Free Quoting Software NZ — What's Available and When to Upgrade

The honest answer: no fully-featured free quoting software exists for NZ trade businesses. What does exist falls into a few categories:

Free templates: Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Google Docs templates that you fill in manually for each quote. These are genuinely free and work fine for basic needs. The downside is that every quote is created from scratch — you retype customer details, recalculate materials, and manually format each document. There's no connection to your job records or accounting.

Free tiers of paid software: Some platforms offer very limited free plans, but in the NZ trade market, the main tools (Tradify, Fergus, ATT, ServiceM8) don't have permanent free tiers. They all offer free trials instead.

Free trials: All major NZ trade platforms offer 14-day free trials. ATT's trial requires no credit card — you get full access to AI quoting, job management, and CRM for two weeks. This is the best way to test professional quoting software without commitment.

Xero invoicing: If you already pay for Xero, you can create quotes within Xero. They're basic (no AI, no trade-specific templates), but they connect directly to Xero invoicing. This is a pragmatic middle ground if you're already paying for Xero and only need basic quoting.

The bottom line: free templates work for sole traders doing fewer than 8 jobs per month. Beyond that, the time you spend on manual quoting is worth more than the subscription cost of a proper tool.

Let's be specific about what you gain and lose at each price point:

Free template ($0/mo):

• Create a quote in Word/Excel/Google Docs — 20–30 minutes per quote
• Email the quote as a PDF attachment
• No way to track whether the customer has viewed the quote
• No connection to job management — manually track the job separately
• No connection to Xero — manually create the invoice when the job is done
• No saved line items — retype common materials and labour each time
• Adequate for: sole traders doing 1–8 jobs per month

ATT Quoting ($99/mo):

• Build a quote with AI assistance (Mate AI) — 5–10 minutes per quote
• Saved line items and templates for common job types
• Digital quote acceptance — customers view and accept online
• Quote converts to a job automatically
• Customer CRM with job history
• Works on: any device via browser
• Worth it for: businesses doing 8+ jobs per month, or anyone who values quoting speed

ATT Professional ($199/mo):

• Everything in Quoting, plus two-way Xero invoicing
• Team scheduling with Google Calendar sync
• Subcontractor access
• AI invoice scanning
• Worth it for: businesses with 2+ team members, or anyone who wants connected quoting-to-invoicing

The maths is straightforward: if a proper quoting tool saves you 15 minutes per quote and you do 20 quotes per month, that's 5 hours saved. At a painter's hourly rate of $50–$75/hour, that's $250–$375/month in recovered time — well above the $99/mo subscription.

If you're starting with a free template, make sure it includes everything a professional painting quote needs. We've published a detailed painting quote example for NZ that shows what a complete quote looks like, plus guidance on how to quote a painting job.

A proper NZ painting quote should include:

• Your business details: Business name, GST number, contact information, physical address
• Customer details: Name, address, phone, email
• Job address: If different from the customer's address (common for property investors)
• Scope of work: Specific description of what's included — surfaces to be painted, prep work, number of coats, paint brand and colour, what's excluded
• Line items: Materials (paint, primers, fillers, masking), labour (hours × rate), equipment (scaffold, access equipment if needed)
• Total price: Subtotal, GST (state whether inclusive or exclusive), total
• Payment terms: Deposit amount, progress payment schedule, final payment timing
• Validity: How long the quote is valid for (typically 30 days)
• Terms and conditions: Weather delays, variations process, warranty

For painters just starting out, our guide to starting a painting business in NZ covers the full setup including quoting, pricing, and invoicing.

If free templates aren't enough but you're not ready to commit to a subscription, ATT's free trial is the best way to test professional quoting software:

• 14 days of full access — not a limited demo. You can build real quotes, create jobs, and manage customers.
• No credit card required — the trial starts without payment details. You won't be accidentally charged.
• Mate AI included — test the AI quoting assistant on real jobs to see if it speeds up your workflow.
• Xero connection available — if you want to test the Professional plan features, you can connect Xero during the trial (invoices pushed to Xero during the trial are real, so use a demo org if you want to test without consequences).

The best way to use the trial: pick 3–5 real jobs you're currently quoting and run them through ATT. Time how long it takes compared to your current process. If it's significantly faster and the quotes look more professional, the subscription will pay for itself.

Don't just click around in the system — that tells you what the software looks like, not whether it works for your business. Use it for live work during the 14 days.

The right time to move from free templates to paid quoting software varies, but these are the clear signals:

• You're doing 8+ quotes per month and spending more than 30 minutes each. The time cost exceeds the software cost.
• You're losing jobs to faster competitors. Customers typically accept the first professional quote they receive. If you're quoting 2–3 days after the site visit, someone else is quoting same-day.
• Your quotes look inconsistent. When each quote is built from scratch, formatting, pricing, and inclusions vary. This looks unprofessional and creates scope disputes.
• You can't track your quote acceptance rate. If you don't know how many quotes you send, how many are accepted, and where the drop-offs happen, you can't improve your conversion. Quoting software tracks this automatically.
• You're about to hire your first employee. Once you have a team, you need job management alongside quoting. A connected system is dramatically more efficient than separate tools.
• Your revenue exceeds $150K/year. At this level, a $99–$199/mo tool is a rounding error in your P&L but a significant productivity gain.

For more on pricing strategy and ensuring your quotes are profitable, see our guides on how to price painting jobs and painting business profit margins.