Quote Win Rate and Pricing

Ten quotes out, nine won. That feels like the system working.

At a 25% margin, a 10% price rise turns each won job from 1,000 of margin into 1,400. To stand exactly still you would need to win 6.43 of those ten — a win rate of 64%. You could lose more than a quarter of the work you currently win, be no worse off in money, and do considerably less of it.

That is the arithmetic behind a rule of thumb people repeat without the numbers: if almost nobody says no, almost nobody is being asked a question they might refuse.

The page also shows the other direction, which is where the surprise usually is. Price moves are not symmetrical. A rise adds to the margin on every job you still win; a cut comes straight out of it, and at a 25% margin a 10% cut needs two thirds more work for the same money. Below a certain cut the work needed is more than you quote for at all, and the table says so rather than printing a win rate above a hundred per cent.

It does not tell you to raise your prices. It cannot see who you are quoting against or why people buy from you, and a high win rate can equally mean you sell well or that you only quote for work you are sure of. What it computes is the threshold. Which side of it you are on is a judgement, and it is yours.

One thing worth getting right before you start: margin, not mark-up. Price less what the job actually costs to deliver, as a share of the price. Getting those two the wrong way round is the commonest error in the whole subject and it always flatters the answer.

Save as many versions as you like and put any two side by side, figure against figure, with the better one on each line marked and the difference in its own column. That screen is the one that decides things, and it is the part a free calculator cannot do at all. Two periods side by side, because a win rate that climbs is usually a price that is falling.

One HTML file. No account, no subscription, no internet needed. Opens on Windows, Mac and Android; the readme explains the extra step on iPhone and iPad, where Apple blocks JavaScript in downloaded files and every tool of this kind is affected.

Everything lives in your browser on your device. Nothing is uploaded, which is why it works offline and why nobody else can see your figures — and it also means clearing your browsing data deletes it. The tool does not pretend otherwise: the header shows how long since your last export at all times, turns amber after three days and red after seven, and export is one click that produces a plain file you keep.