Three quotes on the table, a 40% gap between the first and the last, and one question: how can the same job be worth such different amounts? The answer fits in one sentence that changes the way you compare: the cheapest quote is often not cheaper, it allows for fewer hours. The question is whether those hours will be missed.
First, a market reference point: in 2026, a joiner in France charges on average €40 to €60 per hour before VAT, a plumber €40 to €70, a mason €35 to €70. The differences in hourly rates between artisans in the same region are actually modest. So where do the 30 or 40% gaps between two quotes come from? Almost never from the hourly rate. Almost always from the number of hours allowed and the scope covered.
Take two honest artisans at the same hourly rate. The first allows one day: he fits, he leaves. The second allows two: he protects the floors and the furniture, he makes good the surfaces before fitting, he takes care over the finishing, he cleans up, he comes back to check. The second is 40% more expensive on paper. He is not more expensive per hour: he works more hours. And those hours, the ones you cannot see in the final photo, are precisely the ones that mean nobody has to come back in two years.
When a client tells me a colleague is cheaper, I never criticise him: I offer to compare what the two quotes contain, line by line. Is the of the old fittings included? Clearing away the rubble? The paint touch-ups around the new joinery? Are the materials named, with their brand and range, or hidden behind a single 'supply and fit' line? Nine times out of ten, the price gap disappears once you align the scopes. I have set out this method in how to read a building quote.
An honest low price exists. But consumer associations and the DGCCRF, France's consumer fraud watchdog, have documented the same patterns in building disputes for years, and almost all of them start with an abnormally attractive price. Here is the checklist:
And the final risk, the one nobody thinks about when signing: construction is the sector with the most business failures in France. The chronic lowest bidder, the one selling below cost, ends up filing for bankruptcy, sometimes in the middle of your project, often before your ten years of warranty are up. The lowest price can then become, by a very long way, the most expensive.
My honest opinion: I am generally not the cheapest quote, and I stand by that, because I know where my hours go: into preparation, protection, finishing and not having to come back. But I will never tell you 'the cheapest is bound to be bad': that is the corporatist reflex of artisans, and it is lazy. I am telling you something else: insist on understanding the gap. An artisan who knows what he is selling can explain his price, item by item, without taking offence. The one who cannot, whether he is expensive or cheap, is not in control of his job. What the price of a day's work really covers, I have set out in black and white in what a day of an artisan's work really costs.
No. A cheaper quote can be perfectly honest: lighter overheads, a schedule to fill, an artisan who is faster on that type of work. What should alert you is not a low price, it is an inconsistent price: well below all the others, with vague line items, unspecified materials or a large deposit demanded. A gap can be explained; if the artisan cannot explain it, be wary.
Because they are not selling the same thing: a different number of hours (preparation, protection, finishing), materials from a different range, different overheads, and sometimes a different scope (removal of the old fittings, waste disposal, touch-ups included or not). At the same hourly rate, the one who allows two more days will inevitably be more expensive, and he may well be the one who estimated the work correctly.
Three scenarios come up again and again in the disputes documented by consumer associations: extra charges during the work for everything that was not written down, materials of lower quality than you imagined, or, worst of all, a large deposit cashed in and then an abandoned site. And if the business goes under, your warranties are only worth anything if its insurance was in order at the time of the work.
Bring me the quotes you have: I will explain the gaps line by line, even if you do not sign with me. A client who understands what they are buying is my best advertising. I speak English, so feel free to call or write in English.
+33 6 03 57 45 47Reply within 48 hours, or in writing: contact@agencementklein.fr
