What to include in a quote: a checklist for freelancers

A good quote includes your business details, the client's details, a unique quote number and date, a validity period, a clear scope broken into line items with quantities and unit prices, any discounts, the VAT rate and amount, the total, payment terms, a delivery timeline, your terms and conditions, and a way for the client to approve it. Miss one of those and you invite questions, delays or, worse, a dispute about what was agreed.

This guide walks through each element in the order it usually appears on the page, explains why it matters, and ends with a checklist you can keep next to your desk and a list of the mistakes we see most often. If you are still deciding whether you need a quote, an estimate or a full proposal, start with the difference between a quote, an estimate and a proposal.

Who it is from and who it is for

The header of a quote answers a simple question: which business is promising what, to whom? That sounds obvious, but vague headers are a common source of trouble later, especially when the quote becomes the basis for an invoice or a contract.

Your business details

• Legal or trading name exactly as it appears in your company registration.
• Address of your registered office.
• Company and VAT number. In Belgium, for example, the enterprise number doubles as the basis of your VAT number; in the Netherlands you have a KVK number and a separate VAT ID. Include whichever apply to you.
• Contact details: one email address and phone number the client should actually use.
• Logo and branding, so the quote is instantly recognisable when it is forwarded to a manager or finance team.

If you run more than one business or brand, make sure each quote carries the right entity. Sending a quote from your design studio with the bank details of your consultancy is an easy mistake and an awkward one to correct. Tools that keep separate companies with their own branding and numbering remove that risk entirely.

Your client's details

• Company name and legal entity, not just the name of the person you spoke to.
• Contact person and their role, so it is clear who requested the quote.
• Billing address and, for business clients, their VAT number. You will need it on the invoice, and for cross-border work within the EU it affects how VAT is handled.

Quote number, date and validity period

Every quote needs a unique quote number. It lets you and the client refer to one specific version ("we approved Q-2026-041, not the earlier one") and makes it easy to link the eventual invoice back to what was agreed. Use a consistent format, such as a prefix plus a running number, and never reuse numbers.

Add the issue date and a validity period. Thirty days is a common default; fourteen works for fast-moving work or volatile material costs, and sixty or more can suit larger projects with long approval cycles. A validity period protects you from a client accepting a six-month-old price after your rates or supplier costs have changed, and it gently signals that a decision is expected.

Scope and line items

This is the heart of the quote and the part most likely to cause disputes. The goal is that someone who was not in your meetings can read the line items and understand exactly what will be delivered.

Write descriptions that stand on their own

Compare "Website – €3,400" with "Website redesign: up to 8 page templates, responsive design, two rounds of revisions per template, content migration of up to 30 existing pages. Copywriting and photography not included." The second version takes thirty seconds longer to write and saves a week of back-and-forth when the client asks whether the blog is included.

• Say what is included, with numbers where possible: pages, hours, revision rounds, deliverables, formats.
• Say what is not included when there is any chance of a misunderstanding.
• State assumptions: "assumes the client supplies final copy before design starts".
• Split large jobs into separate line items (discovery, design, development, training) rather than one lump sum. Clients trust prices they can see the logic behind.

offinal.com/q/7hX2kP

UX & visual design€2,400

Wireframes, prototypes and a complete design system.

Development€4,800

Responsive build, CMS setup and performance tuning.

Launch & training€900

Go-live support and a hands-on team workshop.

In a static document, there is a trade-off between detail and readability. In an interactive quote, you can keep the overview short and attach the full description, a sample deliverable or a product photo to each line. In Offinal, line items with images, video and details come from your product catalog, so the extra context appears on every quote without retyping it.

Quantities, units and unit prices

Each line should show a quantity, a unit (hours, days, pages, pieces, months) and a unit price, with the line total calculated from them. "40 hours × €85" is easier to accept than "€3,400" because the client can see how you arrived at it and can adjust the scope if the budget is tight. State clearly whether unit prices are shown excluding or including VAT; for business clients, excluding VAT is the norm.

