Search this question and the ranking pages mostly answer a procurement manager buying software licenses, or hand over a clause template with a blank where the date goes. None of that helps the operator standing in a driveway deciding what to print at the bottom of a $5,000 quote. This guide answers it from the operator's side: what the date is protecting you from, how to pick the number of days for your trade, where the line goes so it holds up later, and what to say when the customer calls back after it has passed.
The short answer: date every quote, then set the window from your materials
The convention that circulates in the trades is somewhere between 7 and 30 days, with 30 as the default most operators fall back on. Treat that as a starting point rather than a standard; it is what gets repeated in forums and on template sites, not a number anyone can cite to an authoritative source. The defensible way to set your own window is to work backward from exposure. Ask two questions. How much of this quote is materials whose price my supplier can change? And how far out am I promising the crew time this quote implies? A quote that is mostly labor can hold for 30 days because your labor cost does not reprice week to week. A quote where copper wire, dimensional lumber, or a spec fixture is a third of the total should hold for 7 to 15 days, because in a moving market a month is long enough for the quote to go underwater before the customer says yes. Whatever number you land on, the non-negotiable part is that the quote has a date at all. An undated quote does not have a long validity window. It has an infinite one, decided later by whoever benefits from reading it that way.
Why quotes need an expiration date at all
The moment a written number leaves your hands, the customer holds something valuable: the option to buy your work at a fixed price whenever they feel like exercising it. Options like that cost money everywhere else in the economy. On an undated quote, you are granting one for free, for an unlimited term, on top of input costs you do not control.
That risk is not theoretical this year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported producer prices for final demand up 1.1 percent in May 2026 alone and 6.5 percent over the year, the largest annual rise since November 2022.1 Associated Builders and Contractors' read of the same federal data puts construction input prices up 2.6 percent for the month and 9.6 percent for the year, with copper wire and cable up 7.3 percent in May and 24.2 percent year over year.2 The Associated General Contractors called it the steepest materials climb since the pandemic, led by fuel and aluminum.3 If your quotes carry metal, the market can move your costs by more in six weeks than your whole margin on the job.
The date is also protecting something besides materials: your calendar. A quote implies you can staff the job at the quoted price in something like the near future. An acceptance that arrives three months later lands in a different season, and often in a week you no longer have open. And there is a quieter third function. A dated quote applies polite pressure to decide. The customer who is shopping your number around town has a deadline on how long your number stays usable, which is exactly as it should be, since the markup inside that number is what they are shopping. How the materials markup gets built in the first place is its own decision, covered in how much contractors should mark up materials; the validity date is what keeps that math true by the time the customer signs.
Setting the window by trade and materials exposure
The window should track how fast the stuff on the quote repriced last quarter, which makes this a per-trade decision. The table below is a set of illustrative starting points, not industry standards; move your own number based on what your suppliers have been doing to you lately.
| Quote profile | Typical trades | Starting window |
|---|---|---|
| Materials-heavy, metals or lumber on the quote | Electrical, plumbing, HVAC install, roofing | 7 to 15 days |
| Mixed labor and materials | Handyman, landscaping installs, pressure washing with sealant | 15 to 30 days |
| Labor-dominant, consumables only | Cleaning, lawn maintenance, junk removal | 30 days, sometimes longer for recurring-service bids |
Two refinements make the number sturdier. First, your quote should never outlive your supplier's pricing. If the supply house holds a copper price for ten days, a 30-day quote means you are personally insuring days 11 through 30. Match or undercut the shortest supplier window behind the quote. Second, adjust for season. A window that is comfortable in your slow months can be too generous in peak season, when the real constraint is not the price of parts but the crew hours the quote is holding in reserve. Some operators run a shorter validity in the busy season for exactly that reason, and it is easier to defend than raising prices mid-summer.
Where the validity line goes on the quote
The line does its job only if the customer sees it before they sit on the quote, which means it does not belong in fine print on page two. Put it next to the total, where the eye already is. One sentence is enough: "This quote is valid through September 3, 2026. After that date, pricing may be updated to current material costs." A concrete date beats "valid for 30 days," because nobody does the arithmetic from the quote date, and the version with a date the customer can read requires no math to feel real.
Then say it out loud when you hand the quote over or send it. Not as a warning, as scheduling help: "That number is good through the 3rd. If you want the week after Labor Day, saying yes by then locks both the price and the slot." Framed that way the date reads as you holding something for the customer rather than threatening them, which is also the true reading. The operators who get argued out of their own expiration dates are usually the ones whose customers first learned about the date during the reprice call.
