Who this is for: owners of any service business who price by the unit and quote from a sheet.
A quote calculator in a spreadsheet needs five columns per line: what you sell, the unit you price it in, your rate per unit, the question that gets the customer's quantity, and the least you will charge for that line. Copy the table below into Excel or Google Sheets, add two columns for one quote, and every line prices itself. The same table is what you hand ChatGPT to turn it into a form customers fill in.
The rate card: five columns, one row per thing you sell
The sample is an exterior cleaning business, because its lines are priced by area and by length, each with its own minimum. The rates are samples for this page; replace every row with your own.
| Item | Unit | Rate | Question the customer answers | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driveway or patio | sq ft | $0.18 | How many square feet is your driveway or patio? | $95 |
| House wash | sq ft of floor area | $0.12 | What is your home's floor area in square feet? | $175 |
| Deck | sq ft | $0.45 | How many square feet is your deck? | $125 |
| Gutter cleaning | linear ft | $1.10 | About how many feet of gutter does your home have? | $90 |
Every quote also carries one fixed line: a $35 trip charge.
Paste the table at cell A1, so the items sit in rows 2 to 5. If a rate or minimum pastes as text (it sits on the left of its cell), retype it as a plain number such as 0.18 or 95 and format the column as currency.
The formulas, as text you can paste
Add two columns for one quote: F holds the customer's answer, G the price of that line.
| Cell | Formula | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| G2, filled down to G5 | =IF(F2=0,0,MAX(F2*C2,E2)) |
Answer times rate, never less than the minimum, and nothing for a line the customer does not need |
| G6 | 35 |
The trip charge |
| G7 | =SUM(G2:G6) |
The quote total |
The same three formulas work in Google Sheets.
Two worked quotes on the sample rates
A driveway, a house wash and the gutters. The customer answers 600 sq ft of driveway, a 2,000 sq ft home, no deck, and 140 feet of gutter.
| Line | Working | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Driveway or patio | 600 x $0.18 = $108.00, above the $95 minimum | $108.00 |
| House wash | 2,000 x $0.12 = $240.00, above the $175 minimum | $240.00 |
| Deck | 0 sq ft | $0.00 |
| Gutter cleaning | 140 x $1.10 = $154.00, above the $90 minimum | $154.00 |
| Trip charge | every quote | $35.00 |
| Total | $537.00 |
A small patio, where the minimum applies. The customer answers 300 sq ft of patio and nothing else. 300 x $0.18 = $54.00, below the $95 minimum, so the line is $95.00. With the $35.00 trip charge the total is $130.00.
Turn the sheet into a form customers fill in
Add CalcForms to ChatGPT, start a chat, paste your rate card and then this prompt:
Here is my rate card. Build a form from it. Ask the customer each question in the "Question the customer answers" column. Each line price is the rate times the answer, never less than that line's minimum, and zero when the answer is zero. Add a $35 trip charge to every quote. Show the customer the total only. Then publish it.
Before you send the link, check it: with the sample rates, the two quotes above must come to $537.00 and $130.00; with your own rates, try two past jobs whose totals you know. The customer sees the questions and one total; your rates and minimums are never shown on the form. Every reply reaches you with each line price worked out: in ChatGPT, in your email copy, or in the web portal on Pro.
The step-by-step build, from attaching the spreadsheet to sharing the link, is in how to turn an Excel spreadsheet into a form. Rates that change by size bracket, or a grid such as material by finish, are covered in the price list guide. For a house cleaning example, see the house cleaning quote calculator guide. The functions a form can use, MAX and IF among them, are listed in the build docs.
Building and running forms in ChatGPT is free, with unlimited forms and replies. The web portal is Pro, $12.99 a month after a 1-day free trial.