What's your approach to pricing complex or uncertain jobs?

We're seeing an increase in jobs where the full scope isn't clear until we're on-site—older systems, hidden damage, customer uncertainty about what they actually need. This creates tension between wanting to win the work and protecting margin.

I'm interested in how your teams structure pricing for this scenario. Specifically:

  • Do you lead with time-and-materials, or do you find ways to cap exposure while still quoting?
  • How do you communicate uncertainty to customers without undermining confidence?
  • What percentage of your revenue now sits in this "discovery" category?

Our current approach is creating friction between sales and operations. Sales wants to commit; operations wants contingency. I'd like to understand how others have resolved this tension.

Parents
  • in my experience the only way is to stop pretending you know when you don't.

    we do "diagnostic plus proposal" now. flat rate for the first 2 hours to figure out what's actually wrong, then quote the real work. customers hate it at first but the ones who stick around are the ones who weren't going to stiff you on scope creep anyway.

    used to eat hours constantly trying to "be competitive" on jobs we couldn't scope. never again.

Reply
  • in my experience the only way is to stop pretending you know when you don't.

    we do "diagnostic plus proposal" now. flat rate for the first 2 hours to figure out what's actually wrong, then quote the real work. customers hate it at first but the ones who stick around are the ones who weren't going to stiff you on scope creep anyway.

    used to eat hours constantly trying to "be competitive" on jobs we couldn't scope. never again.

Children
No Data