How to write a quote with ChatGPT, and what to check before you send it

ChatGPT is good at turning a messy description into a quote that reads well. It's bad at knowing what you charge, what you left out on purpose and what your client will argue about later. So the workflow is simple: you decide the facts, the model writes them up, and you check the result against a short list before it goes anywhere.

What to give ChatGPT before you ask

• What you deliver, in nouns: "3 logo concepts, 1 final logo in SVG and PNG, a 6-page brand guide", not "branding".
• How many of each, and the unit: pages, hours, sessions, deliverables.
• The timeline: start date, delivery date and anything that depends on the client, like feedback within 3 business days.
• Your price: a total, a price per item or an hourly rate with an hours estimate. If you don't have one yet, price it first from your own past work, as in pricing projects from your own history.
• Your terms: deposit, when the balance is due, how many rounds of changes are included and what an extra round costs, and how long the quote is valid.

Copy this prompt

Write a quote for a client. Use only the facts below. If a line item has no price here, leave its price blank and mark it "PRICE NEEDED". Don't add sales tax, discounts, legal clauses or guarantees.

My business: [name], [what I do]
Client: [client company or first name]
Project: [one sentence]

Deliverables and quantities:
- [item], [quantity] [unit], $[price] each
- [item], [quantity] [unit], $[price] each
- [item], [quantity] [unit]

Timeline: start [date], deliver by [date]. Client feedback within [n] business days of each draft.
Rounds of changes included: [n]. Extra rounds: $[price] each.
Not included: [list, e.g. copywriting, stock photos, printing]
Deposit: [percent]% due to start. Balance due [on delivery / net 15].
Quote valid for [n] days.

Format: a title, a 2 to 3 sentence summary, a table of line items with quantity, unit, price and line total, a subtotal and total, then sections for timeline, what's included, what's not included and payment terms. Plain, friendly language. No more than one page.

The 8-point check before you send

1. Scope. Every deliverable is named with a quantity. "Website updates" is not a scope; "Update 5 existing pages and add 1 contact form" is.
2. What's not included. Name the things clients assume are in: copywriting, stock photos, hosting, travel, extra pages. This line prevents most scope arguments; see stopping scope creep.
3. Rounds of changes. How many are included and what an extra one costs.
4. Deposit. A percentage or amount due before you start. If you're unsure how much, read how much deposit to ask for.
5. Payment terms. When the balance is due and how the client pays. Vague terms are one reason invoices arrive late.
6. Validity. A date after which the price can change. Thirty days is common; how long a quote should be valid covers the trade-offs.
7. Timeline and dependencies. Delivery dates, plus what you need from the client and by when.
8. The math. Quantity times price on every line, the subtotal and the total. Models sometimes add a line wrong or round silently.

What ChatGPT tends to get wrong in a quote

• It fills in prices you didn't give. The prompt above forbids it, but check anyway.
• It adds sales tax or a tax line. Whether a service is taxable depends on your state and the service, so that's for you or your accountant to decide, not the model.
• It writes legal-sounding clauses ("indemnify", "liability shall not exceed"). A quote isn't a contract. Use a real contract for that, such as the freelance contract template.
• It promises "unlimited revisions" or "satisfaction guaranteed" because they sound friendly. Delete them.
• It drops the validity date or the deposit when the prompt is long. Those are two of the eight checks for a reason.

Your client's details in ChatGPT

On personal ChatGPT plans (Free, Plus and Pro), OpenAI's help center says the "Improve the model for everyone" setting is on by default, which lets OpenAI use your conversations to train its models. You can turn it off in Settings > Data controls; new conversations then aren't used for training. ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and the API don't use your inputs for training by default. If you'd rather not change settings, describe the client generically ("a coffee shop") and add the name yourself.

Doing the same inside SoloWOS

The free AI quote generator on the SoloWOS site takes a plain description and returns a draft with a title, intro, line items with quantities and units, a deposit, validity and payment terms. It only uses prices you write and leaves the others empty. You get 3 drafts a day with no account. Your text goes to Anthropic to write the draft; under Anthropic's commercial terms it isn't used to train their models, and SoloWOS doesn't keep it.

Inside the app, the Proposals editor has a Draft with AI button on every plan (3 AI drafts a month on Basic, 200 on Solo, 600 on Team). It also shows what you charged for similar past jobs while you type. When you click Send, the eight-point idea runs as quick checks without AI: no deposit for a client who pays late, a validity date that's passed or close, a total of 0, a total far from your usual price for that work, no client email and no payment terms. Check with AI, which uses one AI draft, adds up to 5 things a client might ask. Nothing goes to the client until you send it.

When it's ready, send proposals clients accept online and you'll see when the client opens it. If you want to see what the rest of the SoloWOS AI assistant does, or other posts on AI for this kind of work, start at AI for freelancers. If you're unsure whether you need a quote, an estimate or a proposal, read estimate vs quote vs proposal.