Quote
The contractor's offer: their price, their scope, their terms, binding on them once you accept
A quote is the contractor’s offer, and your acceptance of it forms the contract. That is the distinction in one line: an estimate predicts, a quote commits. Finland calls it a tarjous, Sweden an offert, the Netherlands an offerte, and in each the same thing holds. Once you accept, the price and the scope written into it are the deal.
A price is not a quote
What lands in a homeowner’s inbox is often a price rather than a quote: one number, no described scope. It reads like a quote and functions like an opening position, because a figure with no described scope cannot be exceeded or fallen short of. There is nothing in it to measure the finished work against.
This is what breaks the three-quotes habit: two numbers can only be compared if they describe the same work, and a one-line price describes none. The guide to reading a contractor quote sets out what a usable one contains.
Where confusing it costs money
You accept the cheapest of three quotes, and it turns out to be the only one that excluded scaffolding, waste removal or making good. The others were dearer because they were complete.
Treat the quote as the whole of your protection and no ceiling ever gets set. A quote binds the contractor to their offer; it says nothing about what happens when the job turns out to need more than the offer covered.
Sibling frame: estimate, which predicts and in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands carries a statutory tolerance: they may go over, but only so far. Then mandate, which is your instruction rather than their offer, and time and materials, the basis to ask for when the scope cannot be pinned down in advance.
Common questions
Can a contractor raise the price after I accept their quote?
Not for the work the quote already covers: in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands a quote binds the contractor once you accept it, and that is what accepting settles. What they can charge for is scope you asked them to add. Of the three, the Netherlands codifies the boundary most tightly: client-requested extra work is chargeable only where you approved it demonstrably in writing, and the contractor must normally warn you first that the change raises the price (Burgerlijk Wetboek 7:755). A mid-job surprise from unforeseen circumstances is a separate route, where only a court may adjust the price (7:753).
I was sent a price, not a quote. Does that matter?
It matters most at the invoice. A one-line total commits the contractor to a number without committing them to a scope, so any work later held to be outside that scope becomes an addition rather than a shortfall. The price came back; the description of what it buys did not. Ask for the same figure broken into scope of work, materials with brand and grade, labour, VAT, and the hourly rate that applies to anything extra. If the scope does not come back in writing, treat that as a term left open rather than a paperwork question, and ask again before you accept.