The quote app for plumbers who'd rather be plumbing

Three ways plumbers do work they never bill

Plumbing has a specific problem: the job you quoted is rarely the job you find. The money leaks at predictable moments:

• The dig reveals more than the quote covered. You're in the trench for a sewer junction and the stormwater line next to it is cracked clay, root-bound, and needs replacing while the hole is open. It's obviously the right time to do it — and obviously extra. If it's agreed leaning on a shovel and never written down, you're arguing about it at invoice time.
• Fixture upgrades mid-job. The bathroom rough-in is quoted, then the owner decides on a wall-hung pan instead of back-to-wall, or adds a floor waste, or wants the laundry tap moved 600mm. Each one is twenty minutes of conversation and real money in parts and labour — and each one vanishes if the day rolls on.
• The emergency call-out that grows. You attend a burst flexi hose at call-out rates, then find the isolation valves are seized and the water hammer is coming from dead arrestors. The customer says "just fix it all while you're here". Without a written scope-and-price, the final bill looks like gouging even when it's fair.

None of this needs a job-management suite. It needs the thirty seconds after "yep, do it" to produce a document. That's what TradieCue is for: say it rough, Timmy drafts it, you approve it.

Hot water swap, customer-supplied unit

The classic supply-question job. The customer has already bought the unit; your quote has to be clear about what's yours and what's theirs:

The customer-supplied unit is stated in the scope, so there's no later confusion about who bought what or why the price doesn't include a heater. And your $690 stays $690: Prices come from the user and stay editable. Timmy structures the work and wording; it does not invent amounts.

Quoting plumbing jobs by voice

Most plumbing quotes die in the gap between the site visit and the keyboard. With TradieCue the quote gets drafted where the knowledge is freshest — in the ute, straight after the look. Talk through it the way you'd tell your apprentice: the fixtures, the pipe runs, what's included, what's excluded (concrete cutting, making good tiles, electrical for the new unit), the price. Timmy turns that into a professional, itemised quote draft the customer can actually read. You check it on the editable preview and send it yourself — often before you've left the street, which is exactly when a customer comparing three plumbers is most likely to say yes. More on the mechanics at voice-to-quote.

When you win the job and the extras start (see the trench above), the same habit captures each one as a variation on that job — a running written record instead of a pile of "oh and we also did" at invoice time.

What Timmy asks instead of guessing

When an important detail is missing (a price, a customer, a scope item), Timmy asks rather than making it up. On plumbing notes, the gaps tend to be:

• Supply. You said "install a Rheem 250" but not whether you're supplying it or the customer is — the difference is over a thousand dollars, so it gets asked, not assumed.
• The price for the extra. "Replace the stormwater while the trench is open" with no number — the draft holds the scope with the price open and Timmy asks you for the amount. It never fills the gap with an invented figure.
• Which customer, which job. Two active jobs for the same strata block? Timmy checks rather than attaching the variation to the wrong one.
• Call-out treatment. If your note mentions a call-out fee but not whether it's on top or absorbed, that ambiguity is surfaced for you to settle before the customer sees it.

Honest fit for a plumbing business

TradieCue suits the owner-operator or small crew — the plumber whose "office" is the ute and whose admin happens at 8pm. It's not dispatch software: no scheduling board, no GPS tracking of vans, no inventory. And it stays out of your regulatory lane: your licence and compliance paperwork stays yours — TradieCue drafts the quotes, variations and payment follow-ups around the work, and drafts aren't legal or tax advice.

Speak English, Chinese or a mix — the customer-facing documents come out in professional English. iPhone (iOS) today. Free to download and try. TradieCue Pro is a subscription through Apple: A$24.99/month or A$239.99/year with a 30-day free trial. Apple confirms before any charge.

Common questions