---
title: When the cheapest quote is the expensive one
description: A quote that comes in far below the others is telling you something. What gets cut to hit a low number, and how to compare quotes honestly.
date: 2026-06-15
updated: 2026-06-15
tags: [quotes, vendors]
url: "https://joshdargie.com/blog/too-cheap-quote"
author: Josh Dargie
---

Three quotes come in for the same project: $18,000, $21,000, and $9,500. Most people feel a little thrill at the third one. After twenty years of watching these projects play out, I feel something closer to dread.

A quote dramatically below the others is not a bargain. It is information. Either the low bidder understands the job differently than everyone else, or they plan to make up the difference somewhere you cannot see yet. Both are worth understanding before you sign anything.

## Where the missing money comes from

A vendor who cuts the price roughly in half did not discover a way to do the same work for half the cost. Their materials cost what everyone's materials cost. Their techs need to be paid like everyone's techs. The money comes out of the job, and it comes out of predictable places.

Materials get quietly downgraded: thinner cable, no-name switches, the camera model two generations back. Labour gets compressed, which in practice means the junior crew, rushed terminations, and nobody testing anything before they leave. Scope gets shaved: the quote covers installation but not configuration, or configuration but not documentation, and the removal of your old equipment turns out to be extra. And the invisible line items vanish entirely: labelling, as-built drawings, proper firmware updates, a warranty that means something.

Here is the part people miss: the low bidder is often not lying. They genuinely intend to do the job for that price. It is just a smaller job than the one you think you are buying.

## Change orders: the real price arrives later

The other way a low number becomes a high number is the change order. Some firms bid low deliberately, knowing the contract is won at the quoted price but the profit is made on everything that comes up after.

Once a vendor is halfway through your walls or your migration, your negotiating position is gone. Every "we didn't know about that" and "that wasn't in scope" gets priced accordingly, and switching vendors mid-project costs more than paying up. I have seen $9,500 projects invoice out past the $18,000 bid that was rejected as too expensive, with more friction and a worse result.

A tight, detailed quote protects you from this. A vague one invites it. Vagueness in a low bid is not sloppiness; it is the business model.

## How to compare quotes honestly

The mistake is comparing bottom-line numbers. Quotes can only be compared line by line, and the lines that are missing matter more than the ones that are there.

Put the quotes side by side and force them onto the same scope. Exact equipment models, not categories, so you can check what each vendor actually specified. Labour: who is doing the work and what testing is included. What happens after installation: configuration, documentation, training, and how long the workmanship warranty runs. Then ask each vendor the same question about anything another vendor included and they did not: "Is this included, and if not, what does it cost?"

Do this and the $9,500 quote usually reprices itself somewhere near the others, once it covers the same job. When it does not, ask the low bidder to walk you through how. Occasionally there is a real answer: lower overhead, a slow month, gear they already stock. A vendor with a real answer will give it happily. A vendor without one will get vague, and I have written before about [the red flags that show up in network quotes](/blog/network-quote-red-flags); vagueness under questioning is near the top of the list.

Cheap infrastructure also fails on a delay. The rushed termination works on day one and gets flaky in year two, when the warranty is done and the vendor is unreachable. You end up paying twice: once for the cheap install, once for the fix.

## Paying for the quote you throw away

None of this means the highest quote wins, or that every low bid hides a trap. It means price is the last thing to compare, not the first. The cheapest quote that covers the actual job is a great outcome. The cheapest quote, full stop, is just the one with the most missing from it.

If you have quotes in hand and the spread between them is making the decision hard, this is exactly what my [second opinion service](/hire#second-opinion) is for: a fixed-fee, vendor-neutral read of what each quote actually contains, before you sign the one that costs you double.