How Many Contractor Quotes Should You Get? (The Answer Is 3–5)

Bottom line: get 3–5 quotes for any project over $1,000. Two is enough under $500, and major projects — roofs, HVAC replacements, remodels — deserve the full five. Here's the reasoning, and the math on what skipping quotes actually costs.

Why three is the minimum

One quote tells you a price. Two quotes tell you there's a disagreement. Three quotes start to tell you the market: you can see which bid is the outlier and which two cluster around the real cost.

Bid spreads on identical home repair jobs commonly run 40–60% between the lowest and highest offer. On a $10,000 roof section, that's a $4,000–$6,000 range — collected in an afternoon of asking, if the asking is easy.

Why five is the ceiling

Every quote past the fifth adds scheduling overhead but rarely changes the decision. By quote five you almost always have: a low outlier, a high outlier, and a cluster. The cluster is your answer. Chasing an eighth bid to save $80 is how a two-week project becomes a six-week project.

The real reason people stop at one quote

Nobody decides to get one quote — they run out of patience. A typical quote hunt looks like this: call five companies, reach two, leave three voicemails, get one callback while you're in a meeting, repeat the whole story to each person who answers. After a week you have one written estimate, and you take it.

That's not a decision — that's attrition. The fix is making the asking cheap:

• Write one tight brief (symptom, photos, address, timing) and reuse it verbatim.
• Contact all five contractors the same day, in parallel — not one at a time.
• Ask each for an itemized written estimate so results are comparable.

Or let Fixa do exactly that: it calls the contractors in parallel, gives each the same brief, asks the same questions, and returns organized quotes — typically within 48 hours.

Quick reference

Project size	Quotes to get
Under $500 (small repair)	2
$500–$1,000	2–3
$1,000–$10,000	3–5
Major work (roof, HVAC, remodel)	5
Emergency (no time)	2, then verify price after

One caveat for emergencies: when water is actively leaking, stop the damage first and price-check second. Even then, a two-minute second call can catch a 2x overcharge.