How to Compare Three Quotes
Most homeowners collect three quotes and compare three totals. Those totals are not comparable, and the cheapest one is usually the one that assumed the least.
The allowance method
A full gut of one bathroom in the United States runs $11,500-24,000 in 2026, so a spread of more than about $6,000 between three quotes usually means they are not pricing the same job.
Ask for a rate rather than a reassurance on the unknowns: rotted subfloor at the toilet flange runs $600-2,200 across the United States and nobody can see it before the toilet comes out.
Roughly 20-28% of a United States full-gut budget is plumbing and electrical - the part you cannot negotiate, because it is what the house needs.
An allowance is the sum a contractor has assumed for an item you have not chosen yet. If contractor A assumed a $600 vanity and contractor B assumed $1,800, the difference in their totals tells you nothing whatsoever about either of them.
- Write down your own allowances before you speak to anyone: tile per square foot, vanity, faucet, toilet, shower glass, lighting.
- Give the identical figures to every contractor. State that they are allowances and that you want them used.
- Ask each one, in writing, what they have assumed about the plumbing behind the wall. This is the question that separates them.
- Ask what is excluded. The exclusions list tells you more about a contractor than the price does.
- Ask what happens to the price if something is found once the wall is open - and get a rate, not a reassurance.
In the United States a quote on a pre-1950 house is a forecast, not a measurement. Good contractors handle that either by building in a contingency and saying so, or by naming a rate for the unknowns.
The quote to be wary of is the confident flat number with no mention of unknowns. That is not a better price - it is the same risk, undeclared, and it reappears halfway through the job.
Five questions worth asking every time
- title
- items
The third question deserves emphasis. Cement board is a backer that tolerates moisture; it is not waterproofing. A contractor who names the membrane system without being pushed is telling you something useful about how they work.
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