Two builders can quote wildly different-looking numbers for what sounds like the same job, and the reason is often the pricing model rather than the actual cost of the work. Understanding the difference matters more than most homeowners realise before they’ve signed anything.
How Day-Rate Pricing Works
A day-rate builder charges for time and materials as the job progresses — a daily or hourly labour rate, plus materials at cost, billed as the project runs. The appeal is transparency: you can see exactly what you’re paying for. The risk is that the total cost isn’t fixed until the job is finished. If it takes longer than expected, or something unexpected turns up once a wall is opened, that cost lands on you.
How Fixed-Price Pricing Works
A fixed-price builder quotes a single, itemised total for the full scope of agreed work, before anything starts. Materials, labour, skip hire, scaffolding, and waste removal are all included and locked in. If the job takes longer than planned for reasons within the builder’s control, that’s their risk to absorb, not yours. The trade-off is that a fixed-price quote needs a properly scoped survey to be accurate — a rushed or vague quote is more likely to lead to “variation” charges later.
Who Carries the Risk
This is the question that actually matters. With day-rate pricing, you carry the risk of the job overrunning. With genuine fixed-price pricing, the builder does — which is exactly why a fixed-price quote should be based on a proper site visit and survey, not a five-minute estimate. A builder who’ll fix a price without properly assessing the job first is either very confident, or planning to recover the difference through “unexpected” costs once work is underway.
When Day-Rate Can Make Sense
Day-rate pricing suits genuinely unpredictable work — repairs where the full extent of a problem isn’t visible until you start (some structural repairs, some heritage restoration work), or very small jobs where a formal fixed-price process would cost more in admin than it saves. For anything with a definable scope — an extension, a loft conversion, a kitchen refit — fixed-price is almost always the better protection for the homeowner.
The “Cheap Quote” Trap
A day-rate estimate can look cheaper on paper than a fixed-price quote for the same job, because it’s showing you a projection rather than a commitment. If that projection runs 20% over — which is common on projects without a clearly locked scope — the final bill can end up higher than the fixed-price alternative would have been.
The number on day one isn’t the number that matters; the number on the final invoice is.
Questions to Ask Either Way
Whichever model a builder proposes, ask the same things: is the price genuinely fixed or just an estimate labelled as a quote? What happens if something unexpected is found once work starts — is that covered, or billed as an extra? And critically: is the answer in writing, or just spoken reassurance?
Our Approach
We quote fixed-price as standard on every project — itemised, agreed before work starts, with materials, labour, skip hire, scaffolding, and Building Control management all included. It’s why our site surveys are thorough: a fixed price only protects you properly if it was based on a proper assessment of the job in the first place.
As a builder in Bath working fixed-price on every project, we carry the risk of an accurate quote, not you. Arrange a free site visit and see the difference a properly scoped quote makes.
