Job deposit calculator
A cancelled job should cost you a morning, not a van full of materials you already paid for. This works out a deposit that covers what you risk, keeps the number in the range clients accept as normal, and gives you the exact sentence to say. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
The job
The rule this uses: the deposit covers your materials plus a little labour, and stays between 20% and 50% of the job. Under 20% leaves you exposed. Over 50% makes honest clients nervous, because it's what the cowboys ask for.
Ask for a deposit of
£1,920.00 (40%)
- Covers your materials
- £1,600.00
- Due on completion
- £2,880.00
Say it like this
To book the job in, I ask for a deposit of £1,920.00, which covers materials. The remaining £2,880.00 is due on completion.
SoloDesks puts deposit terms on your quotes automatically.
Why there's no “standard” deposit percentage here
You'll see “25–50% on anything over £500” repeated on a lot of trade sites. It may well be roughly what people do. But nobody publishing it can say where it came from, so we're not going to put a source label on it and pretend otherwise.
Work from the materials, not from a percentage
A deposit isn't a share of the job. It's the money you have to spend before you earn anything: the boiler, the tiles, the timber, the skip. Ask for that, and a cancelled job never leaves you personally out of pocket.
It gives you something better than a number, too: a reason. “I need £680 up front, that's the suite and the fittings” is a sentence a customer accepts. “I need 40%” is one they negotiate.
One note for work in someone's home: deposits taken from private customers come with cancellation-rights obligations, and contracts agreed at the customer's door have their own rules about cooling-off periods. If you take large deposits regularly, it's worth an hour of a solicitor's time to get your terms right once.
SoloDesks raises the deposit as its own invoice against the job, so what you've been paid and what's still outstanding stays legible. Start free.
Deliberately unsourced, because there is no authoritative UK source to cite. The percentages you'll find quoted around the web trace back to each other rather than to any survey or statute. The reasoning below doesn't need one.
Last checked: 30 July 2026
Common questions
- How much deposit should a tradesperson ask for?
- Enough to cover the materials you buy up front, landing somewhere between 20% and 50% of the job. Under 20% leaves you funding the client's job from your own pocket. Over 50% makes honest clients nervous, because oversized deposits are the classic rogue-trader move.
- Is it normal to ask for a deposit?
- Completely. Serious clients expect it, and saying the deposit covers materials makes it feel fair rather than grabby. A client who refuses any deposit on a materials-heavy job is telling you something useful before you've spent a penny.
- How should payments work on a big job?
- In stages: a deposit to book the job and cover materials, one or two payments at agreed points midway, and the balance on completion. You're never more than a stage of work away from being paid, and the client is never paying for work that hasn't happened.
Next, in pricing the job
Work out what the job should cost before you write the number down.
Day rate calculator
What should you charge per day and per hour? Worked out from your income target, time off and real business costs.
Markup vs margin calculator
30% markup is not 30% profit. Enter your cost and the margin you want, get the price to put on the quote.
What you owe
Tax, VAT and CIS: the money that was never really yours to spend.
Getting paid
Raise it, send it, and chase it when it goes quiet.
All nine are on the free tools page, and none of them need an account.