Free ways to make a quote, compared honestly
There are at least five ways to produce a quote without spending anything. They are not equivalent, and the difference is almost always how many minutes each one costs you per job.
Prices below are as published at the time of writing; always check the vendor's own page.
| Approach | Cost | Time per quote | Remembers your data | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text message with a price | Free | 30 seconds | No | None |
| Spreadsheet you built | Free | 3–10 minutes | Partly | An evening |
| Word, Pages or Canva template | Free | 5–15 minutes | No | Some |
| Downloadable PDF template | Free | 5–15 minutes | No | None |
| Free accounting suite (e.g. Zoho Invoice) | Free | 2–5 minutes | Yes | Tax, accounts, reports, customers |
| Paid invoice app (e.g. Invoice Simple) | From about $6.99/month | 1–3 minutes | Yes | Account, then learn the app |
| QuoteSnap | Free plan, or $4.99/month | About 30 seconds | Yes | None to try; account at send |
If you quote once a month, use a template
Honestly: if you send one or two quotes a month, a downloaded PDF or a spreadsheet is fine. It costs nothing and you already know how to use it. Speed only starts to matter when quoting is routine.
You can download nine free templates here — including blank quote, estimate and receipt versions.
If you quote every week, the time is the cost
Ten minutes of formatting per quote, four times a week, is most of an hour. Over a year that is a working week spent retyping addresses and re-adding the same lines. That is usually the point at which a paid tool pays for itself — and it is why the paid invoice apps can charge for it.
Free suites are genuinely good, and heavier
Zoho Invoice is free and includes payments, expenses, reports and a customer portal. If you want a back-office system, use it — it is a real product and it is free. The trade-off is configuration: tax settings, accounts, and a customer list before your first quote goes out. QuoteSnap deliberately has none of that: no payments, no tax determination, no reports. It formats the document and gets out of the way.
What actually matters when you choose
- Can you send it from your phone, in the same app your customer already uses?
- Does it remember the customer and the lines you charge for, so the next quote is faster?
- Does it work when you have no signal, on a driveway or in a basement?
- Can you get your data out, and delete it, without asking anyone?