I priced a job at $3,200. The customer said the other guy quoted $2,600. Without thinking it through, I said I'd do it for $2,700. I won the job. I also made about $180 on it because the materials ran over what I estimated at a lower margin. I was busy for three days and made what I would have made on a good half-day service call.
Discounting to win jobs is one of the most common mistakes in this industry. The reason it keeps happening is that it feels like math in the moment but it's actually emotion.
What You're Actually Giving Up
A $400 discount on a $4,000 job feels like 10%. It's not 10% of your revenue that's gone. It's 10% of a revenue number that was already covering your direct costs. If your gross margin on that job was 35%, you were making $1,400. Take off $400 and you're making $1,000. You didn't give up 10%. You gave up 29% of your profit.
Run that math every time someone asks you to come down. Not on the revenue. On the margin. The picture changes fast.
The Customer Who Always Negotiates
Some customers negotiate on principle. It's not about money. It's a habit or a game. If you cave, you've taught them that your prices have room. They'll negotiate on the next job. And the one after that. The customer who got you down $400 this time will expect to do the same thing next time and will be disappointed if they can't.
The customer who couldn't get you to budge will sometimes respect you more. Your price is your price because your work is worth it. That's a confidence signal.
Alternatives to Discounting
If the customer genuinely can't afford your price and you want the job, adjust scope, not margin. Do phase one now and phase two next year. Remove an upgrade that brings the price down without touching your margin on the remaining work. Give them a smaller job at your real price rather than a full job at an unprofitable one.
Or walk away. "I can't get to that number and still do the job right. I understand if you go with someone who can." That sentence has won me more jobs than I expected, because sometimes people hear it and realize the other guy's price is suspiciously low for a reason.
Put this into practice with WerkOps
Run accurate load calculations, build estimates, and send invoices - all in one tool.
Start Free Trial
Written by
Dina Good
Founder, WerkOps
Dina grew up in the trades. Her father was a contractor, then a building inspector, and the job site was her classroom long before any formal one was. She went on to own her own contracting company, which is where she first felt the pain of running a skilled trade business on bad software and worse spreadsheets. A love of data pulled her into programming, and the two worlds eventually collided into WerkOps - software built by someone who has actually been on the truck.