To compare supplier quotes properly you have to level the scope before you compare the totals, because the cheapest quote is frequently the one covering the least. The missing items are predictable: fuses in disconnects, lamps in fixtures, terminations, mounting hardware, trim kits, startup and freight. You buy those later, at whatever price applies that day, and the quote that won on bid day is not the quote you end up paying. Leveling means building one line-by-line scope sheet, marking every quote’s inclusions and exclusions against it, pricing the gaps, and comparing the adjusted numbers.
A contractor on the Mike Holt forums put the mechanism more bluntly than any trade publication will: “One trick they play is to " forget" to put fuses in disconnects, include lamps and other things. This way they look lower at first but when you build the job when you add in the fuses or lamps they are higher.”
Two things about that quote before we go further. It is a contractor’s characterization, not a distributor’s admission. And most of the time the omission is not a trick at all: it is a quote assembled fast from a manufacturer’s package that genuinely does not include the accessories, priced by someone who was given a plan set and two days. The fix is the same either way. Read the exclusions.
Why an incomplete quote is the normal case, not the exception
The quote you receive is assembled from a manufacturer package plus whatever the quoting desk added. The package boundary, not the branch’s ethics, decides most of what is missing. A disconnect ships without fuses because fuse class and rating depend on the load. A fixture ships without lamps because the lamp is a separate order code. Gear ships without the accessories a submittal has not settled yet.
Quoting is also a real service line, staffed and resourced. Ferguson, for instance, publishes branch quotation services for contractors including materials lists, takeoff and RFP support. A desk doing takeoff on your behalf is doing you a favor and is also working from your documents, which means an omission is often a gap in what they were given.
Time pressure is real on the other side too. The same forum thread that produces the complaint about last-minute gear numbers, that “The idea is if they give you the number at the very last minute you will not have time to shop it, or if it’s a specified package, you will not have time to put together an alternate package,” also carries the fair reading in the same discussion: “A lot of times, especially with lighting, the reason the supply house is giveing you the price last minute is because that is when they get it from their vendors.” Both are true. Your rep is often waiting on the factory the same way you are waiting on your rep.
So what follows is a checklist rather than suspicion, applied to every quote, including the ones from the house you have used for fifteen years.
The omission list, by package
These are the items most often outside the quote boundary. Use it as the skeleton of your scope sheet.
| Package | Commonly excluded | What it costs you later |
|---|---|---|
| Disconnects and safety switches | Fuses, fuse class and rating, spare fuse kits | Bought at the counter at whatever price applies that day |
| Lighting | Lamps, drivers, emergency battery packs, trim kits, mounting hardware for the actual ceiling type | The single largest gap on most jobs |
| Switchgear and panels | Breakers not in the base bill, spare breakers, surge devices, lugs, filler plates | Long lead and no leverage once gear is released |
| Motor controls | Overload heaters, auxiliary contacts, pilot devices, enclosure heaters | Small dollars, many trips |
| Wire and cable | Terminations, lugs, connectors, tape, cut charges | Cut wire is also the least returnable thing you buy |
| Piping and valves | Gaskets, bolt kits, hangers, supports, transition fittings | Field-discovered, always urgent |
| HVAC equipment | Curbs, roof rails, startup, filters, controls, disconnects | Startup being excluded is a schedule problem, not just a cost one |
| Every package | Freight, offloading, tax treatment, extended warranty, storage | Appears on invoice one and every one after |
Add to that the two conditions that are not line items at all: the quantity the price is good for, and the date it expires. Both live in the boilerplate on most quotes, and both change what the quote is worth.
Build one scope sheet, not three comparisons
The mistake is comparing quote A to quote B directly. They are written to different boundaries, so a direct comparison compares two different jobs. Build a neutral scope sheet from your own takeoff and map each quote onto it.
1. Write the scope rows from your takeoff, not from anyone’s quote. If you build the sheet from the first quote that arrives, you inherit that supplier’s omissions as the definition of scope.
2. Mark each row per quote: included, excluded, or not addressed. Not addressed is the dangerous state. It is where the argument happens in month four.
3. Price every gap. Use your own history for the item where you have it. Your last paid price for a 200 amp fuse set is a better estimate than a list price. This is the practical reason to keep twelve months of your own unit prices somewhere you can query.
