How to read a contractor quote
The things a complete quote contains, why each one matters, and the exact sentence to send when it is missing — generated from the rules engine, so it cannot describe a check we do not run.
Guides
Short answers to the things people want to know before they sign. Every number here carries the source it came from and the date we checked it, and where the honest answer is that nobody has measured something, we say that instead of filling the gap.
The red flags worth acting on
Deposit caps by state with the statute for each, the five things summaries of this routinely get wrong, and the refrigerant rule that most content written in 2024 and 2025 now has stale.
When we will not tell you whether your quote is fair
Three tests decide whether we give a price verdict or refuse one, and this is the arithmetic behind them. Every threshold is read from the live model, so the published rule cannot drift from the code it describes.
What margin do contractors actually make?
37.0% of revenue, computed from the 2022 Economic Census rather than from an industry survey — with the arithmetic, the Census variable names, and the six identity checks the parse had to pass.
What does emergency service actually cost?
Nobody publishes a number, and we do not either. What can be established is a ceiling — and the usual justification for an after-hours rate turns out to be weaker than the industry implies, because federal law requires no premium for evenings or weekends at all.
More coming: how to read a contractor quote, the red flags worth walking away from, and the one nobody else publishes — when we will not tell you whether your price is fair, and the arithmetic behind that decision.