How to write a quote for a bathroom refit (with a real worked example)

A full bathroom refit in the UK sits roughly between £5,500 and £8,000 all-in at mid-spec, with the national average landing near £7,000 (Checkatrade, 2026). CostToBuild puts the typical household at closer to £8,500, with a wider range of £4,500 to £20,000 depending on spec (CostToBuild). On a job that size, the difference between a tidy margin and a loss is almost always the quote itself.

A bathroom is one of the best jobs a small firm can take on. Tidy margin, repeat work, good word of mouth. It's also one of the easiest jobs to quietly lose money on, because every unknown behind the old suite comes straight out of a round-number quote. This guide walks through how to price one properly, with a sourced illustrative example and the two lines that protect your margin before you start.

Quote by work package, not a round number

The single biggest reason trades lose money on bathrooms is the hallway number. The customer asks "rough idea what we're looking at", and out comes a figure that feels about right. That figure then becomes the price, and every surprise after it eats your margin.

The fix is to build the quote up from packages. A full bathroom refit breaks down into the same six or seven chunks every time:

• Strip-out and disposal, ripping out the old suite, tiles, and any rotten boards, and getting it off site.
• First fix plumbing, moving or renewing pipework and waste runs for the new layout.
• Electrics, the extractor fan, lighting, shaver socket, and any new circuits, almost always a job for a registered electrician.
• Plastering, walls and ceiling made good and ready to tile or paint.
• Tanking and tiling, waterproofing the wet areas, then walls and floor.
• Second fix and fitting the suite, the bath, toilet, basin, taps, and shower going in.
• Decorating and snagging, paint, silicone, and the final once-over.

Price each package, then add them up. You still present the customer one fixed figure, but now it's a figure you can stand behind, and you've a line-by-line breakdown in your notes for when a question comes up later.

How to price the labour

Work out your day rate first, then use it as the basis for each package. Bathroom fitter day rates in the UK sit in the £320 to £480 band on Checkatrade's 2026 data, with a national average labour cost of £1,500 to £3,000 for a full bathroom (Checkatrade bathroom fitter costs, 2026). London typically runs 20 to 30 percent above that. Trade-facing guides suggest some fitters charge toward £350 to £450 in the regions (VioTrade). Pick a figure that reflects your reputation and your area, then use it as the basis for each package. The customer never sees the day-rate maths. They see a fixed price for "fit the suite and second fix plumbing", which reads as a finished outcome rather than a meter running.

A standard full bathroom takes a small firm 7 to 10 working days start to finish. That's not 10 days of solid graft, it includes the dead time while plaster dries and tile adhesive goes off. Build that drying time into the programme. Promise a customer the bathroom in four days and you'll either skip the drying or work weekends to save face, and neither helps you.

Two packages you'll usually subcontract:

• Electrics. Bathroom electrics are notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations. Either your electrician self-certifies through a scheme like NICEIC or NAPIT, or the work goes through building control. Price the electrician's day plus the cost of the certificate, and put it in the quote as its own line.
• Plastering. Unless you skim yourself, a plasterer doing the walls and ceiling is usually a day to a day and a half. Get their price before you send your quote, not after.

Get the subbie prices confirmed up front. A quote built on "the sparky will probably be about £400" is a quote built on a guess, and guesses are where the £1,400 losses come from.

How to price materials (and the markup question)

Price materials at cost plus a markup, normally 10% to 20%. Quoting materials at cost is giving away money for no reason. You're the one sourcing them, collecting them, storing them, handling returns when the basin turns up cracked, and standing behind them if something fails. That's worth something, and 10% to 20% is the fair, standard rate for it.

It also protects your cashflow. You pay the merchant on your account terms, the customer pays you on completion, and the markup covers the gap and the faff. There's no two ways about it, a bathroom you supply and fit should always make more than a bathroom where the customer hands you their own boxes.

For anything the customer hasn't picked yet, don't guess the price. Use a PC sum instead, which is covered below.

An illustrative worked example (with real UK ranges)

Below is an illustrative structure for a standard family bathroom, roughly 2.4m by 2.0m, mid-spec, everything supplied and fitted. The ranges are drawn from current UK trade and consumer sources, not invented figures. Your actual price will land somewhere inside each range depending on your area, your day rate, and the spec the customer chooses. The point here is the shape of the quote, not the specific numbers.

Labour, priced by package

Working at a day rate of around £350 to £450 (the typical fitter rate per Checkatrade), a 7-to-10-day job comes out roughly as follows:

• Strip-out and disposal (around 1 day): £350 – £450
• Plumbing, first and second fix, fit the suite (3 – 4 days): £1,050 – £1,800
• Tanking and tiling, approx 18 m² walls and 5 m² floor (2 – 3 days): £700 – £1,350. A specialist tiler day rate runs £200 – £300 per WhatToCharge.
• Electrics, subcontract, first and second fix with Part P certificate: £350 – £500 is the ballpark subbie line.
• Plastering, subcontract, walls and ceiling (1 – 1.5 days): £300 – £500.
• Decorating and snagging (half a day): £180 – £250.
• Labour subtotal: roughly £2,900 – £4,850, which matches Checkatrade's reported labour range of £1,500 to £3,000 for the fitter's own time plus the subbie lines on top.

