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Site Visit Quote Cost Calculator

Reviewed for 2026, updated September 8, 2026.

Estimates what each in-person estimate visit costs a trade contractor in time and mileage, and what that adds up to per month and per job won.

Your numbers

Results update as you type.

Your estimate

Cost per estimate visit...
Monthly cost of estimate visits...
Hours per month spent on visits...
Visit cost per job won...

Estimates only. Assumptions are listed below, and you can change every input.

Driving out to look at a job before quoting it feels free because no invoice is ever sent for it. It is not free. Every visit costs fuel, wear on the truck and an hour or two of your day that could have been billable, and the visits you lose are paid for by the jobs you win. Contractors who quote a lot of small work often discover that their true cost of acquiring a job is far higher than they assumed, which changes how they think about minimum job sizes, service call fees and whether some jobs can be quoted from photos instead.

This calculator multiplies your round trip mileage by a per-mile vehicle cost and adds the time each visit takes at the hourly value you put on your own time. It then scales that to a month and divides by the number of visits that actually turn into jobs. All the constants are inputs with placeholder defaults, so the result is only as good as the numbers you enter. It is meant to make the cost visible, not to tell you to stop visiting sites.

How to use this tool

  1. Enter how many estimate visits you make in a month and the average round trip mileage.
  2. Enter your vehicle cost per mile, the minutes each visit takes door to door and the hourly value of your time.
  3. Enter the share of visits that become jobs and read the cost per visit, per month and per job won.

What the math assumes

  • Vehicle cost is a flat rate per mile; the default of $0.70 per mile is a placeholder, not a benchmark, and should be replaced with your own operating cost.
  • Time cost is minutes per visit divided by 60, multiplied by the hourly value you enter; the tool does not decide what your time is worth.
  • Every visit is assumed to take the same mileage and the same time, so the result is an average, not a figure for any single job.
  • Cost per job won divides the monthly visit cost by visits times the win rate, so it spreads the cost of lost visits over the jobs you actually book.
  • Phone calls, photo quotes and repeat visits to the same site are not counted; add them to the visit count if you want them included.

Frequently asked questions

How do I estimate my vehicle cost per mile?

Add a year of fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance, registration and depreciation for the work vehicle, then divide by the miles you drove that year. If you do not track it, start with a placeholder and refine it once you have a few months of receipts.

Why is the cost per job won so much higher than the cost per visit?

Because the visits that do not turn into work still cost money, and that money has to be recovered from the jobs you do win. At a 35% win rate roughly three visits are paid for by every booked job.

Should I charge a fee for estimate visits?

Some trades do and some cannot without losing leads. The tool gives you the cost figure; whether to recover it through a visit fee, a minimum job size or by quoting smaller jobs from photos is a business decision only you can make.

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  • Quote Win Rate Revenue Calculator: Estimates how many extra jobs, how much extra revenue and how much extra gross profit a trade contractor gains per year by lifting quote win rate by a few points.

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