Discounts, VAT and the total

Show the maths in order: subtotal, discount, subtotal after discount, VAT, total. Here is an illustrative example for a Belgian freelancer quoting a local business client at the standard 21% rate:

Discounts

If you offer a discount, show it as its own line with a reason (early payment, returning client, bundle). A visible discount reads as a deliberate gesture; a quietly lowered rate becomes the client's new expectation for next time.

VAT in the EU

Show the VAT rate and the VAT amount, not only the total. Business clients need the split for their own records, and showing it upfront avoids the classic surprise when an invoice arrives 21% higher than the number someone had in mind. If different rates apply to different items, show the rate per line or group the VAT by rate.

Some situations change how VAT appears. For many business-to-business services supplied to a VAT-registered client in another EU country, the reverse charge mechanism applies: you charge no VAT and the client accounts for it in their own country, and your invoice should say so and include both VAT numbers. Small business exemption schemes, certain goods and specific services follow their own rules. The details vary by country and by what you sell, so check your local rules or ask your accountant, and make sure the quote reflects the treatment your invoice will use.

Payment terms and delivery timeline

Clients approve a price and a date. Leave out the date, and you have only agreed half the deal.

Payment terms

• Payment schedule, for example 30% deposit on approval, 40% at design sign-off, 30% on delivery. Deposits are standard for larger projects and protect you if the client disappears halfway.
• Payment period: due within 14 or 30 days of the invoice date. Check the legal maximums for business-to-business payment periods in your country.
• How to pay: bank transfer details, structured reference if you use one.
• Late payment: refer to the interest or fees set out in your terms and conditions.

Delivery timeline

Give a start date or lead time and the main milestones. Tie them to dependencies: "Delivery four weeks after receiving approved copy" is a promise you can keep; "Delivery on 1 December" is a promise that breaks the moment the client sends content late.

Terms, conditions and approval

Your terms and conditions cover what the line items cannot: cancellation, revision limits, ownership and licensing of the work, liability, and what happens when scope changes. Link or attach them, and say on the quote that approval means accepting them. Keep a short summary of the points clients care about most, such as the number of revision rounds, visible on the quote itself.

Finally, make approval explicit. A quote without an approval step tends to end in "sounds good, go ahead" buried in an email thread. Ask for a name, date and signature, or use online approval with an e-signature so the client can sign from their phone in seconds and you get a clear record of who approved what and when. If you work with clients across Europe, our guide to electronic signatures on quotes in the EU explains what such a signature does and does not cover.

The quote checklist

Run through this list before you send any quote:

• Your legal name, address, company number and VAT number
• Your logo and one clear contact person
• Client company name, contact person, billing address and VAT number
• Unique quote number in a consistent format
• Issue date
• Validity period written as an end date
• Short summary of the project or purpose
• Line items with self-explanatory descriptions
• What is included and, where useful, what is excluded
• Quantities, units and unit prices for each line
• Discounts shown as separate lines with a reason
• Subtotal, VAT rate, VAT amount and total
• Correct VAT treatment (standard, reduced, reverse charge or exempt), checked against local rules
• Payment schedule, payment period and payment details
• Start date, milestones and dependencies
• Terms and conditions referenced or attached
• A clear way to approve and sign

Common mistakes to avoid

1. 1Lump-sum pricing for complex work. A single number invites haggling because the client cannot see what to trim. Break it down.
2. 2Leaving scope open-ended. "Unlimited revisions" or "social media support" without limits is how a fixed-price project becomes a loss.
3. 3Forgetting VAT until the invoice. A total that grows by a fifth after approval damages trust, even when it is technically correct.
4. 4No validity period. Old quotes resurface. Without an end date, you may be held to last year's prices.
5. 5Sending several versions without clear numbering. If the client has three PDFs called quote_final.pdf, someone will approve the wrong one.
6. 6No approval step. Without a signature or explicit acceptance, you have a conversation, not an agreement.
7. 7Inconsistent branding or the wrong entity. Especially common for freelancers who run more than one business.

Getting the contents right is the foundation. Getting the quote approved is the next step, and that is about presentation, options and timing as much as completeness. Our guide on how to write a quote clients approve picks up where this checklist leaves off.