Small Business & Freelance · Mobile
VanQuote: a quoting app for electricians who work out of a van
Quotes, scheduling, and invoices you finish in the van before the next job.
VanQuote is a quoting app for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC techs who run a one-person or two-person shop. You price the job in the van, send the quote, book the slot, and invoice from the same screen.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does VanQuote solve?
You quote from the seat of the van, on a notepad on the dash, or in a text message you type with one thumb while the customer waits. The price comes out of your head. Later you write it up properly, or you do not, and the job goes ahead on a handshake and a number nobody wrote down. Then the paperwork stacks up behind the work. A panel upgrade you quoted on Tuesday is still a photo on your phone on Friday. The invoice for the water heater you swapped last week goes out at ten at night, if it goes out at all. The day ended in a crawl space, not at a desk. Customers ring to ask what the price included and you cannot remember whether the disconnect and the permit were in it. Winning work and getting paid both depend on a written number, and the written number keeps arriving late.
Quote builder
Line items, tax, and deposit in; a clean printable quote out. Nothing is stored.
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would VanQuote do?
VanQuote would put the whole job on one phone screen. You build a quote from a price book you set up once: a socket, a light fitting, a consumer unit swap, a condenser changeout, each with your labor and your materials. Photos from the site attach to the line they explain. The customer approves by tapping a link, and the approved quote becomes a booked slot on your week without you retyping anything. When you mark the job complete, the invoice goes out with the same line items, so the price the customer agreed is the price they see. Deposits, part payments, and a materials markup you control are all part of the same record. Drafts are written on the device, so a basement with no signal costs you nothing but a few minutes.
How would it work?
- 1Set up a price book once with your common jobs, labor rates, and materials.
- 2Photograph the work, pick the lines, and send the quote before you pull off the drive.
- 3Let the customer approve by link, which drops the job onto your week.
- 4Mark the job complete and the invoice goes out with the agreed lines.
Who is it for?
- Solo electricians who quote between calls and do the paperwork after the kids are in bed.
- Plumbers running a van and an apprentice, with no office and nobody to chase invoices.
- HVAC techs quoting changeouts and service plans on the spot, in a customer's driveway.
How do you build a job quote template and price book on your phone today?
Build the template once, at the kitchen table, not at the job. Open a notes app or a document on your phone. The skeleton is short: your name and license number, the customer and address, a scope line in plain words. Under that goes a table with description, quantity, rate, and line total. Then your standard terms: what the price excludes, how long it holds, the deposit, and how you take payment. Save it as a template you copy, not a file you overwrite. Now write the price book. List the jobs you actually do most. A double socket added to an existing ring, a bathroom extractor, a consumer unit change, a tap swap, a capacitor, a full changeout. Against each one put the hours you really take, your labor rate, and the parts at today's merchant price. That list is what lets you quote in four minutes instead of forty. Keep both files in a folder that syncs and put a shortcut on your home screen. On site, photograph the board, the meter, the access, and anything that will cost extra later. Copy the template, drop in the price book lines, and adjust the hours for what you just saw. Send it as a PDF before you leave the driveway. A quote that arrives while the customer is still in the hallway beats a better quote sent on Sunday. Number your quotes and keep them in one folder, because that number becomes the invoice number. Every fortnight, open the price book and update anything the merchant has put up. The weakness of this setup is that nothing links. The quote does not become a booking, and the invoice is a retype. It still works, and it works tonight.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| Field service software built for crews | Dispatch boards, technician tracking, price books, and reporting for a company with several trucks and a dispatcher. | Priced and shaped for that company. A one-person shop pays for a dispatcher it does not have and loses a week to setup. |
| Small business accounting software | Estimates, invoices, expenses, and tax-ready records in one ledger, with a phone app that works. | Built around the books. Line items are typed one by one, and site photos, approvals, and the day's schedule sit outside it. |
| A notes app and a quote template | Free, instant, and yours. Works with no signal, needs no setup, and nobody can raise the price of it. | Nothing carries forward. You retype the same lines into the invoice, and no list tells you which quotes are still open. |
| A carbonless duplicate quote book | Cheap, legible, and handed over on the spot. The customer keeps a copy and you keep one on the dash. | The copy fades in the van, nothing is searchable, and the invoice gets written out again by hand a week later. |
What would it cost?
Solo
$29/mo
- One tech, unlimited quotes and invoices
- Price book you set up once
- Photo quotes and approval by link
- No cut of any job
Two vans
$49/mo
- Everything in Solo
- A second tech on a shared day map
- Text reminders to customers
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build VanQuote.
Questions people ask
What is a quoting app for electricians?
A quoting app for electricians builds a priced quote on a phone from a price book of common jobs, attaches site photos, and sends it to the customer for approval. VanQuote would carry that approval through to a booked slot and an invoice with the same lines.
Does this work for plumbers and HVAC techs too?
Yes. The price book is yours to write, so a cylinder swap, a rodded drain, or a condenser changeout all sit in the same structure. The name says electricians because that is the trade that searches for this most.
Will it work in a basement with no signal?
Quotes, photos, and job notes are written on the phone first, so nothing waits for a connection. Sending happens when signal returns, which is usually by the time you are back in the van.
Does VanQuote take a percentage of each job?
No. The subscription is the whole price. Card processing carries its own fee from whoever you use to take payment, and that fee is theirs, not ours.
How is this different from field service software?
Field service suites are built around a dispatcher assigning work to several technicians, with the reporting an owner needs. VanQuote assumes there is no dispatcher and no office. One person, a phone, and the ten minutes between jobs.
Can I keep my own wording and terms?
Yes. Your terms, exclusions, validity period, and deposit rules sit on the template and print on every quote. Line descriptions come from your price book, in your words, at your rates.
When will VanQuote launch?
There is no date. VanQuote gets built only if enough tradespeople join this waitlist and say they would pay for it. Joining costs nothing, and the quote builder on this page is free whatever happens.
Where does this stand?
VanQuote is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.