Getting an estimate approved in writing

The customer calls and says "yeah, sounds good, can you start Tuesday?" You order the water heater, block two days on the calendar and pull the permit. Tuesday afternoon they ask why there is a charge for an expansion tank, and say they thought the price was the one from the first estimate, before your second visit.

Nothing dishonest is happening. Two people remember a phone call differently, and neither has anything to point at.

What a verbal yes actually leaves you holding

In most states an oral agreement for ordinary work is a real contract. The problem is almost never validity — it is proof. You have a conversation, they have a conversation, and the person deciding is a judge or a small-claims magistrate who was on neither call.

Two things can make it worse than a proof problem. Many states require home improvement contracts above a low dollar threshold to be in writing and signed. In some of those states, working without one exposes you to license discipline, or weakens your ability to collect or to perfect a mechanic's lien. Separately, most states' statute of frauds requires a writing for agreements that cannot be performed within one year — relevant on phased remodels and long-lead jobs. Both are state law and both vary. Your state contractor licensing board publishes the version that applies to you.

What a written approval has to pin down

A written approval only helps if it fixes the argument in place. "Approved" in an email body, with no version and no total, moves the dispute from what was said to which estimate was meant.

Here is what a usable record looks like on a water heater change-out:

The version number is the field people skip and the field that saves them. If you revised the estimate after a second site visit, "approved" without a revision letter is exactly the ambiguity you were trying to close.

Text you can put above the signature line, adapted to your own terms:

By approving below you accept the scope, exclusions and total price shown on Estimate 2026-0418 rev B dated August 12, 2026 ($2,485.00). Work not described above is handled as a change order, priced and approved in writing before it starts. This estimate is valid for 30 days from the date shown.

Approved by (print) ______________ Signature ______________ Date __________

Are e-signatures and click-to-approve valid?

Generally yes, for ordinary commercial agreements. The federal ESIGN Act provides that a signature, contract or record relating to a transaction is not denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is electronic. Nearly every state has adopted a version of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), which does the same at state level; New York uses its own electronic signature statute instead. A typed name, a drawn signature or a clicked Approve button can all qualify.

What these laws generally look for, in plain terms:

• Intent. The person meant the act to be their signature. A button labeled "Approve this estimate" reads better than one labeled "OK."
• Agreement to transact electronically. Both sides are doing business this way. Sending the estimate by email and getting it back approved by email is usually the evidence of that.
• Attribution. Something ties the act to that person — their email address, a timestamp, an access log. This is the part a photo of a signature in a text message does not give you.
• A retainable copy. The customer can keep or print the record. If they cannot get a copy back later, you have a weaker record too.

There are carve-outs. ESIGN excludes categories such as wills, certain family law matters, some UCC provisions, and specified notices like utility shutoffs and foreclosure on a primary residence. Trade work rarely lands in those. The realistic exception for contractors is a state home improvement statute that specifies a signed written contract or a particular delivery method — a separate question from whether an e-signature is valid at all.

When paying a deposit counts as acceptance

Contract law generally allows acceptance by conduct. A customer who reads your estimate, sends a deposit referencing it and lets you start has, in most ordinary situations, behaved like someone who accepted the terms. A court can weigh that.

Treat it as a backstop, not a substitute. A payment proves money moved. It does not prove which revision they had in hand, whether they read the exclusions, or that they saw the change-order clause. Put the estimate number and revision on the deposit receipt, and confirm in writing what the deposit is being applied to.

Deposits carry their own state rules. California's licensing board, for example, caps the down payment on most home improvement contracts at $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract price, whichever is less. Other states set their own caps or escrow requirements, and some require specific language about what the deposit covers. Check your state's rule before you set a standard deposit percentage.

When an approved estimate is not the contract you need

An approved estimate is a strong scope-and-price record. On larger residential work it is often not the document your state expects.

Write a fuller contract once the job crosses your state's home improvement contract threshold — those thresholds are frequently in the hundreds of dollars, not the thousands. Also when:

• Your state requires notices an estimate has no room for: cancellation rights, lien-law disclosures, license number placement.
• Payment runs on milestones rather than a deposit and a final bill.
• You sold at the customer's kitchen table. Federal and state home-solicitation rules can give a few days to cancel, and may require you to hand over a written cancellation notice.
• You are subbing under a general contractor's own subcontract terms.
• The schedule runs past a year.

Keep both documents rather than choosing between them. The estimate carries the scope and the numbers; the contract carries the notices your state requires. Have a local construction attorney read your standard terms once. This guide is general business information, not legal advice, and every rule above varies by state.

Keeping the approval attached to the version it approved

In DoneQuote the customer approves from the link on the estimate you sent, and the approval is recorded against that version with its date and time. When someone says "that is not what I agreed to," you are both looking at the same document.

The moment to check is before money leaves your account

A soft yes starts costing you the moment you order material. Before the supply house run, check that you can point at a written approval naming the estimate number and revision. If the job is over your state's written-contract threshold, the contract has to be signed too — not only the estimate approved.