How Much to Charge for a Job You Always Underestimate? The Fence Job

2026-10-14

It is Monday, 7:48 am, and you are standing in a stranger's back garden with a tape measure in one hand and a mug of tea you didn't ask for in the other.

The client points at the old fence. Twelve panels, maybe thirteen. A gate that sticks. A bit of rotten post by the shed.

"How much, roughly?"

You look at the fence. You look at the sky. You do the sum in your head, the way you have done a hundred times.

"One day," you say. "Call it six hundred, plus materials."

The client smiles. You smile. A handshake in the wet grass.

And somewhere under the smile, a very small voice says: you said that last time, too.

The number that came out of nowhere

Here is the thing nobody tells you about quoting on site. The number doesn't come from a calculation. It comes from a feeling. From the last job that looked like this one, from how tired you are, from how much you want the work, from how awkward it feels to say a bigger figure to someone holding out a cup of tea.

So you shave a little. Not on purpose. Just a little. Because the bigger number feels like asking for too much.

And you always, always forget the same things. The second trip to the merchant. The post that turns out to be rotten all the way down. The hour spent finding the key to the side gate. The drive there and back, which somehow never counts as work.

Wednesday, 4:30 pm

By Wednesday afternoon you are on your knees in the soil, digging out a concrete footing someone poured badly fifteen years ago.

It was one day. It is now day three.

You are not angry at the client. They have been lovely. They brought out biscuits. That is almost the worst part, because you can't even be annoyed at anyone. The only person to be annoyed at is the one who said "one day" with a tape measure and a hopeful face.

You do the maths in the van, engine off, rain starting on the roof. Three days. Six hundred pounds. Materials you bought on the card and haven't written down anywhere except a receipt that is now somewhere in the footwell.

You don't finish the sum. You already know roughly how it ends. You know that if you did finish it, you would have to look at it.

What it quietly costs

It isn't only the money, though the money is real. It's the other things.

It's the Friday evening when you tell yourself it was "a good week" because the job is done, and not because it paid. It's the way you stop quoting big jobs, because you've learned to be a little afraid of them. It's the low hum of resentment when you drive past a house you fenced and remember how it went.

It's the thought that sits quietly at the back of your head: I'm good at the work. Why am I so bad at this part?

You're not bad at it. You've just been doing it from memory, on a doorstep, with nothing to look at. That's a hard way to price anything. Almost anyone would guess low.

The moment it shifted

Imagine a different Monday.

Same garden, same tape measure, same tea. The client asks the same question. But this time you say, "Give me ten minutes, and I'll send you a proper figure before I leave."

You sit on the tailgate. You go through it quietly: the panels, the posts, the gate, the second trip, the drive. Your own hours, written down where you can see them. The materials, listed with a small cushion for the surprise you know is coming, because there is always a surprise.

Nothing clever. Just the things you always forget, sitting in front of you for once, instead of in your stomach on Wednesday.

The figure that comes out is higher than "call it six hundred." You feel the old wobble. But now you aren't defending a feeling. You're looking at a list. And it's remarkably easy to say a number out loud when you can see how it was built.

An ordinary Friday

The job runs long, because jobs do. Day three again, the rotten footing again.

But it doesn't hurt this time. The extra day was in the price, or near enough, and what wasn't gets noted, so next time it will be.

On Friday you stack the last offcuts, wipe your hands, and drop the receipts into one place instead of the footwell. You can see what you spent, what you charged, and what you actually kept. The margin is not a mystery. It is a number you chose.

You drive home with the window down. You are tired in the good way, the way where the work is done and the money makes sense. Nobody owes you an apology, least of all yourself.

And on Saturday you do not do sums in your head in the supermarket queue.

If the doorstep guess sounds familiar

If you've ever said "about a day" and known, even as the words left your mouth, that it wasn't true, you're in very good company. It's one of the most common ways good people in the trades end up working for less than they meant to.

There's a small Excel sheet called Quote It Right – Job Quote, Materials & Margin Sheet. It's built for pricing a job on site, keeping materials and receipts in one place, seeing your real margin, and remembering who still owes you. It doesn't replace your judgement or a tax professional. It just gives your judgement something to stand on. If it doesn't help, there's a 30-day money-back promise, no questions asked.

No rush. The next fence will still be there.

An illustrative story, written with AI assistance.