Materials, at cost plus 10% to 20% markup

Materials for a mid-spec UK bathroom typically land between £2,000 and £6,000 at cost before markup, per the public cost guides (Bathroom Mountain, CostToBuild). A representative mid-spec line-up:

• Bathroom suite (bath, toilet, basin, taps, thermostatic shower, glass screen) — mid-range suites run £900 – £2,500 per Checkatrade; budget suites start at £400 – £900, designer £2,500+.
• Wall and floor tiles — materials typically £25 – £70 per m². Across ~23 m² that's £575 – £1,610.
• Adhesive, grout, backer board, tanking kit: £200 – £350.
• Plumbing sundries (pipe, fittings, valves, wastes): £150 – £250.
• Electrical materials (extractor fan, downlights, shaver socket, cable): £150 – £250. A new extractor fan averages £300 fitted (Checkatrade).
• Plaster, sand, cement, sundries: £80 – £120.
• Skip hire: £200 – £300.
• Paint and decorating sundries: £60 – £100.
• Materials at cost: roughly £2,300 – £5,500 depending on spec.
• Markup at 10 – 20%: add £230 – £1,100.
• Materials to customer: roughly £2,500 – £6,600.

What the total ends up looking like

Add the two subtotals together and a mid-spec supplied-and-fitted bathroom should land in the £5,500 to £11,000 before VAT band, with the national average around £7,000 all-in (Checkatrade). That matches what the public guides report households actually pay. If your quote is coming out significantly below £5,500, check what you've missed. If it's above £11,000, you're into premium spec or you're pricing London rates.

If you're VAT registered, add 20% on top. If you're under the £90,000 threshold and not registered, you don't add VAT, but remember you can't reclaim the VAT on the materials you bought, so that cost sits inside your figure. Either way, state clearly on the quote whether the price includes VAT or not. "Plus VAT" surprises are how good jobs turn into arguments.

PC sums and provisional sums, the two lines that protect you

Two things derail bathroom quotes: the customer changes their mind on the finish, and the wall hides a problem. A PC sum and a provisional sum cover both.

The PC sum (for what they haven't chosen)

A PC sum, short for prime cost, is an allowance for an item the customer hasn't picked yet. On a bathroom it's nearly always the tiles, sometimes the taps or the suite. You quote, for example, "tiles allowed at £25 per square metre" and adjust the final invoice once they choose.

Say you allowed £25 a square metre across 23 square metres of walls and floor. The customer walks into the tile shop and falls for a porcelain at £40 a square metre. That's £15 more per square metre, across 23 square metres, so £345 gets added to the final bill, plus your markup. Without the PC sum line, that £345 comes straight out of your margin, because as far as the customer remembers, the quote said "tiles included".

The provisional sum (for what you can't see)

A provisional sum is an allowance for work you can't fully price until you open up. Old bathrooms hide all sorts: rotten floorboards under the bath, a soil pipe that needs re-routing, lead pipe that should've gone out in 1990, no isolation valve anywhere. You put a line like "provisional sum: £300 for subfloor repair, adjusted to actual on completion". If the floor's sound, the customer doesn't pay it. If it's soft, you're covered and there's no awkward mid-job conversation about extra money.

Deposit and stage payments

A bathroom ties up real money in materials before you've earned a penny. On a mid-spec job the suite and tiles alone are typically £1,500 to £3,000 at cost. Don't carry that for the customer.

A sensible structure on a £7,000 bathroom:

• Deposit on acceptance: enough to cover the suite and tiles you order in, so roughly 25% of the quote.
• Stage payment at first fix sign-off: a chunk of the labour, roughly another third of the total, once plumbing and electrics first fix are done and signed.
• Balance on completion: the rest, due when the job's finished and the customer's walked round it with you.

There's no legal cap on a deposit, but a fair one covers your materials and sits at or under about a quarter of the job. For the detail on deposits and the cancellation rules that catch trades out, see the deposit guide linked below.

What NOT to do (the 5 mistakes that cost you)

1. Don't quote a round number in the hallway. The figure you say out loud becomes the price, and you've not seen behind the bath yet. Tell them you'll send a proper itemised quote within a day or two, then do exactly that.
2. Don't quote materials at cost. You're sourcing, collecting, storing, and standing behind them. 10% to 20% markup is the standard, fair rate. Skipping it is just unpaid work.
3. Don't leave customer-choice items open-ended. No PC sum on the tiles or taps means every upgrade they fancy comes out of your price. Allow a rate, adjust on the invoice.
4. Don't ignore the unknowns behind the old suite. A provisional sum and one clear exclusion line on the quote turns "the floor was rotten, that's extra" from an argument into a line they already agreed to.
5. Don't rely on a verbal quote. No written scope means every "while you're at it, can you just" is unpaid, because there's nothing to point at. The scope on the quote is what protects you when the job grows.

The habit that wins the job

Get the quote to the customer within a day or two, itemised and tidy, while they're still picturing the new bathroom. A clear, professional quote that lands quickly beats a cheaper one scribbled on the back of a delivery note that turns up a week later. Customers reading two quotes side by side go with the one that looks like the firm has its act together, even when it's not the lowest number.

That's the bit most trades leave on the table. The work is rarely the problem. It's the gap between the job ending and the paperwork going out. TradeStash lets you build a packaged bathroom quote from the van, drop in the PC sums and provisional sums, and send it before you've left the customer's drive. Quote fast, quote properly, and you win more of the jobs worth winning.