Guide2 May 20265 min read
What's a Good Quote Acceptance Rate? Benchmarks and How to Lift Yours
If you do not know your acceptance rate, you cannot improve it. The good news: for most small businesses the number is low for boring, fixable reasons.
If you do not know your acceptance rate, you cannot improve it. The good news: for most small businesses the number is low for boring, fixable reasons.
Ask a small business owner their quote acceptance rate and you usually get an honest shrug. That shrug is expensive.
Rates vary by trade, region and how you price, but broadly: under 30% suggests something is leaking (usually follow-up, sometimes pricing), 30–60% is the common band, and much above 70% often means you are cheaper than you need to be. Treat the number as a dial to watch rather than a grade to earn.
Break the funnel into stages — sent, viewed, followed up, decided — and the pattern is nearly universal: the big leak is between sent and decided, in the silence where no follow-up happened. Quotes are rarely declined; they are abandoned. That is why chasing, not re-pricing, is usually the first fix.
Three moves, in order of effort: follow up every quote on a schedule (biggest lift, least glamour); send quotes faster while the enthusiasm is warm; and use expiry dates that give decisions a deadline. Only after those are working is it worth touching prices.
Quote Nudge builds the funnel for you from Xero — every quote tracked from sent to outcome, with the chasing handled automatically. You get the number, and the number goes up.
It varies hugely by trade and pricing position, but 30–60% is a common range for small service businesses. Below 30% usually signals a follow-up gap or mispriced quoting rather than bad workmanship.
Xero shows quote statuses individually but offers no funnel view. Quote Nudge builds one from your Xero data automatically — sent, chased, accepted, declined, expired — so you can see your rate and watch it move.
Auto follow-ups and branded online acceptance on your Xero quotes, with deposits coming soon. £16.79/mo after the trial — no card required.
Start free trialMost quotes that convert do so after the first send, yet most businesses only chase once. Here is how many follow-ups it actually takes, and exactly when to stop.
Deposit collection is a feature we're building for Quote Nudge. Here's why taking a deposit the moment a quote is accepted is such a powerful moment — and how we plan to make it effortless.