The customer who accepts after the date
A lapsed quote plus a customer who now wants the work is a good problem, and it goes wrong only when it is handled as an apology. Treat the late yes as a trigger for a two-minute check, not a concession. Pull the quote and reprice the material lines against what your supplier charges today, then look at the calendar you would be promising. Three outcomes are possible.
If costs have not moved and the schedule works, honor the number and say that you checked: "That quote expired on the 3rd, but I re-ran the material costs and they are holding, so I am happy to keep the price." You gave the customer a win that cost you nothing, and the expiration date kept its meaning for next time.
If costs have moved, requote the lines that moved and only those lines. "Copper has gone up since June, so the wire on this quote is now $210 instead of $180. Labor is unchanged. New total is $5,430, and I can hold that through the 20th." A line-item reprice reads as honest bookkeeping. A whole-quote reprice reads as an opening bid, and invites the customer to negotiate the parts that never changed.
Either way, the reacceptance restarts the normal close: a fresh date on the revised quote and the same terms you attach to any acceptance. If you take money up front, the late signer is not exempt; how to ask a customer for a deposit covers that conversation, and it is easier to have when the quote in front of you is current instead of a relic you are both pretending is fresh.
When honoring an expired quote is the right call anyway
The date is a right to reprice, not an obligation to. Honoring a lapsed quote is good business in three specific situations. When your costs genuinely have not moved, holding the price is free goodwill; take it. When the delta is trivial against the relationship, a property manager who sends steady work deserves the $40 absorbed without a phone call. And when the delay was yours, because the quote sat in your outbox or the follow-up never went, the customer should not fund your process gap.
The one thing not to do is honor an underwater quote silently. If you eat a real cost increase, say so while you do it: "Materials are up about 6 percent since I quoted this. I will hold the number this time." It costs you nothing, and it keeps the customer from learning that your expiration dates are decorative. The shop whose dates are known to be decorative has no dates at all, and is back to writing free options on every quote it sends.
A worked example: the same job, signed on day 12 and day 58
The numbers below are illustrative, chosen to show where the money moves; set your own from your own supplier pricing.
An electrician quotes a 200-amp service upgrade at $5,400: $2,400 in materials, copper-heavy, and $3,000 in labor and margin. The quote carries a 15-day validity line, dated.
Signed on day 12, the job runs as priced. Materials are bought inside the window the supplier honored, and the margin lands where the quote put it.
Now run the same quote signed on day 58. The supplier has repriced copper twice in the interim; the same basket of materials rings up at $2,590, about 8 percent higher, a move consistent with what copper products did in a single month of 2026.2 Honored silently, the job still happens, but $190 comes straight out of margin, and the customer learns nothing. Repriced by the line, the electrician sends a revised quote at $5,590 with a note that labor did not change, and either books the job at a price that still works or loses a job that had already stopped working. Both beats the silent version.
For contrast, flip the trade. A cleaning company quotes a recurring office clean and hears nothing for two months. When the yes finally comes, a reprice check finds nothing moved: the quote is labor plus consumables, and neither repriced. The company honors the quote and says so, and the contract starts. Same discipline, opposite outcome, which is the point. The date did not exist to raise prices. It existed to make the day-58 decision a choice instead of a leak.
Put the date on every quote without thinking about it
We built EosLog's quoting flow with the validity date as a field on the quote itself, so the expiration goes out with the price instead of living in your head, and the customer can approve from their phone before the window closes.
No account required. You can also create a free EosLog account to save your default validity window and reuse it on every quote, or see the plans first.
Sources and further reading
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes — May 2026 (final demand up 1.1 percent in May 2026 and 6.5 percent over 12 months, the largest 12-month rise since November 2022).
- Associated Builders and Contractors, analysis of BLS Producer Price Index data, June 2026 (construction input prices up 2.6 percent in May 2026 and 9.6 percent year over year; copper wire and cable up 7.3 percent for the month and 24.2 percent year over year).
- Associated General Contractors of America, May 2026 producer price report (construction materials prices climbing at the highest rate since the pandemic, driven by steep cost increases in fuel and aluminum).
This guide reflects general US trade practice as of 2026 and is not legal or accounting advice. Whether and when a written quote binds you varies by state and by what the document says, every dollar figure in the worked example is illustrative, and the windows in the table are starting points rather than standards. Set your validity period from your own supplier terms and confirm any contract-law question with a professional in your state.