A deposit does two jobs. It covers the materials you’d otherwise float out of your own pocket, and it proves the customer is committed before you block a week of calendar for them. Size it to do both and you’ll rarely have to argue about it.
Size it from your quote, not from the air
Start with materials. If you’ll order $2,500 of material for a $6,000 patio (example numbers), any deposit under $2,500 means you’re financing the customer’s job with your own cash. So the cleanest way to size a deposit isn’t a percentage pulled from somewhere. It’s reading your own quote: enough to cover what you’ll spend before their first payment.
There’s one legal check to run first. Some states cap the deposit a contractor can take on home improvement work. Before you standardize a number, look up your state contractor board’s rules so your normal ask isn’t accidentally over the line.
The common structures
Three shapes cover most residential work:
- Deposit and balance. Money down when they book, the rest on completion. Fits jobs done in a day or two.
- Deposit, progress, final. Money down, a payment when materials land or work starts, balance at the end. Fits jobs that run a week or more.
- Milestones. For bigger builds, payments tied to named stages: demo done, base in, work complete.
Whatever the shape, the rule underneath is the same: never be further into the job in costs than the customer is in payments.
Custom materials move the number up
Stamped work in a specific color, special-order panels, a custom gate: if it can’t be returned or used on another job, it should be paid for before you order it. A standard deposit on custom-material work leaves you owning inventory nobody else will ever buy. Say exactly that to the customer. Reasonable people get it, and the ones who don’t are telling you something useful before the job starts.
Put it in the quote text
A deposit agreed on the phone is a deposit half-remembered. Put the payment schedule in the same itemized quote you send: line items, total, then “Deposit to schedule: $2,000. Balance on completion” (example numbers again). Written next to the itemized work, it reads as standard procedure, because it is, and you have a record if things ever go sideways.
The quote template for texting customers shows the format. The faster that text goes out with the schedule already in it, the less room there is to negotiate the deposit later. PriceDesk builds the itemized quote from your rates in about ten seconds, ready to text with your deposit line attached. Free for 14 days, no card.