If you’ve gotten more than one bid for a deck, a fence, or any outdoor living project, you’ve probably run into the following situation. A contractor’s price seems to move depending on how the conversation goes.
First, you get a number. Then, if you hesitate, a discount shows up. “I can do 15% off if we sign today”. They appeal to the very natural impulse we all have of fearing missing out on a great deal. Sometimes you don’t even have to hesitate; the 15% off gets offered to everyone right out of the gate, built into the pitch from the start, just to push the sale along. Suddenly the price that felt fixed a minute ago isn’t fixed at all.
I want to talk about why that bothers me, and why we do things differently.
The Discount Is Usually the Tell
Here’s the honest version of what’s happening when a contractor offers you a discount that expires same-day, in a few days, or within a week. They priced the job higher than they were willing to accept, specifically so they’d have room to play to your sense of FOMO.
The deal isn’t really a deal. Instead, it’s a sales tactic to get you to stop comparing bids and sign before that window closes.
Think about what a same-day or one-week discount is actually asking of you. It’s asking you to make one of the biggest purchases you’ll make this year, for a project that will sit in your backyard for the next twenty years, without giving you real time to get a second opinion. That’s not a favor to the homeowner. That’s pressure, dressed up as generosity.
Also, here’s the part that doesn’t get said out loud enough. If a contractor can profitably build your project at the discounted price, that was always the real price. The number before the discount wasn’t an honest estimate of the work. Rather, it was a starting point built with room for negotiation baked in.
What Honest Pricing Actually Looks Like
We think pricing should work the same way for everyone. One customer, one price, one process. Whether you sign today, next week, or after you’ve gotten two other bids, our estimate will be the one we originally offered.
This means:
- No discounts for signing today, this week, or by any other deadline we set. We let you take your time to compare estimates shouldn’t cost you money.
- No discount for waiting, either. We’re not going to pad a quote just so we have room to suddenly pretend we can do it for a lower price.
- The number you get on day one is the number you get on day thirty. Of course, this is assuming nothing about the project itself has changed.
This isn’t about being the cheapest bid. It’s about being a bid you can actually trust. When you’re comparing us against someone else, you should be comparing real numbers, not comparing our discount tactics against theirs.
The Real Cost of Discount-Driven Estimating
The traditional model trains homeowners to distrust every number they’re given. If you’ve ever had a contractor ‘throw in’ a discount because you signed the same day, or because you were about to run out the clock on their one-week offer, you already know what that does. It makes you wonder what the real price actually is, and whether you’re the one paying too much.
That’s a bad way to start a relationship with someone who’s about to spend weeks building something in your backyard. Trust matters more on a project like this than it does almost anywhere else. This is because you’re not just buying a product. You’re hiring someone to be on your property and around your family for an extended period of time.
Consistent, honest pricing isn’t a marketing angle. It’s just the only version of estimating that respects the person on the other side of the table enough to tell them the truth the first time.
