Pricing A Package When Half The Information's Missing

The Package You're Sent Is Rarely Complete

As a subcontractor you're usually working from a cut down set of drawings and a specification section that references other packages you can't see. That's normal, but it means the first job is working out what you actually need to price your scope properly and what you're missing, not pricing around the gaps and hoping nobody notices.

Raise The Query Before You Price, Not After

If a detail is missing or two drawings contradict each other, raise it as a query straight away rather than assuming and pricing it anyway. An assumption buried in a rate is invisible to everyone else, and it becomes your problem alone once the job is on site and the main contractor's QS is asking why your price doesn't match what got built.

Pricing Around Someone Else's Programme

Your package sits inside someone else's sequence, which means your price has to account for attendances, access restrictions and the knock on effect if another trade runs late. This is where subcontractor prices get squeezed hardest, because none of it shows up clearly on the drawings, it comes from reading the programme and asking the main contractor direct questions.

Measure What You Can, Flag What You Can't

Take off what's shown, measured under NRM2, and keep a separate list of anything priced as an allowance because the information wasn't there. When the main contractor asks for a breakdown, that separation between measured and allowance items is what protects you if the final drawings turn out different from what you priced.

Submitting With Your Exclusions Clear

A subcontractor price lives or dies on its qualifications. State plainly what's excluded, what's assumed, and what's still outstanding at the time of pricing. That list is what you point back to later if the scope shifts, and it's far more useful to you than a price with no notes attached.

If you're pricing a package right now and the information isn't all there yet, Send your drawings and tell us what's missing. If you want to see how we lay out a priced package with exclusions, See a sample estimate.

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