Quoting is deciding: pricing in tailor-made B2B services

The price nobody decides

In product companies, price usually has an owner: a committee, a list, a discount policy. In tailor-made service companies (institutional food services, professional services, software development, engineering), price is decided in each proposal. It is decided by the salesperson who puts the quote together, with the information at hand and under pressure to close.

The result is a margin that varies from contract to contract without anyone having decided it. Profitable contracts subsidize those that aren’t, and the company discovers the difference months later, when operations are already committed.

The context makes the problem worse. In Colombia, the financial health index of the micro-entrepreneurs served by Bancamía and the BBVA Microfinance Foundation showed in 2025 that 36% were operating at a loss and without funds (Infobae). Although the index refers to one institution’s clients and not to the business fabric as a whole, it illustrates a point: in tight-margin environments, every margin point lost in the quote is hard to recover in operations.

Customizing without losing control

In our work with a food services business group, contract customization was both the main commercial advantage and a source of complexity. Every client asked for variations, and the sales team was slow to put proposals together because there was no standard base of components with reliable costs.

The initiative we designed with the team was a digital quoting tool based on standardized components: the sales team selects combinations of standard products to build customized proposals in real time, with automatic calculation of costs and technical specifications. The quoting tool doesn’t replace commercial judgment; it informs it.

The expected effect is twofold. First, margin stops being an accidental outcome: each proposal shows its cost and margin before it is sent. Second, the sale speeds up: customization time drops because the salesperson combines blocks instead of asking operations for costings.

Clients buy return, not price

In our own consulting business we learned a lesson that applies to many B2B services. We thought price was holding back business groups from buying. The projects showed that they buy when they see a quantified business case: how much they are losing today and how much they can gain. Price matters, but it is assessed against the return, not in the abstract.

This changes the way you quote. A proposal that leads with price invites comparison with cheaper alternatives. A proposal that leads with quantified impact, and then presents the price as the investment needed to capture it, is assessed by a different logic. In segments where the client compares price with informal alternatives, such as independent professionals who compare with freelancers, the answer we are testing is different: short packages with a fixed price and a clear scope.

The most common margin leaks

When reviewing commercial processes in services, we frequently find four margin leaks. The first is a vague scope: the proposal describes what will be done, but not what is excluded, and the client asks for more without the price being adjusted. The second is outdated costing: reference costs were calculated long ago and don’t reflect inflation in inputs or wages. The third is discounts without rules: each salesperson grants discounts at their own discretion, without an approval threshold. The fourth is the lack of indexation: multi-year contracts without adjustment clauses.

None of these leaks requires a sophisticated system to close. They require a written policy, someone responsible for approving it and a quoting tool that enforces it.

From price to relationship

For recurring services, the price of the first contract is only part of the equation. The value lies in the relationship: renewals, scope extensions and new services. In our case, the shift from project to relationship rests on monthly support arrangements, periodic steering committees and continuity services. The pricing of those arrangements must be considered from the outset, not as an add-on at the end of the project.

A useful question for any services company is how much of next year’s revenue is already committed through recurring contracts. If the answer is very little, the problem is not the price of each quote, but the revenue model.

Pricing and strategy go together

Pricing decisions reveal a company’s strategy. If you compete on price, the company needs the most efficient cost structure in the market. If you compete on customization, it needs a system that makes customization profitable. If you compete on impact, it needs to prove it with figures. What doesn’t work is quoting without knowing which of the three is the bet.

Pricing governance

A final element is governance. Who can approve a margin below target? How often are reference costs reviewed? Who analyzes the actual profitability of contracts versus the quoted one? In most of the services companies we have worked with, these questions have no written answer. A monthly pricing committee, with sales, operations and finance, that reviews exceptions and the actual profitability of contracts, is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact interventions we know.