4. Normalize the commercial terms. Freight included versus FOB factory. Tax included or not. Payment terms and any prompt-pay discount. Quote validity, in days, as stated on the quote itself. Restocking and returnability on anything you might not use.
5. Compare the adjusted totals, and record the adjustment. The adjusted number is what you carry. The gap between the raw number and the adjusted number is what you tell your rep about, politely, because a supplier who learns you level quotes tends to start quoting complete.
The boilerplate that changes the number
Read the small print on the quote itself. These clauses are where the real terms live, and they vary by supplier and by commodity, so do not assume a house standard.
Validity window. Quotes state their own expiration. Gear and lighting typically run shorter than commodity pipe and fittings, because the distributor is holding a manufacturer number that expires first. If a validity period is not printed, ask for one in writing.
Quantity the price covers. Job pricing is scoped to quantities. Buy past them and the overage reprices to stock pricing without a phone call.
Freight and delivery point. Freight excluded on a large gear package is not a rounding error.
Returnability. This one is routinely underweighted at quote time. Published distributor return policies commonly make special orders and non-stock items non-returnable and apply a restocking minimum on everything else: one policy sets a minimum 25% restocking fee, requires the manufacturer’s original undamaged carton, and takes no returns on wire cuts or non-stock items; another sets a 15% minimum with no credit at all on cut wire or made-to-order material. If two quotes are close and one is for material you cannot send back, they are not equivalent. The detail is in supply house restocking fees.
Substitutions and approved equals. A quote priced on an equal rather than the specified product is not a like-for-like comparison, and the cost consequences run deeper than the unit price. See what an approved equal does to your material cost.
The four questions to send back in writing
Short email, per quote, before award. Reps answer these all day and the written answer is what you use later.
- “Please confirm this quote includes fuses, lamps, terminations and mounting hardware, or list what is excluded.” Name the specific accessories for the package rather than asking generically.
- “What quantity is this price good for, and what is the price on quantities above that?”
- “What is the expiration date on this quote, and what is the lead time from release?”
- “Is freight included to the job site address, and are any items on this quote non-returnable?”
Four answers in writing turn a quote into something you can hold someone to. They also make the leveling conversation with your rep a normal commercial exchange rather than an accusation.
Then check that the quote is what you were billed
Leveling protects the award decision. It does not protect the job. The number to watch after award is invoiced-to-date against the quote, and again the sharpest statement of it comes from the same contractor: suppliers “may quote the stuff on bid day at say $87,000 but when you add all the total invoices up at the completion of the project they can be from $87,000 to $100,000 or more,” with the control stated in one line: “keep a running tally on what has been invoiced and when it hits the quote amount flag it.”
That tally is a spreadsheet column per package. When invoiced-to-date crosses roughly 85% of the quote and the work is not near complete, somebody asks why. There are only three answers: the takeoff was short, the field is buying loose material against the job that was never in the package, or unit prices moved. The three have different fixes and only one of them is the supplier’s.
The rest of the discipline is ordinary invoice hygiene. Compare each invoice back to the quote line by line, which is the diagnosis in quote versus invoice mismatch. Match invoice, PO and packing slip on receipt rather than at month end, which is three-way matching without an AP department. And when you find a line that does not match, ask for the credit fresh: recent lines get corrected, old ones get explanations, and there is a copyable email for exactly that request.
Keep the relationship, keep the checklist
The same contractor quoted throughout this post closes with the register worth matching: “We use several supply houses. I an friendly to all of them but not friends with any of them. All I want is good materials at a fair price.”
That is the correct posture. Your distributor is fronting cash, chasing manufacturer claims, holding stock and answering the phone at 6:40 in the morning. The relationship is one of the more valuable things a contractor has. Leveling quotes does not damage it. Quoting complete is easier for a supplier than defending an omission six months later, and the ones who are good at it would rather compete on a leveled sheet than win on a gap.
The short version
- Compare adjusted totals, never raw totals. The low quote is often the narrow quote.
- Build the scope sheet from your own takeoff so you do not inherit a supplier’s omissions as your definition of scope.
- Fuses, lamps, terminations, hangers, freight and startup are the usual gaps. Mark each quote included, excluded or not addressed.
- Read the boilerplate: validity date, quantity covered, freight, returnability.
- Send four written questions before award and keep the answers.
- After award, keep a running invoiced-to-date tally against the quote and flag it before it lands.