Quote win rate: definition and trade benchmarks

The terms, defined against each other

Four adjacent measures that get called the same thing, and the differences between them are large.

Quote win rate: Quotes accepted divided by quotes sent, over a period. Simple, and the whole argument is about what counts as sent and what counts as a quote at all.
Qualified win rate: The same calculation with tyre-kickers excluded. Always higher and always more flattering, and it hides exactly the group that follow-up could recover — so it is the wrong number for deciding whether to chase anything.
Value win rate: Value won divided by value quoted, rather than counting jobs. A business winning eight small jobs and losing two large ones has a wonderful count and a terrible year, and only this measure notices.
No-decision rate: The share that were neither won nor lost — no answer, ever. The most useful number on this page and the one nobody tracks, because it is precisely the group a follow-up sequence exists to convert.
Quote-to-visit ratio: How many site visits become an actual written quote. Not a win rate, and worth watching separately: a business quoting only half of what it visits has a scoping problem rather than a closing one.

Why the benchmarks are almost useless

Two roofers can both report 30% while running incompatible businesses. One quotes everything that calls, including the people who are getting three numbers for an insurance claim they will never pursue. The other quotes only after a site visit and a conversation about budget.

The second roofer's number is higher and tells them less. Their filtering happens before the count, so the rate measures how good they are at qualifying rather than how good they are at winning — and it cannot be improved by anything they do after sending a quote.

The practical consequence is the same as everywhere else in this territory: your own number over time is informative, and your number against a published range is a conversation topic.

Reported ranges by trade

Wide on purpose. Where sources disagree the wider range is shown, because the disagreement is the finding.

Trade	Reported range	Why the spread is that wide
Electrical, domestic	25–50%	Small callouts convert far better than rewires, and most businesses blend them
Plumbing and heating	25–45%	Emergency work converts near 100%, planned work far lower
Roofing	20–40%	Insurance-driven enquiries inflate the denominator enormously
Landscaping	20–35%	Discretionary spend, and quotes compete against doing nothing
Building and extensions	10–25%	Long decision cycles, and homeowners collect quotes as research
Commercial subcontract	15–30%	Competitive tendering, where a low rate is normal and healthy

Source: Ranges compiled from trade association reporting and platform-published aggregates, August 2026. These are not comparable across rows because the underlying definitions differ by source, and none of them separate the no-decision group.

The building row looks alarming and is not. A 15% rate on £30,000 jobs is a better business than a 45% rate on £600 ones, which is the clearest argument available for tracking value win rate instead.

Measuring yours so it means something

Three columns and one rule. Ten minutes a week.

1
Log every quote the day it goes out
Date, customer, value, and a status column with four options: open, won, lost, no answer.
The fourth status is the one that matters and the one people leave out. Without it, silences get filed as losses and the recoverable group becomes invisible.
2
Count in value as well as in jobs
Add up the value quoted and the value won. It takes one extra column and it is the number your bank account recognises.
Businesses that only count jobs systematically over-invest in small work, because small work is where the flattering count comes from.
3
Look at the no-answer column monthly
That group is the entire addressable market for follow-up. If it is small, follow-up will not help you and you should stop reading.
A business with a 5% no-answer rate has a pricing question, not a chasing question. A business at 30% has found the cheapest available improvement to its revenue.

None of this needs software either. A spreadsheet does it, and a quarter of a spreadsheet tells you whether the problem is worth nineteen dollars a month.

Questions

What is a good quote win rate?

Higher than yours last quarter, on the same definition. Against benchmarks, anything in the middle of your trade's published range is unremarkable and the number is too definition-dependent to worry about beyond that.

Should I count quotes that never got a reply?

Yes, in their own column. Folding them into losses hides the group you can actually do something about, and excluding them entirely produces a flattering rate that cannot be improved.

Does a high win rate mean my prices are too low?

It can, and it is worth checking. A business winning 70% of what it quotes is either exceptional at qualifying or leaving money on the table, and the way to find out is to raise a price and watch what happens to the rate.

How many quotes do I need before the number means anything?

Around thirty before a month-to-month figure is worth reading, and considerably more before a change in it is distinguishable from luck. A builder quoting six a month should look at quarters.

The terms, defined against each other

Reported ranges by trade

Measuring yours so it means something

Log every quote the day it goes out

Count in value as well as in jobs

Look at the no-answer column monthly

Questions

Tell me when this exists