The Three-Tier Quote: good better best quotes that stay profitable

The four steps

The Three-Tier Quote replaces one price with three options for the same job, so the customer's question changes from "yes or no?" to "which one?". It's built in four steps, in this order:

1. Good. The honest fix for today's problem, priced so it still covers your overhead and labor.
2. Best. Everything the customer could want for this job.
3. Better. The option your technician would recommend, which sits between the two.
4. The check. An agent drafts all three from the tech's notes and your price book, and your estimator approves them only when every tier is still profitable.

You build Good and Best first on purpose: they set the edges, and Better is easier to define once you know where the edges are.

Who this is for

HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing companies that quote repairs and replacements on site or from the office, and that lose jobs to a single price the customer can only accept or refuse. It fits replacements (water heaters, systems, panels) best, and also works for repairs with real choices (a patch, a section, a full line).

Why three options

ServiceTitan's own best-practices playbook tells technicians to present customers with at least three options and to mark a recommended option. The reason three works isn't that customers love choosing. It's how people compare. In a well-known 1992 paper in the Journal of Marketing Research, Itamar Simonson and Amos Tversky described extremeness aversion: the attractiveness of an option is enhanced if it is an intermediate option in the set. People lean away from the cheapest and the most expensive and toward the middle. That's why the Best tier isn't only an upsell. It also makes Better look like the sensible choice.

The rule that keeps this honest: every tier has to be a real option you'd be glad to install, and every tier has to make money. Joist's guide to good-better-best pricing puts it plainly: each tier must cover your overhead and labor burden, and each needs clearly defined inclusions.

What you need first

• A price book with your parts, labor and the overhead you load onto every job.
• Your minimum margin per job, written down. The check in step 4 uses it.
• Tech notes from the visit that describe what failed and what else they saw (age, condition, code issues, access).
• A way to show three options on one quote. ServiceTitan uses proposal templates; Jobber has a Quote Options feature in beta, where the client must choose one option in a set. A clear PDF with three columns works too.

The tier worksheet

Fill this in once per job type (water heater replacement, AC replacement, sewer line repair). The agent uses it every time.

	Good	Better	Best
What problem it solves	Today's failure	Today's failure plus the next likely issue the tech found	Everything, with the longest life or warranty
Scope (example: water heater)	Same size tank, haul-away	Same size tank, new shutoff valve, expansion tank	Tankless unit, expansion tank
Must include	Code-required items	Everything in Good	Everything in Better that applies
Labor hours
Parts cost
Overhead per job
Minimum margin met?	yes / no	yes / no	yes / no
Recommended?		yes

Rules for the worksheet:

• Good is not a stripped-down trap. It solves the problem the customer called about and meets code.
• Best is something you'd actually install. If nobody ever buys it, it's still useful as the edge, but it has to be real.
• Better is what the tech would put in their own house. It carries the "Recommended" label.

Build Good (step 1)

Start from the failure. Good is the smallest complete fix: the part or system that failed, the labor to replace it, anything code requires, and nothing else. Price it with your full overhead and labor. If Good doesn't make your minimum margin, the job is underpriced in your price book, and that's the first thing to fix.

Build Best (step 2)

Best answers "what would you do if cost weren't the question?" for this job: the longer-life equipment, the upgrades the tech noted, the longest warranty you offer. Write it in plain words. "Tankless gas unit with expansion tank" beats a model number.

Build Better (step 3)

Better takes Good and adds the one or two items from the tech's notes most likely to bring you back out: the stiff shutoff valve, the missing expansion tank, the corroded fitting next to the part you replaced. It's the option you recommend, so it gets the label.

Run the check (step 4)

An agent drafts all three tiers from the tech's notes, the worksheet and the price book, and a person approves them. Cortex builds every agent so that a person approves before anything goes out. The agent prompt:

You draft three-option quotes for [company] using the tier worksheet for [job type].
Input: the tech's notes, the customer and address, the worksheet, and the price book (with labor rates and overhead per job).
1. Good = the failed item and code-required items only.
2. Best = the worksheet's Best scope for this job type, adjusted to what the notes say fits the home.
3. Better = Good plus the one or two items from the tech's notes most likely to cause a return visit. Mark it Recommended.
4. Price each tier from the price book only. Never invent a price, discount or warranty term.
5. For each tier, show parts, labor, overhead and margin. If any tier is under the minimum margin of [X], flag it and do not adjust prices yourself.
Output the three tiers and the margin table for the estimator. Do not send.

The estimator reviews the margin table first, then the scopes, then the wording. Only when every tier clears the minimum does the quote go to the customer.

What to watch out for

• Fake tiers. Three options that differ only in a label invite distrust. Each tier needs a real difference in scope.
• Too many choices. Three is the number. Add-ons can go on the side, not as more tiers.
• Borrowed numbers. You'll see vendor claims about how many customers pick the middle tier or how much tickets go up. They aren't independent studies; don't put them in front of customers.
• Margin drift. Re-check the worksheet when part prices change, or Good quietly stops making money.

How to tell it's working

For each quote, record which tier the customer chose, or that they declined. After a month, look at two things: how often a quote ends in a flat decline, and whether any tier is never chosen. A tier nobody picks needs a new scope; a lot of declines on Good-only jobs means the visit isn't producing enough notes to build the other two. For how this fits with following up on quotes that go quiet, start with your free AI Operations Audit.