How long should I wait before following up on an estimate?

The instinct says give them space — a week, maybe two, then a light check-in. The instinct is calibrated to not-being-annoying, which is the wrong variable. The right variable is when the decision actually happens.

The decision happens early

A homeowner collecting bids does the real comparing in the first days after the last quote arrives — while the walkthroughs are fresh, the spouse is engaged, and the project has momentum. The measured pattern in our data is blunt about timing: inquiries handled fast booked at nearly three times the rate of ones that waited, and threads that went quiet stayed winnable (67% when re-engaged) but only for whoever actually asked. A week-two follow-up isn't polite. It's posthumous — the deciding happened in the window you sat out.

The cadence that works

Day two: the walk-through offer — a text offering to explain the number ("most folks ask about X"). It arrives inside the comparison window carrying help, not pressure. Day five: the direct check-in — a short call; decisions stall on small unresolved things a two-minute conversation clears. Week two, then monthly: the long tail — brief touches for the genuinely-deferring, each carrying the one-tap no. The sequence ends when the customer decides, not when you get busy — which is why it has to be scheduled, not remembered.

"Won't the fast follow-up seem eager?"

Day-two contact reads as on-the-ball — the same trait they hired the walkthrough to evaluate. Think about what the silence communicates instead: a shop that measured, priced, and then didn't care enough to ask. Customers regularly choose the contractor who seemed to want the job; the day-two toucher is the only one visibly wanting it.

Measure your real cadence

Most shops believe they follow up "within a week-ish." The free score scores what actually happens; the $500 discovery measures your true post-quote timeline, touch by touch, timestamped. The gap between believed and measured cadence is usually the whole finding.