The six states
- Drafted — priced internally, not visible to the customer, still editable freely.
- Sent — delivered to the customer with a version number and a date.
- Viewed — the customer has opened it; the clock on follow-up starts here.
- Revised — a new version supersedes the old one; the old one stays on record.
- Approved — accepted by the customer, ready for contract and scheduling.
- Unsold — not accepted or not answered; it moves into estimate follow-up.
Where the lifecycle starts
It starts at the appointment, not at the estimate. By the time anyone is pricing work, the customer record already exists, the address is confirmed, and the visit notes are attached. If the estimate is the first record of the relationship, the intake process broke earlier and the estimate will carry the missing information forward.
This matters operationally: an estimate should attach to an existing customer record rather than creating a duplicate contact under a slightly different spelling.
The two exits
There are exactly two ways out. Approved estimates become contracts and then jobs, carrying the priced scope with them. Unsold estimates enter follow-up, where they are worked on a cadence until the customer decides or the estimate is formally closed.
The common failure is a third, unofficial exit: nothing. The estimate is sent, nobody answers, and it quietly ages out of everyone's attention. That is not a state — it is an absence of one, and it is the single largest source of recoverable revenue in most service businesses.
What each state should record
- Version number and the date it was sent.
- Who built it and who approved the pricing internally.
- Whether and when the customer viewed it.
- The reason for every revision, in one line.
- The outcome and the reason for it, when it is closed.