It is not a personality choice. The right answer changes with the job — and knowing which is which protects your margin.
1 June 2026 · 4 min read
Ask ten tradespeople whether they charge day rate or fixed price and you get ten identities. The better question is per job: who carries the risk of the unknown, and is that risk priced?
Well-defined jobs you have done many times: you know the hours, the materials and the failure modes. Fixed price rewards your efficiency — finish early and the margin is yours — and customers prefer the certainty, which wins quotes. Price it from a written scope, and put what is excluded in writing too.
Unknowns: opening up old work, investigation jobs, "while you're here" customers, renovation surprises. A fixed price on an unknowable job is a gamble where you carry all the downside. Day rate moves the risk of surprises to where it belongs, and honest customers accept that when you explain it.
Fixed price for the defined core, day rate for anything uncovered beyond the scope — stated on the quote. It keeps the certainty customers want while capping your exposure. The scope line on your quote is doing the heavy lifting, so make it specific.
Margins die in untracked hours and unlogged materials. GraftG's Job Tracker runs from WhatsApp: start the job, log materials as you buy them, END JOB turns it into an invoice — so fixed-price jobs reveal their real margin and day-rate jobs bill every hour they should.
Having a consistent internal day rate is essential — it is what your fixed prices are built from. Publishing it is optional; many trades quote fixed prices built on an unpublished rate to keep the conversation on the job, not the rate.
A written scope on the quote, and a stated day rate or pricing method for anything beyond it. "That is outside the quoted scope — happy to add it at £X" is easy to say when the quote already says it.
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