Why I built TradeDraft.
I've spent years in UK construction. I've walked jobs, surveyed them, priced them and written the quotes, and I've been on the receiving end too, reading the ones that came in. From either seat you learn the same uncomfortable truth: whether a trade gets paid properly often has less to do with the work than with the piece of paper.
A quote off a free Word template, VAT wrong, no terms, reads as a risk no matter how good the trade is. It gets queried, knocked down, or passed over for someone who looked the part. And when a job goes sideways, the one with nothing in writing eats the cost.
I watched it happen to people whose work I'd have put my name to.
- The builderFinishes a £40,000 extension. The client pushes back on the final invoice, and there's nothing in writing to stand on.
- The electricianPrices a rewire. Halfway through, the client asks for three more circuits. He does them for free, to avoid the argument.
- The plumberFinishes a £4,000 bathroom, and is still chasing the balance two months later. No deposit taken, no dates agreed.
That's the whole reason this exists.
I knew what the fix looked like, because I'd written the quotes that got taken seriously and read the ones that didn't: priced completely, the tax right, terms agreed before anyone lifts a finger. The tools out there don't get you that. The free templates look amateur and get the VAT wrong. The big job-management systems are built for 20-van fleets, with a setup that takes a weekend you don't have.
So I built TradeDraft. A costed, professional quote you can put together on your phone: VAT, CIS and the Reverse Charge worked out for you, a live check on your margin, and a way for the client to accept and pay online. Plus a set of editable documents for the rest of the job.
A note from the founder
Years in UK construction, on real sites, pricing real jobs and watching what happens to trades who quote well and trades who don't. That is what TradeDraft is built on. There is a real person behind every email, and I answer them myself, so if you ever want to talk to a human, just get in touch.
— The founder