Harrowell

For UK printers, packaging makers and engineering firms

Quote to order conversion rate: formula, and what quote speed has to do with it

Quote to order conversion rate is the share of quotes you send that become orders: orders won from quotes, divided by quotes sent, times 100. Record quote turnaround time against every quote as well, so your own figures can show whether faster quotes win more of your work.

Book thirty minutes

Or send us one quote request and see the draft it would become.

The formula

Conversion by count, by value, and as a ratio.

Conversion rate
Quotes that became orders, divided by quotes sent in the same period, times 100.
Conversion by value
Value of orders won, divided by value of quotes sent, times 100. It shows whether you win the large jobs or the small ones.
Quote to order ratio
Quotes sent for each order won. 4 to 1 is the same as 25%.
Quote turnaround time
Working hours from the request arriving to the quote being sent.

Measuring it

Count each quote once, and give it time to convert.

  1. Take the quotes sent in one month and check which became orders within a fixed window, such as 60 days or your usual decision time. Counting this month's orders against this month's quotes mixes old quotes with new.
  2. Count each enquiry once. A job requoted three times is one quote, and several quantities on one quote sheet are one quote.
  3. Decide whether budget prices and tenders count, and keep to it. Moving them in or out changes the rate.
  4. Record lost quotes with the reason when the customer gives one: price, lead time, no reply, project cancelled.
  5. Split new customers from repeat customers, and one product type from another, so you compare like with like.

Worked example

March's quotes at a packaging maker, followed to the end of May.

Quotes sent in March
180, worth £612,000
Became orders by 31 May
41, worth £118,000
Conversion rate
41 divided by 180, times 100: 22.8%.
Conversion by value
£118,000 divided by £612,000, times 100: 19.3%. Smaller jobs are converting more often than larger ones.
Quote to order ratio
4.4 to 1.

Illustration with invented data.

Quote speed

Track turnaround beside conversion, quote by quote.

Add three columns to the quote log: when the request arrived, when the quote was sent, and won or lost. After a quarter, compare the conversion rate of quotes sent within a working day with the rest. If the quick ones win more often, you have your own evidence. If they don't, price or lead time may matter more to your customers than speed.

Compare like with like. Small repeat jobs are quicker to quote and may convert for reasons that have nothing to do with speed, so split by customer and job size before reading anything into the difference. We have not found a primary source that measures the link for UK firms that make to order, so we don't claim one.

  • 6 of 80

    printers, packaging makers and engineering firms tell customers on their website how fast they will quote.

  • 24 hours

    is the promise 5 of those 6 make. The sixth promises 4 hours.

From our October 2026 study of 209 UK supplier websites. It shows what firms promise, not how fast quotes go out. See the research note and quote turnaround times.

What it costs you today

Your conversion rate turns a month of quotes into orders.

The quote desk side of the order desk calculator takes quote requests a day, minutes to price one, the estimator's hourly cost, your conversion rate and your average order value. It shows estimator hours a week, the cost a year of pricing quotes, and the value of orders won a month at your rate. It doesn't guess at savings.

If the estimators' hours are the constraint, the estimator job description sets out which part of their day is reading and keying.

What you get from us

Quote turnaround is the number we report.

We build AI into one division of a business and are measured on that division's own numbers. On a quote desk, each request is read against your own rate tables and waits as a draft quote for the estimator to check, change and send. Before we build, we measure turnaround and conversion from your own quote log.

  1. 30 minutes

    Call with you

    Which team's quotes, how requests arrive, and where they wait.

  2. 1 hour

    Session with your estimators

    We watch real requests being priced. The same day, a one-page verdict: the workflow, the KPI it moves, today's baseline and a fixed price. Or a written no.

  3. A fixed number of weeks

    Build

    Connected to your inbox and your rate tables. Your estimator approves every draft quote from the first day.

  4. Every month

    Run and report

    Quote turnaround against the baseline, with conversion beside it. We measure conversion; we don't promise it. Stop at any report.

How it works step by step: quote automation for UK manufacturers that make to order. Nothing is subcontracted.

Questions

What people ask about quote conversion.

How do you calculate quote to order conversion rate?
Take the quotes sent in a period, count how many became orders within a fixed window such as 60 days, divide by the quotes sent and multiply by 100. 41 orders from 180 quotes is 22.8%.
What is the difference between quote to order ratio and conversion rate?
They are the same figure turned round. A ratio of 4 to 1 means four quotes for every order won, which is a conversion rate of 25%.
What is a good quote to order conversion rate?
We have not found an independent, sourced benchmark for UK printers, packaging makers or engineering firms, so we don't quote one. It depends on your trade and on how many suppliers each buyer asks. Track your own rate month by month.
Do faster quotes win more orders?
We have not found a primary source that measures this for UK firms that make to order, so we don't claim it. Your own log can show it: compare the conversion rate of quotes sent within a working day with the rest, for similar jobs.
What is a normal quote turnaround time?
Of the 80 UK printer, packaging and engineering websites we read, 6 state one: five promise 24 hours and one promises 4 hours. That is what firms promise, not how fast quotes really go out.

Next step

Thirty minutes on your quote desk.

Tell us what you make and how quote requests reach you. If we don't find anything worth doing, we'll tell you and leave. Or send us one quote request and see the draft it would become.

The Open Build. We’ll build one UK supplier a quote desk system, free and in public, measured on its own numbers. Everyone who applies gets a one-page read of their own workflow. Applications close at 5pm UK time on Friday 6 November. See the Open Build.