Why “who's free now” beats “get three quotes”
Three quotes is advice from a world where the hard part was price. For most jobs the hard part is timing — and the quote-gathering habit quietly costs you the tradespeople you would have wanted.
"Always get three quotes" is the most repeated piece of advice about hiring anybody local. For a kitchen or an extension, it is good advice. For the other ninety per cent of what people actually need — a tap, a haircut, a valet, a dog groom, a facial, an MOT — it quietly wastes everybody's time.
What the three-quotes habit actually costs
To get three quotes for a dripping tap you need three firms to answer, three to turn up, and three to follow up in writing. That is a fortnight of chasing for a job worth less than the chasing. Nobody even tries it for a blow dry or a mobile car wash — you just want to know who can do it today.
Meanwhile the people you rang are doing sums of their own. A quote takes an hour of an evening, and for small work most of them would rather have told you a price on the phone and come Thursday. So the ones who answer quote high or not at all, and the ones who would have done it today never heard from you.
The bit nobody measures: the gap in the diary
Every self-employed business has gaps, whether that is a van or a treatment room. A job finishes early. A customer cancels at half two. A part does not turn up so the morning is dead.
Those gaps are the cheapest work you will ever buy, because the alternative is an empty afternoon. They are also invisible: there is no way to find out that the electrician two streets away is free until four, or that the clinic in town has had a cancellation at half two — and by the time it reaches a story on Instagram, it is gone.
That is the hole Speedi is built for. It is an availability network for every kind of local business — trades, salons, clinics, cleaners, mobile mechanics, groomers, drivers. They tap their light green when the gap appears, it shows on a live map, and it expires on a timer so it never says free when they are not.
What this changes for you
You stop asking "who might do this eventually, and for how much" and start asking "who can do it now". The price conversation still happens — you agree it directly with them, and Speedi takes no commission — but it happens with somebody who is free today rather than somebody bidding for work next month.
For an emergency it is the difference between today and Thursday. For an ordinary job it is the difference between one message and a fortnight of chasing.
When you should still get three quotes
- Anything structural, or where the design is not settled.
- Work over a few thousand pounds.
- Anything where you want the scope in writing before anyone starts.
For those, the quote is the product and it is worth the wait. Just do not apply that ritual to a tap, a socket, a boiler, a blocked drain, a haircut or a facial.
And if nobody is free?
Then the useful thing is not more phone calls, it is one message that reaches everybody at once. Say what you need and how soon, and it goes to every matching business nearby — the first to take it gets it, and you get their number. Not every request is picked up, but it costs a minute instead of an afternoon.
The short version
Three quotes solves a price problem. Most jobs have a timing problem. Start with who is free, agree the price with them directly, and keep the quote-gathering for the jobs that are actually worth it.