What is your quoting process costing you?
Five numbers you already know. One honest answer, in dollars — what your inquiry-to-booking process costs you every month.
Your quoting process is costing you about
$0/month
- $0 — revenue realistically in play from inquiries you're losing*
- $0 — your time spent quoting (0 hrs at $35/hr)
The Catering Desk · thecateringdesk.com
For scale: about $0 of business walks away each month with the inquiries that don't book. The card only counts a small, stated slice of it — % — because that's the honest number.
That number is yours. Screenshot the card if you want to keep it (or make a point with it).
This is an estimate, not financial advice. It's a planning tool built from the numbers you entered and assumptions operators gave us — not a guarantee of revenue or savings. Terms.
How we calculate this (no black box)
Time cost = inquiries × hours per proposal × your hourly value. We assume you send a proposal for every inquiry — you spend the hours on the jobs you lose, too.
Revenue in play* starts from plain arithmetic: inquiries that don't book × your average event value = the full pool that walks away each month. We then count only a small share of that pool as realistically winnable with faster, tighter follow-up. The premise — from operators, not vendors — is that the first caterer back with a real quote usually wins the event. The share we use depends on how fast you said you reply today:
- Within an hour → 5% (1 in 20 lost inquiries)
- Same day → 10% (1 in 10)
- 1–2 days → 15% (3 in 20)
- 3+ days → 20% (1 in 5)
These shares are an illustration, not a promise or a measured statistic. Nobody can honestly tell you what faster replies will do for your close rate — including us. We picked deliberately modest what-ifs and we're showing you the math.
We also don't compare you to "industry averages" — we don't have honest ones yet. When enough operators have shared their numbers (25+ verified), we'll build a real benchmark and say so plainly.
Get the full breakdown + the quoting worksheet
The number above is yours free — no email needed. If you want the line-by-line breakdown and a one-page worksheet to track these five numbers month over month, leave your email.
Your full breakdown
You're in. Save, print, or screenshot this page — it's all here.
- Inquiries in a typical month: 0
- Events you book from them: 0 (0% close rate)
- Inquiries that walk: 0
- Revenue that walks with them: $0/month
- A modest win-back — % of that, the slice we count: $0/month
- Hours spent quoting: 0 hrs/month
- That time at $35/hr: $0/month
- Total: $0/month — about $0 a year
Three moves that attack this number
- Set a reply clock. Pick a number you can actually keep — "every inquiry gets a real answer within 4 working hours" — and hold yourself to it. Speed is the cheapest advantage on this whole page.
- Template the proposal. Most of your quoting hours are re-typing the same menu, terms, and layout. A solid reusable proposal cuts hours-per-proposal without cutting quality.
- Track these five numbers monthly. You can't fix a close rate you don't measure. That's what the worksheet below is for.
The quoting worksheet
Your numbers today are in the first column. Fill in a column at the end of each month and watch the direction, not the decimals.
| Today | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inquiries | – | |||
| Booked events | – | |||
| Close rate | – | |||
| Hours per proposal | – | |||
| Typical reply time | – | |||
| Avg event value | – |
The Catering Desk · thecateringdesk.com