CityvettedHow to get three home-service bids that are actually comparable
Get three quotes is the most-repeated and least-useful advice in home services, because most quotes measure different things. Here's how to scope a job so the numbers finally line up.
Here is the dirty secret of getting quotes for any work on your house: most homeowners do not collect three bids, they collect three different jobs. One contractor prices a full tear-out. The next prices a patch. The third quotes for materials you never asked about. Then the numbers come back at $4,200, $6,800, and $9,500, and you stare at them like they mean something. They do not. You cannot compare prices for three different jobs and call it shopping around.
The fix is not getting more bids. It is writing one scope of work, handing the exact same document to every contractor, and forcing all three to price the same thing. Do that and the quotes finally line up. The cheap one is genuinely cheaper. The expensive one has to explain itself. That is the whole game.
- Three bids only help if all three price an identical scope. Write it down first.
- The lowest number is often the one that quietly left something out. Ask what is excluded.
- Get every quote itemized, not a single lump sum, so you can see where they differ.
- A bid that arrives same-day with no site visit is a guess, not a quote.
Write the scope before you call anyone
Before you dial a single number, spend twenty minutes writing down exactly what you want done. Not the solution, the problem and the result. "Replace the 40-gallon water heater in the garage with a comparable gas unit, haul away the old one, and bring the connections to current code." That sentence does more work than three phone calls of vague description.
List the things that are easy to forget because they cost money: haul-away and disposal, permits and inspection, restoration of anything they cut open, and cleanup. These are the line items contractors leave out to look cheaper, and they are exactly where a $6,800 job becomes an $8,000 job after you have signed.
"The cheapest bid is usually the one that read the job most optimistically. Someone has to pay for what it left out, and it is going to be you."
to Priya Anand, Deputy EditorHand every contractor the same paper
Email the identical scope to all three. Resist the urge to describe it differently each time or to mention what the last guy said. When the inputs match, the outputs become comparable, and you stop being the variable in your own bidding process.
Insist on an itemized estimate. A lump sum of $7,000 tells you nothing. The same job broken into labor, materials, permit, disposal, and a line for the unexpected tells you everything. When you lay three itemized bids side by side, the differences jump out. Contractor B is $1,500 higher because he priced new shutoff valves the other two ignored. Now the comparison is real.
Why the site visit matters more than the number
Be suspicious of any quote given over the phone in five minutes. For anything beyond a flat-rate service call, a real bid requires eyes on the job. The contractor who shows up, climbs into the crawlspace, and asks annoying questions is the one whose number will still be true in three weeks. The one who texts you a figure from his truck is quoting a fantasy version of your house.
Cityvetted analysis, 2026.
Read the bids like an editor, not a shopper
Once the three quotes are in, do not start with the price. Start with the assumptions. What did each one assume about access, condition, and what is hiding behind the wall? Two bids that assume the pipe is fine and one that assumes it needs replacing are not three prices for one job. They are a disagreement about your house, and you need to resolve it before you pick.
Call the outlier. If one bid is dramatically low, the kind explanation is that the contractor is hungry for work this month. The unkind one is that he missed something and will hit you with a change order halfway through. A quick call sorts it out. "Your number came in well under the others, walk me through what you included." An honest pro answers in a minute. A sketchy one gets defensive.
- Write one scope.
One paragraph describing the result you want, plus the easy-to-forget extras: disposal, permits, restoration, cleanup.
- Send it identically to all three.
Same words, same attachments, no improvised descriptions.
- Demand itemization.
Labor, materials, permit, disposal, contingency. No naked lump sums.
- Require a site visit.
For anything past a basic service call, no eyes on the job means no real bid.
- Interrogate the outlier.
Call the highest and lowest. Make each defend what they did and did not include.
Then, and only then, look at price
When all three priced the same scope, visited the site, itemized the work, and explained their assumptions, the cheapest bid is allowed to win. Up to that point, the low number is not a deal, it is a question. The homeowners who get burned almost never get burned by the expensive contractor. They get burned by the cheap one who was pricing a smaller, easier, partly imaginary job, and nobody made him say so out loud.
This is the principle under every category guide we publish. When Cityvetted ranks a business, we are really asking whether their bids hold up, whether the final invoice matches the estimate, and whether the scope they quote is the scope they do. A contractor who writes a tight, itemized scope is telling you how they will treat your money. We weight that heavily.