Three piles, not two
Every trades business sorts its quotes into won and lost. The sorting is wrong, because there is a third pile and it is usually the largest: quotes that were never answered at all.
That distinction matters because the piles behave differently. A lost quote had a decision made against it, usually on price, and it is not coming back. An unanswered quote had no decision made about it whatsoever, and a meaningful share of them are recoverable with one message.
Businesses that merge the two piles conclude that their conversion problem is a pricing problem, and go on to compete harder on price against customers who never rejected their number in the first place.
The shape of the problem
- piles, not two — won, lost, and never answered
- 3
- the message that reliably produces the most replies, and the one people are most afraid to send
- Day 21
- expected launch price a month against a recovered job typically worth hundreds
- $19
The third is the one with recoverable value in it
Consistent across trades reporting
$12 held for founder-tier signups
The decay of an unanswered quote
How likely a quote is to still be winnable, by age, as reported by trades businesses tracking their own. Directional, not measured.
| Age of quote | Still winnable | What is usually happening | Right action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–3 days | Very likely | They have not read it properly yet | Nothing. Wait. |
| 4–10 days | Likely | Read, considered, not decided. Often waiting on someone else. | Message with something new |
| 11–21 days | Possible | Comparing, or the job has slipped down the list | Message, or call if the job is large |
| 22–45 days | Occasionally | Usually gone quiet out of awkwardness rather than rejection | The closing message. Then stop. |
| 46+ days | Rarely | The job is done, shelved, or forgotten | Nothing, unless it is seasonal work |
Source: Compiled from trades businesses' own reporting of quote outcomes by age, August 2026. These are patterns rather than measurements and no controlled study underlies them.
The 22–45 day row is the interesting one and it is where the day-21 message lands. Awkwardness is a much larger cause of silence than rejection, and it is the only cause that a message can do anything about.
What your unanswered pile is worth
Not what you lost — what is sitting there undecided. Use last month.
Eight is deliberately conservative. It is the share who had not decided, not the share who said no.
- Quotes nobody answered
- 14
- Value sitting undecided
- $19,600
- Recoverable monthly
- $1,568
- Across a year
- $18,816
Forty quotes, 35% of them never answered, at $1400 each: 14 quotes and $19600 of work with no decision attached to it. Recovering 8% is $1568 a month, or $18816 a year.
Assumptions behind these numbers
- The recovery rate is the biggest guess here and it is set low on purpose. Vendors quote much higher figures about their own customers, which is not the same as a base rate.
- It values recovered jobs at your average, which slightly overstates them — large quotes tend to get chased already, so the recoverable pile skews smaller than average.
- It counts revenue, not margin. Multiply by your margin for what reaches you.
- It assumes you have the capacity to do the work. If you are turning jobs away, this figure is theoretical.
Compare the annual number to $228 — a year of this product at the expected launch price. The ratio is the entire argument, and it is why the incumbents sell this feature on a tier that costs nine times as much.
Questions
Is 35% silent realistic?
Why not model a higher recovery rate?
Does this apply to commercial tendering?
What if I recover the job at a lower price?
Tell me when this exists
In the context field: how many of last month's quotes never got any reply at all.