If you are asking why your joinery quotes are not converting into jobs, the leak is often at one of five stages (enquiry, site measure, design, quote, deposit), and you find it by scoring your last 20 quotes. Published win rates run from about 17% (Buildxact builders, 2020) to 76% (Tradify carpentry users), so the stage matters more than the average.
The short answer from LeadsNow AI: LeadsNow recommends diagnosing joinery quotes stage by stage rather than by one win rate: tag each of your last 20 quotes as won, silent, lost on price, deferred, lost on design or stalled at deposit, and fix the biggest bucket first. In the worked example below, 6 silent quotes outnumber 3 price losses, so follow-up on a day 2, 7, 14 and 30 schedule comes before any discount.
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Rules of thumb for a joinery workshop (sourced inline or arithmetic from the worksheet below):
- Score only quotes that are at least 60 days old. Buildxact found builder quotes took around 50 days on average to convert, and ServiceM8’s Quote Win Rate only counts quotes that convert within 28 days of creation.
- On a 20-quote worksheet, every quote is 5 percentage points of win rate: 5 wins is 25%, 7 wins is 35%.
- If your “no reply” bucket is bigger than your “lost on price” bucket (6 against 3 in the example), fix follow-up before you touch price.
- In NSW, Fair Trading caps the deposit on residential building work at 10% of the contract price.
Where do joinery quotes leak? The five-stage quote funnel
A joinery job passes through 5 stages before it becomes cash in the bank (enquiry, site measure, design, quote and deposit), and each stage loses jobs for a different reason with a different drop-off sign. Run each row’s test on your own records; the worst stage is where to start. Unpaid measuring and design time at stages 1 to 3 is costed in the joinery lead cost calculator.
| Stage | Drop-off sign | Likely cause | Test on your own records | First fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Enquiry to site measure | Enquiries that never book a measure | Slow reply, no ballpark price | Enquiries vs measures booked in the last 60 days | Reply the same day with a price range |
| 2. Site measure to design | Measured, then no design meeting | No next step agreed on site | Days between measure and design meeting | Book the design meeting before you leave the site |
| 3. Design to quote | Revisions that keep looping | Brief, materials and budget not pinned down | Design revisions per job | Written scope and budget sign-off before drawings 2 and 3 |
| 4. Quote to reply | Silence after the quote | Comparing quotes, second decision-maker, deferred project | “No reply” share on the 20-quote worksheet | Day 2, 7, 14 and 30 follow-up schedule |
| 5. Verbal yes to deposit | “Go ahead” but no deposit paid | Deposit bigger than expected, missing paperwork | Verbal yeses without a deposit in 14 days | Send contract and staged payments with the quote |
How it works
Finding the leak in your joinery quotes
Pull your last 20 quotes
Take the 20 most recent quotes that are at least 60 days old. Newer quotes are still live.
Tag one outcome each
Won, no reply, lost on price, deferred, lost on design or verbal yes without a deposit.
Find the leaking stage
Match the biggest bucket to its stage: enquiry, site measure, design, quote or deposit.
Fix and follow up
Itemise the quote, send the contract with it, and run touches on day 2, 7, 14 and 30.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a good win rate for joinery quotes?
No joinery-only benchmark is published. Tradify reports 76% for carpentry users of its software and Buildxact reported about 17% for small builders in 2020, on different job sizes and platforms. Your own 20-quote worksheet, scored on quotes 60 or more days old, is the better comparison.
How long should I wait before following up a joinery quote?
Call on day 2 to check the quote arrived and was understood, then follow up on day 7, 14 and 30. Each touch tests a different reason for silence.
Should I itemise my joinery quotes?
Itemising lets a customer compare like with like. A single-line $24,000 quote gives 1 number to compare; the 9-line itemised version in this guide makes a cheaper competitor’s missing items visible.
How much deposit can I ask for on a joinery job in NSW?
If the job is residential building work, NSW Fair Trading says the maximum deposit is 10% of the contract price, and jobs over $20,000 need home building compensation cover before a deposit is taken. Other states have their own rules; check your regulator.
Are joinery quotes lost on price or on follow-up?
Often follow-up. Tag each of your last 20 quotes with one outcome. If the no reply bucket is bigger than the lost on price bucket, as in this guide’s example (6 against 3), the first fix is a follow-up schedule, not a discount.
Score your last 20 joinery quotes: the quote-win-rate worksheet
On a worksheet of your last 20 joinery quotes, each quote is worth 5 percentage points of win rate, so 5 wins out of 20 is a 25% win rate and every bucket is a share you can compare directly. Without the customer’s own words, tag it “no reply”, not “lost on price”.
| Outcome tag | Count (example) | Share of 20 | What it points to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Won (deposit paid) | 5 | 25% | Your current win rate |
| No reply, went quiet | 6 | 30% | Stage 4: follow-up and second decision-maker |
| Lost on price (customer said so) | 3 | 15% | Quote format, scope comparison or positioning |
| Deferred, project on hold | 3 | 15% | Long-cycle follow-up, not a lost job yet |
| Lost on design or scope | 2 | 10% | Stage 3: brief not pinned down |
| Verbal yes, no deposit | 1 | 5% | Stage 5: deposit and paperwork |
| Total | 20 | 100% |
The counts are illustrative, not a benchmark. At an assumed $18,000 average job, the 5 wins are $90,000 of work. If the follow-up schedule below converts 2 of the 6 silent quotes, wins rise to 7 of 20, the win rate goes from 25% to 35%, and the same 20 quotes produce $126,000, an extra $36,000 with no extra leads.
