The quote you should not write

A quote costs an hour or two. That is not the point.

The cost of a job that goes badly is not the quote, it is the six weeks behind it: the unplanned rounds, the chasing, the payment that drags, and the energy not going anywhere else. So the question is not "who to say no to", it is where to spend your two hours.

One thing before the signals: none of what follows is a judgement about anybody. They are observable behaviours, each with a mechanism that explains why it costs, and most are settled by a conversation rather than a refusal.

The six signals, and why they cost

1. A quote is asked for before the project exists

"How much for a website?", with no answer to anything else.

The mechanism: you would be pricing a hypothesis, and any number written down becomes an anchor. The client will remember "two thousand" and treat everything after it as an overrun, including things they never mentioned.

What to do: not refuse. Send the questions instead. If they come back filled in, the project exists and you have saved yourself an hour of discovery. If they do not come back, it did not exist, and it cost you one email. It is the cheapest filter in this article.

2. Nobody can say who decides

You ask who signs off besides the person you are talking to, and the answer is vague.

The mechanism: rounds multiply, mechanically, as in how many rounds of feedback to plan for. Vagueness about the decision-maker is vagueness paid for in unplanned rounds on a project already signed, which is the worst possible moment.

What to do: press once, gently. If the vagueness persists, plan an extra round and charge for it.

3. Urgency with no reason behind it

"It's very urgent", and behind it there is neither a date nor an event on that date.

The mechanism: urgency with no cause is almost always somebody who is late, and their lateness is about to become your deadline. You inherit a timetable that was already impossible before you arrived.

What to do: the question from five questions to ask before writing a quote, always the same one: what happens that day? If there is no answer, the urgency is not one, and saying so calmly is often enough to make it disappear.

4. Price is the first subject, and the only one

Here you have to be precise, because the signal is easy to misread.

Caring about price is legitimate and universal: everybody does it, good clients included, you included when you buy. The signal is not that it comes up, it is that nothing else does, across three exchanges, with no other subject appearing.

The mechanism: whatever the conversation is about before signature is what it will be about afterwards. A project whose only subject is price will have price as its only subject when the extras, the balance and the deadline come up.

What to do: give a range early, and watch for a second subject. If one appears, all is well. If none does, you know.

5. The predecessor is described as incompetent

The mechanism: sometimes it is true, and there is nothing to conclude from it. What matters is that this is the one signal that repeats: if a client has already described two suppliers as incompetent, the chance of your being the third is not zero.

What to do: listen to the rest of the story without judging, as in taking over somebody else's project. What you will mostly learn is what this client expected without saying so, which is the most useful information anybody ever gives you free.

6. Requests arrive through three different channels

An email, a voice note, a text at ten at night.

The mechanism: this is not bad manners, and reading it that way misses the information. It predicts that nothing will ever be written down in one place, so "we agreed that" will happen, and two people will be honestly certain of different things.

What to do: one channel, stated once, without reproach. "For anything about the project, write to me here, that way we can find everything." It works in the great majority of cases, which makes this the least serious of the six.

Three signals that alarm people for nothing

These get read as red flags and are usually good news.

Somebody who negotiates hard once, then stops. That is a professional buyer. They did their job, you did yours, and then they do not come back to it. Often the best clients.

Somebody who asks a lot of detailed questions. Almost always somebody who will answer yours, which is exactly what you need. A curious client is a client who fills in their brief.

Somebody who states a small budget plainly. That is honesty, and it is not a client problem: it is a scope problem. Reduce the scope or say no, but do not count it as a bad sign.

The filter that settles five of the six

One paragraph, and it is the practical conclusion of the whole article: the paid first step.

A priced scoping session, half a day, three hundred, with written output. It settles the first signal (the project becomes real), the second (the decision-makers surface), the third (the urgency meets an actual calendar), the fourth (somebody who only talks about price does not buy it) and the sixth (you set the channel by starting).

And it does so without any judgement at all: you decided nothing about anybody, you offered a small piece of work. It is the arrangement described in could you show me a first idea?, and this is where it pays best.

When you say yes anyway

This needs saying, because an article that assumes you can always refuse is an article useless to whoever needs it most. You are starting out, the month is thin, the rent is due on the 5th.

So you say yes differently. Five adjustments, and they are enough:

• A larger deposit. Fifty per cent rather than thirty.
• A shorter scope. Deliver the first stage alone, with the rest as an option. A small commitment that goes wrong costs little.
• One more round of feedback, priced in rather than hoped for.
• One channel, stated in the first message.
• Everything written down. What is included, what is not, what you need, and what happens if it stops, as in a client cancels midway through.

That is not a refusal, it is a differently shaped yes. And it is the only thing in this article that works when you have no choice.

Frequently asked questions

How do you spot a client who will be expensive?

By observable behaviours rather than a feeling: a quote asked for before the project exists, nobody able to say who decides, urgency with no date, price as the only subject across three exchanges, a predecessor described as incompetent, and requests arriving through three channels.

Should you refuse a client who only talks about price?

Not straight away. Caring about price is universal; the signal is that no other subject appears across three exchanges. Give a range early and watch for a second subject.

What do you do when a prospect asks for a quote with no detail?

Send the questions rather than a number. If they come back filled in, the project exists and you saved an hour. If they do not, it did not exist, and it cost you one email.

Which signals worry people needlessly?

Three: somebody who negotiates hard once then stops, which is a professional buyer; somebody who asks lots of questions, who will answer yours; and somebody who states a small budget plainly, which is a scope problem rather than a client problem.

How do you accept a risky job instead of refusing it?

Five adjustments: a fifty per cent deposit, a scope cut back to the first stage with the rest optional, one extra round already priced, a single channel stated at the outset, and everything written down including what happens if it stops.