Getting fabrication work from builders and contractors: when to quote and when to pass

A contractor sends a PDF of staircases, balcony railings and a lift-well frame for a G+12 project and wants your per-kg rate by evening. Payment, the contractor says, is "as per standard terms". On site that means running bills, a part of each bill held back as retention, and money when the builder pays the contractor. Quote only after you have fixed four terms: an advance for material, how the weight is counted, how long the rate holds, and when retention comes back. If the contractor refuses the advance and other suppliers say payment is late, pass.

What a builder job looks like after you win it

The quote is compared, per kg, with the cheapest welder working out of a shed near the site. You win on rate, and then the job changes shape.

The drawings you priced are revised twice. The steel you bought for the first tower costs more by the time the second tower's drawings arrive. Your erection team reaches site to find no power point, no crane and the plasterers working on the same floor. Each running bill is measured by the contractor's engineer, who counts what is erected, not what you fabricated and stacked at site. And the contractor pays when the builder pays, which is the slowest payment chain in the trade. The cash side of this is covered in our note on advertising to builders and developers; here the question is the decision before the quote.

None of this is dishonest. It is how the contractor protects the contractor's own cash from the builder. But if your quote does not answer it, every one of those costs lands on you.

Fix these terms before you price anything

Write them on one page and send that page with every builder or contractor quotation, before the rates.

1. Advance for material. A stated share of the order value against the steel you will buy for this job. Without it you are financing the project.
2. How weight is counted. Drawing weight, or weighed at your shop with a weighbridge slip at dispatch. If weight is measured at site, the contractor's engineer does the measuring, so agree the method in writing first.
3. Rate validity. The rate holds for a stated number of days from the quote, tied to the steel price on your purchase invoice. After that it moves with the steel.
4. Retention and its release. How much is held, and the date or event that releases it. "Project completion" is not a date.
5. Fabrication and erection priced apart. The contractor can then give erection to a local team, and your fabrication rate stays clean.
6. Site facilities. Who provides power, scaffolding, lifting, storage and a watchman for your material. Each one missing is a day your team waits.
7. Paint and finish. Primer only, primer and enamel, or galvanised. Contractors drop the finish line to make your rate look high against a rival who left it out.

The first four decide whether the job pays. The last three decide whether it runs.

Quote, quote with conditions, or pass: the first-call rule

Ask these on the first call, before the drawing goes to your estimator.

• Who pays you? The developer directly, or a contractor waiting on the developer.
• Is the drawing marked good for construction? Or is it "tentative, just give a rate".
• Will you pay an advance for material?
• Is the site ready for erection? Access for a truck, power, and a hoist or crane for the upper floors.
• Who else on this site has supplied you before? You will call them.

Then apply the rule. Quote when the payer is clear, the drawing is final and an advance is agreed. Quote with conditions when the drawing is tentative or the site is not ready: price fabrication only, add a revision clause, and leave erection out. Pass when there is no advance and two suppliers on the contractor's sites tell you payment runs late. Pass too when the caller wants only a per-kg rate and will not send the drawing. That caller is collecting rates for someone else.

Asking these in the first reply is lead qualification at its simplest, and the estimator gets the answers with the enquiry.

For example: a Jeedimetla fabricator and a Kompally tower

Imagine a structural fabricator in Jeedimetla, Hyderabad, asked by a civil contractor for railings, staircases and a terrace shed on an apartment project in Kompally. The owner quoted an all-in per-kg rate covering fabrication, erection and enamel paint. No advance, no validity, retention "at completion".

The drawings changed after the first tower. Steel went up before the second. The erection team lost days waiting for a hoist. The third running bill was still unpaid when the contractor asked the shop to start the balcony grills.

On the next contractor job the owner changed the order of things. The terms page went first, with an advance for material, weighbridge weight at dispatch, the rate valid for a stated number of days, and erection priced on a separate line. The contractor accepted everything except a shorter retention period. So the owner priced the cost of carrying that retention into the rate and said so in the quote. The shop lost one job to a cheaper welder that season and did not miss it.

When builder work is worth chasing at all

It is worth it when you have spare capacity in a slack period and a developer who pays you directly. A developer's projects head who brings you in before the steel package is let to a contractor is a different customer from a contractor ringing round for rates. If you do not know how to reach that person, qualified business introductions is the service to ask about.

Skip it when your shop is full of plant and OEM work that pays on its terms. Builder work is the first thing to drop when capacity is short, because it is the work most likely to tie up cash and people at the same time. Plant maintenance teams, OEMs and panel builders are the steadier customers for a sheet metal and fabrication shop, and they are the ones to protect.

Write the terms page tonight

Write it even by hand, and attach it to the next builder or contractor enquiry before you open the drawing. Note which terms each contractor refuses. After a handful of enquiries you will know which ones you quote and which ones you thank and pass. When you would rather have the first-call questions and the terms page built into how every enquiry is answered, tell us what you need.