is to be treated as including a term that the consumer must pay a reasonable price for the service, and no more".
Reasonable is not defined, and it is a question of fact — what the work involved, what comparable work involves. But the direction of the rule matters: silence about price is not a blank cheque. Section 52 does the same for time. Where no time for performance was fixed, the trader must do the work within a reasonable time.
When can an estimate legitimately change?
Genuinely, and often, on the kind of work where nobody can see inside a wall until it is open. A roofer who quotes for replacing tiles and finds rotten battens underneath is not being dishonest when the number moves.
What separates a legitimate change from a bad one is whether you were told and given a choice. The Schedule 2 information duties under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 require the total price inclusive of taxes to be given before you are bound, or — where the nature of the work means the price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance — the manner in which the price will be calculated. That second limb is the honest way to price an unknown: an hourly or day rate, a stated materials markup, and a written commitment to come back to you before exceeding a figure.
So the useful question to ask before work starts is not "is this a quote or an estimate?" It is: if you open it up and it is worse than you think, what happens, and who decides?
Is a surprise charge on the final bill unlawful?
It can be. Since 6 April 2025 the unfair commercial practices provisions in Part 4 Chapter 1 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Section 226 covers misleading actions, section 227 misleading omissions, and section 230 sets out the material information a trader must give in an invitation to purchase.
The Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance on unfair commercial practices, CMA207, and its price transparency guidance, CMA209, are explicit that showing a headline price and then introducing additional mandatory charges later in the process — drip pricing — is prohibited. CMA209 also addresses partitioned pricing, where the component parts of a price are shown but the total a customer would actually pay is not. A total price may be indicative or a "from" price, but it has to include all applicable mandatory charges.
Applied to a domestic job: a compulsory call-out fee, a minimum charge, a card surcharge or a waste disposal charge that only appears on the invoice is the problem the CMA is describing. A genuine variation you agreed to mid-job is not.
What about VAT?
Schedule 2 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 requires the total price to be stated inclusive of taxes. Not every trader is VAT registered — registration depends on turnover — so a price from one may include VAT and a price from another may have no VAT in it at all.
That is the trap when comparing two numbers. Before you treat one as cheaper, check whether both are stated the same way. Asking "is that the price I will pay, including VAT?" and getting the answer in writing takes one message.
How do you compare two prices fairly?
Line by line, not total by total. Two figures for the same job are only comparable if they cover the same job.
- Confirm both are inclusive of VAT, or both exclusive, and say which.
- Check whether materials are included, and at whose specification. A price built on a cheaper component is not the same price.
- Check what is excluded — scaffolding, skips, making good, disposal, parking, certification.
- Check whether it is a fixed price or a rate, and if a rate, what triggers a return to you for approval.
- Check the payment stages, and what is due before anything happens.
- Check what happens if the work overruns, and whether any guarantee is the trader’s own promise or underwritten by an insurer.
If one trader gives you that detail and another gives you a number on a text message, you have learned something more useful than the difference between the two figures.
What to do next
Get whichever it is in writing, with the word quote or estimate used deliberately, and with the scope written out. Then ask the one question that resolves most disputes before they start: what would have to happen for this number to change, and will you tell me before it does?
If you are still choosing who to ask, the category pages on this directory set out, for each trade, what the law requires of it and how to check. This directory publishes no ratings and no reviews, so the comparison it can help with is the factual one — who is listed, in which trade, and what you can independently verify about them.