How to get builder quotes
Up to three vetted builders visit your home, send you their quotes, and you pick. Here's how that flow works in practice.
You'll receive up to three quotes from vetted builders, side by side, in your dashboard. Here's how the flow works.
Builder matching
We match your project to builders based on location, project type, scope, and your timeline. Each builder reviews the brief and decides whether to take the project on. Up to three accept and arrange site visits.
If fewer than three accept — usually because of capacity or specialism — we'll either find more builders to invite or talk to you about whether you're happy to proceed with two. The aim is comparable quotes, not a number.
Site visits
Each builder visits your home for around an hour. They measure, take photos, ask about your priorities, and form a view on what the project involves. The article How to prepare for your builder site visits covers what to expect and how to get the most from them.
The quotes
Each builder sends you a quote through the platform. You'll see them side by side in your dashboard, with a breakdown of labour, materials, prelims, Value Added Tax (VAT), and any provisional sums.
Quotes are due within four working days of the visit (longer for larger projects, by agreement). If a quote is taking longer than expected, your planner will chase.
The quote review
When all the quotes are in, your planner or build advisor will offer to walk you through them — a quote review. They'll explain the differences in scope and approach, flag anything that looks underpriced, and help you compare the substance rather than just the headline number. The article How a quote review works covers this in detail.
Choosing
You choose based on whatever matters most to you: price, scope, communication style, the conversation on the visit, the builder's track record on similar projects. Sixty per cent of customers don't choose the lowest quote.
You have time. There's no pressure to decide on the day. If you want to talk to a builder again, that's fine. If you want to ask for a revised quote on a different scope, that's also fine — though scope changes can take a few days to come back through.
After you choose
You pay the £1,000 build deposit to secure the builder. We generate the Home Improvement Contract (HIC) from the agreed scope and price, and you both sign digitally. Two weeks before break ground, you fund the construction fee into the Beams Account.
What this means for you
Take your time on the visits and the quote review. The choice you make here shapes the next several months of your life — and getting it right at this stage is worth more than rushing to start.
Related articles
- How to prepare for your builder site visits
- How a quote review works
- Comparing builder quotes
- How quotes change after design is locked