Why three quotes beats one (and how to compare them)

Comparing a few quotes is the simplest protection against overpaying — here's how to line them up fairly and spot the outlier.

A paint roller applying fresh paint to a wall

Ask around and you'll hear the same advice for any home job: get three quotes. It's repeated so often it sounds like folk wisdom, but there's a practical reason behind it — one quote is a number, three quotes are a market.

The trick isn't collecting the quotes. It's comparing them properly, because the cheapest number on the page isn't automatically the cheapest job by the end.

What three quotes actually tells you

Prices for the same job legitimately vary — tradies carry different overheads, travel different distances, and are more or less hungry for work in any given week. A single quote gives you no way of knowing whether you've landed on the fair middle or the expensive end.

With three, a pattern appears fast. Two quotes within cooee of each other and one wild outlier means the outlier needs explaining — maybe they've spotted a genuine complication the others missed, or maybe they're pricing you not to win the job.

Compare the scope, not just the total

Quotes only compare fairly when they cover the same work. Before you rank them by price, check each one against the same checklist:

Does it include materials, or labour only?
Is rubbish removal and site clean-up included?
Are there exclusions in the fine print — access issues, extra coats, rot repair?
Is GST included in the figure you're looking at?
How long is the quote valid for?

Cheapest isn't a strategy

A suspiciously low quote usually has a story: the scope is thinner than you think, the price will grow once work starts, or the tradie is new and underpricing to win work (which can be a genuine bargain — but check their references twice).

Price matters, but weigh it alongside responsiveness, how well they understood the job, and whether their quote showed evidence of actually thinking about your specific situation rather than a copy-paste number.

Make it easy on yourself

The traditional way to get three quotes is three phone calls, three site visits, and a week of scheduling. Posting the job once on QuickQuote sends it to up to three local tradies with the same description and photos — so the quotes that come back are answering the same question, which is exactly what makes them comparable.