How much deposit should you take before starting a job?
A deposit is the single best protection you have against getting stung. It funds your materials, filters out time-wasters, and means you're never doing thousands of pounds of work on trust alone. Yet loads of tradespeople still start big jobs on nothing but a handshake — and it's exactly those jobs that go bad.
Here's how much to take, when to stage it, and how to ask without the customer flinching.
Why you take a deposit at all
Three reasons, all of them about protecting you:
- Cashflow on materials. On a bathroom you might drop £2,000+ at the merchant before you've earned a penny. A deposit means it's the customer's money buying their suite, not yours.
- Commitment. Someone who's paid a deposit has skin in the game — they turn up, make decisions, and don't cancel on a whim.
- Risk. You never want to be fully out of pocket. Staged money keeps you roughly even as the job runs.
How much — indicative ranges
There's no legal figure; it's about matching the deposit to your materials exposure and the job size.
| Job size | Typical deposit |
|---|---|
| Small job (under £500) | Often none, or payment on completion |
| Medium (£500–£2,000) | 25–33% |
| Large refit (£2,000–£10,000) | 25–40%, then stage the rest |
| Big/long jobs (£10,000+) | Smaller % deposit + milestone payments |
These are indicative norms, not rules — set yours against your actual materials cost. As a rule of thumb, the deposit should at least cover the materials you have to buy before you start.
A quick sanity check: if your materials bill is £2,600 on a £6,500 job, a 33% deposit (£2,145) doesn't quite cover it — you might take 40% or invoice materials separately up front.
Stage the payments on bigger jobs
For anything running more than a week, don't do "deposit then balance." Break it into milestones so you're never carrying too much unpaid work:
- Deposit on acceptance (materials).
- Stage payment at a clear milestone — e.g. first fix complete, or start of week two.
- Balance on completion, once they're happy.
Tie each stage to something visible ("payment due on completion of tiling") so there's no argument about whether it's been reached. Staged payments are how you avoid ever being owed the whole lot — and how you avoid the customer-won't-pay nightmare entirely.
The consumer rules you need to know
Two bits of UK consumer law catch trades out on deposits:
Cancellation rights. When you agree a contract in the customer's home (an "off-premises contract"), the Consumer Contracts Regulations generally give them a 14-day cooling-off period in which they can cancel. There are ways this works in practice — a customer can ask you to start work within the 14 days, but you should get that request in writing, and if they then cancel you're entitled to be paid for what you've already done. If you take a deposit and start work without handling this properly, you can end up having to refund. Get the "please start now" agreement in writing before you order materials or lift a tool.
Deposits must be reasonable. A deposit is meant to secure the job and cover your genuine costs, not to penalise a customer. An excessive, non-refundable deposit can be challenged as an unfair term. Keep it proportionate to your real exposure and you're fine.
Consumer law changes and the detail matters — treat the above as the shape of it, not the last word, and check the current rules (or ask a trade body) for a specific situation.
How to ask without scaring them off
Customers expect a deposit on a real job — it's the way you ask that matters. Frame it as normal and tied to materials, not as you not trusting them:
"To book you in I take a 33% deposit — that covers your suite and tiles, which I order as soon as we're confirmed. The balance is due on completion once you're happy with it."
That does the work: it's routine ("I take"), it's justified ("covers your materials"), and it reassures them the big money only moves when they're satisfied.
If a customer refuses any deposit at all on a decent-sized job, treat it as a warning sign. The ones who won't put a penny down are disproportionately the ones who go quiet at the end.
Put it in writing
Whatever you agree, get it on the quote: the deposit amount, when each stage is due, and what "completion" means. A customer who's signed off a clear payment schedule can't act surprised later — and you've got the paperwork if it ever goes wrong. That's part of writing a quote that wins the job in the first place.
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