You Have Unsold Estimates Sitting in Workiz Right Now (Here's How to Close Them)

The average home service company has a 35-50% estimate close rate, according to Jobber’s 2024 industry report. That means for every 100 estimates you send, 50-65 people said “let me think about it” and you never heard from them again.

Those unsold estimates aren’t gone. They’re sitting in your Workiz account right now, aging silently while the customers who requested them move on. Every day you don’t follow up, the odds of closing them drop.

How much money is sitting in your unsold estimates

Pull up your Workiz estimates tab right now and count the ones marked as open or pending. Multiply that number by your average job size.

If you have 10 open estimates at $2,500 average, that’s $25,000 in potential revenue. Twenty open estimates at $4,000 average? $80,000. Most contractors we talk to have no idea this number exists because they never look at it.

A roofing contractor on ContractorTalk started doing exactly this math and realized he had 22 estimates over 30 days old still sitting in his system. He called every single one. Eight of those 22 customers were still interested and hadn’t hired anyone else. He closed them for a combined $34,000 in revenue from leads he’d already forgotten about.

That’s revenue with zero additional marketing spend. No new ads, no new leads, no new website traffic. Just phone calls to people who already told you they wanted the work done.

Why estimates go stale

Unsold estimates rarely die because your price was wrong. They die because the customer moved on while you were busy doing other things.

Here’s what actually happens after you send an estimate. The customer gets it, thinks “that seems reasonable,” and sets it aside to deal with later. Three days pass. They get busy with work. A week goes by. Now they can’t find the estimate in their email. Another contractor calls them. That contractor books the job.

ServiceTitan reports that contractors who follow up within 24 hours close 60% more estimates than those who wait. Speed matters more than price for most residential jobs.

A garage door company owner described losing a $12,000 job because he waited 5 days to follow up on an estimate. The customer hired a competitor who called back the same day. The owner only found out when the customer texted back: “Sorry, already had it done.”

Price shock is the other estimate killer. You send a $6,000 estimate with no context, no breakdown, and no follow-up call to walk them through it. The customer sees the number, panics, and ghosts you. A quick call after sending the estimate - “I wanted to walk you through what’s included” - prevents this.

The 4-touch estimate follow-up sequence

One follow-up attempt isn’t enough. Hatch analyzed over 132,000 home service campaigns and found that multi-touch follow-up achieved an 89.86% response rate versus 8.56% for a single message. Most contractors give up after one call.

Here’s the sequence that works:

Day 1 - Phone call. Call the customer within 24 hours of sending the estimate. Keep it short: “I sent over the estimate yesterday. Wanted to make sure you received it and answer any questions.” This isn’t a sales call. It’s a check-in.

Day 3 - Text message. If they didn’t answer or haven’t responded, send a text. Something like: “Hi [name], just checking in on the estimate I sent for [specific job]. Let me know if you have any questions or want to move forward.” Texts get read faster than emails and feel less intrusive than calls.

Day 7 - Email with a reason to act. Send a short email with something concrete: “I have some availability next week if you’d like to get this scheduled. I can also hold pricing at the current rate through [date].” Give them a reason to decide now instead of later.

Day 14 - Final check-in. One last message: “I don’t want to bug you, but I wanted to check in one more time on the [specific job] estimate. If you’ve decided to go a different direction, no hard feelings - just let me know and I’ll close this out.” This last touch often gets responses because it gives the customer permission to say no.

According to a Lead Connect study, 78% of customers hire the first contractor who responds. Your follow-up sequence isn’t pushy - it’s necessary. Most of your competitors send one estimate and never follow up at all. You showing up four times puts you in a category most contractors never reach.

When to stop following up

There’s a line between persistent and annoying. After 45 days, an estimate is cold. The customer has either hired someone else, decided not to do the work, or genuinely forgotten about it.

At the 45-day mark, send one final message. Make it honest: “I’m cleaning up my estimate list and noticed yours from [date]. If you’re still thinking about [specific job], I’d love to help. If not, I’ll close this out. Either way, we’re here if you need us down the road.”

Then archive it. Move the contact to a “Past Estimate - Cold” status in Workiz and stop the active follow-up sequence.

But don’t delete them. Those cold estimates become warm leads again 6-12 months later when the customer’s situation changes. The roof still leaks. The AC still struggles in July. The plumbing issue they put off gets worse. Having their contact info and job details in Workiz means you can reach out again when the time is right.

The goal is to keep your active follow-up list manageable. If you have 200 open estimates and half of them are 90 days old, you’re drowning in noise and missing the ones that actually have a chance of closing.

The fastest way to find stale estimates in Workiz

Manually sorting through your Workiz estimates tab works when you have 10-15 open. When you have 50 or more, it breaks down fast.

The manual method: filter your estimates by status (open/pending), then sort by date sent. Anything older than 7 days without a follow-up needs attention today. Anything older than 30 days gets the final check-in message.

The problem is you have to do this every single day. Skip a Monday, and three more estimates age past the critical window. Skip a week, and you’re back to square one.

Most contractors who track their website visitors and lead sources have the same challenge - plenty of data, no easy way to prioritize action. The information exists in Workiz. It’s just buried under tabs and filters.

This is exactly what LeakFinder was built for. Instead of manually filtering and sorting estimates by age, LeakFinder connects to your Workiz account and automatically surfaces the estimates that need attention. Estimates going stale this week show up at the top. Fresh estimates that need a first follow-up are right behind them.

You don’t have to remember to check. You don’t have to build spreadsheets. You open LeakFinder, see who needs a call, and start dialing.

The contractors who close the most business from their existing pipeline aren’t generating more leads. They’re working the leads they already have - and doing it systematically.

LeakFinder is a free tool that connects to your Workiz account and sorts every contact into follow-up buckets based on urgency. No more scrolling through tabs trying to figure out who to call. Try LeakFinder free - it takes under five minutes to set up.