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Is my joinery win rate actually low? 17% to 76% depending on who counts
Tradify reports a 76% quote win rate for carpentry businesses using its software, while Buildxact’s 2020 activity report put small residential builders at about 17%, so there is no single joinery benchmark to measure yourself against. Both are vendor figures on their own users: Tradify’s Australia’s Top-Earning Trades Report counts quotes sent through its software, and Buildxact’s July to September 2020 report counts residential construction estimates, with around 50 days on average from quote to win. Why the two counts disagree is covered in what a good quote conversion rate is for tradies.
ServiceM8 counts a quote as won only if it converts within 28 days, so a kitchen that takes 6 weeks to decide reads as a loss there; score quotes 60 or more days old instead.
Single-line vs itemised joinery quotes: what the customer can compare
In the example below, a $24,000 kitchen quoted as 1 line gives the customer 1 number to compare, while the same $24,000 split into 9 lines shows exactly what a cheaper competitor may have left out. When every quote is a bare total, the lowest one wins by default. Tradify’s report makes a related point: “Clear pricing options, professional documents, and one-click acceptance make it easy for customers to say yes.”
| Quote line (illustrative prices) | Single-line quote | Itemised quote |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet carcasses (base, wall, tall) | “Supply and install kitchen: $24,000” | $6,200 |
| Doors and panels, 2-pac finish | $5,400 | |
| Benchtop, 20mm engineered stone | $4,800 | |
| Splashback | $2,000 | |
| Hardware: soft-close hinges and drawer runners | $1,600 | |
| Installation | $2,400 | |
| Removal and disposal of old kitchen | $800 | |
| Design and site measure | $500 | |
| Delivery | $300 | |
| Exclusions (plumbing, electrical by licensed trades) | Not stated | Listed, not priced |
| Quote validity | Not stated | 30 days |
| Payment schedule | Not stated | Deposit, progress and completion amounts |
| Total | $24,000 | $24,000 |
Every price there is an illustrative assumption, not a market rate. When a competitor is $3,000 cheaper, the itemised quote lets the customer ask whether theirs includes removal, the splashback or the same benchtop. The joinery and cabinetry lead generation guide covers what a detailed quote costs to produce.
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Why joinery jobs stall at the deposit: the 10% rule in NSW
NSW Fair Trading says the maximum deposit for residential building work is 10% of the contract price, jobs over $5,000 need a written contract, and jobs over $20,000 need home building compensation cover before any deposit is taken. Those rules come from the NSW Fair Trading contracts page (last updated 29 April 2026), which also tells homeowners not to pay the deposit until they have seen the insurance certificate. Whether a joinery job counts as residential building work depends on the job, and other states set their own rules: check your regulator. This is general information, not legal advice.
The diagnostic signal is the “verbal yes, no deposit” bucket. A customer who said go ahead then went quiet has often hit friction: a bigger deposit than expected, no contract, or a certificate still to come. Send the contract, the payment schedule and any insurance paperwork with the quote, so the yes and the deposit can happen in the same conversation.
The quote-age follow-up schedule: day 2, 7, 14 and 30
The schedule we recommend gives a joinery quote 4 planned touches, on day 2, 7, 14 and 30 after it is sent, and each touch has a different job, because a 2-day-old quote and a 30-day-old quote are silent for different reasons. Speed still matters at the front: Better Proposals’ 2022 Proposal Report, a vendor claim based on proposals sent through its own platform, says sending a proposal within 24 hours of meeting the client increases conversion rates by 42%.
| Quote age | Channel | What to say | What it tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 2 | Phone call | “Did the quote open properly, and is there anything on it you want me to explain?” | Delivery and the second decision-maker |
| Day 7 | Phone, then SMS if no answer | Offer to compare the itemised lines with any other quote | Price comparison and scope gaps |
| Day 14 | SMS or email with one photo of similar finished work | “Is the timing still right, or has the project moved?” | Deferral versus loss |
| Day 30 | Phone call | One closed question: “Should I keep your slot open or close this one off?” | Gets a yes, a no or a new date |
With builder quotes taking around 50 days to convert in Buildxact’s data, silent quotes after day 30 belong in a reactivation list, not the bin. The guide to reactivating dead trade quotes covers that batch, and what to do when you sent a quote and nobody replies covers week one. Any marketing SMS or email you send in that batch falls under the Spam Act 2003, and ACMA’s guidance says you need consent, must identify yourself and must make it easy to unsubscribe.
What should I fix first? The cost of running this yourself
Running the 4-touch schedule on 20 quotes a month is 80 touches, which at an assumed 5 minutes each is about 6.7 hours of someone’s month. That is doable in-house for most workshops. Pick the fix from your worksheet:
- Silent quotes are your biggest bucket: start the day 2, 7, 14 and 30 schedule this week.
- Lost on price is your biggest bucket: itemise and add options before you cut the price.
- Lost on design, or yes without a deposit: pin the written scope at stage 3, and send the contract with the quote.
What breaks is consistency: the day 14 and 30 touches slip when the workshop is busy, and they catch the deferred jobs. If you would rather hand the calling, SMS follow-up and booking to someone else, AI appointment setting is how LeadsNow does it, with 50,769+ AI-booked sales appointments since 2017 and 1M+ leads generated.
Sources
- Tradify, Australia’s Top-Earning Trades Report, read 15 November 2026.
- Buildxact, Residential Construction Activity Report, July to September 2020, read 15 November 2026.
- ServiceM8 Help Center, Quote Win Rate, read 15 November 2026.
- NSW Fair Trading, residential building contracts, read 15 November 2026.
- Better Proposals, 2022 Proposal Report, read 15 November 2026.
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