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Installation quote platform development

For founders and operators of installation lead and quote platforms who need request forms, installer onboarding, territory routing, lead caps, quote comparison and dispute handling built to their own commercial rules rather than a generic directory with a contact form.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A quote platform for solar, heat pump and insulation installations started as a landing page with a form and a founder forwarding each enquiry by email to three installers she knew.

  • It grew.
  • Now two hundred installers are on a spreadsheet with postcodes they cover and the technologies they fit, enquiries arrive faster than anyone can forward them, and the forwarding is done by a part-timer who guesses which installers have not had a lead this week.
  • Installers complain that a lead with a flat roof and a north-facing garden was sold to them as a solar job, that the same homeowner was sent to five firms, and that the phone number was wrong.
  • The platform cannot prove how many leads each installer received, so the monthly invoice is argued over, and credits for bad leads are agreed by goodwill in a long email thread.

Where it gets harder

Homeowners get three or four quotes as PDF attachments in different formats and no way to compare them side by side; some never hear back at all because the installer who received the lead was at capacity.

  • Reviews are collected by a survey tool nobody reconciles against completed jobs, so an installer who did two jobs has twelve reviews.
  • Accreditation documents installers uploaded at sign-up expired a year ago and nobody noticed.
  • The founder knows that routing, caps, credits and comparison are the business, and that they are being run by hand.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom quote platform build normally covers:

  • A structured request form per technology Capturing property type, ownership, roof or wall construction, heating system, approximate consumption and timescale, with photographs and the consent wording you define
  • An installer record with territories by postcode area Technologies, capacity per week, accreditation and insurance fields with document uploads and expiry dates recorded as supplied, and a lead price or subscription tier
  • A routing engine that matches each request to installers by territory Technology and remaining cap, in the order and quantity your commercial rules set, and records every allocation
  • A lead ledger per installer showing leads received Accepted, declined, disputed and credited
  • A quote upload Where each installer attaches or enters their quote against a common structure so the homeowner sees them side by side
  • A dispute flow with reasons Evidence and an outcome recorded by the platform
  • A review request sent only after an installer marks a job won and complete
  • Invoicing of installers from the ledger

How discovery works

Discovery follows one request from submission to the installer invoice with you: what the form must ask for each technology, how installers are vetted and what documents they supply, how territories and caps are expressed, how many installers see a lead and in what order, what counts as a bad lead and who decides, how quotes are collected, when a review may be requested and how installers are billed. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: request, qualify, route, accept, quote, compare, choose, review, bill.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Verifying accreditation with the scheme bodies, which remains the installer's declaration displayed as supplied unless a scheme publishes a lookup interface
  • The installations themselves
  • The installer's own job management

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A network that sells exclusive leads in some territories and shared leads in others, runs an auction for high-value commercial enquiries and lets installers pause themselves during holidays.

That needs

  • Routing rules per territory
  • A bidding window with a reserve set by the platform
  • A self-service capacity calendar

That is a different build from a simple three-installers-per-lead model, and the scope document says so.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following one request from submission to installer invoice
  • A written scope document naming each stage, the routing and dispute rules and what is out of scope
  • Design of the request form per technology, the installer onboarding flow, the lead ledger, the quote comparison page and the admin routing screens on phone and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of installer records, territories, open leads and historic allocations from your spreadsheet or current platform, where practical
  • Training for platform staff and a short written guide for installers
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts, your current forms, the installer spreadsheet, the routing habits and the invoice format installers receive today.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the founder and whoever routes leads today; the routing, cap, credit and review rules are written down and the scope document agreed with a milestone plan.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the homeowner request form, the installer onboarding and lead inbox, the quote comparison page and the admin routing and dispute screens.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: installer records and territories first, then request forms and routing, then the lead ledger and disputes, then quotes, comparison, reviews and billing.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    A small group of installers receives live leads through the platform alongside the old email process, uploads real quotes and raises a test dispute, and you tell us where the rules do not match the business.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Form fields, routing order, cap behaviour, dispute reasons and the comparison layout are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Installers and territories migrated, notifications tested against addresses you control, the first billing run reconciled against the ledger, launch checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The platform runs on the new system; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Postcode and address lookup providers for the request form and territory matching
  • Accreditation scheme registers where a lookup interface is published, for displaying membership status as returned
  • Electronic signature providers for installer network agreements
  • Card payment providers and direct debit for installer lead invoices and subscriptions
  • SMS and email providers for lead alerts, quote notifications and review requests
  • Installer CRMs that accept leads by API or email parsing, for installers who want leads in their own system
  • Advertising platforms for conversion reporting on the request form
  • Accounting software for installer invoices and credit notes

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A network selling exclusive and shared leads with a commercial auction

The situation

A platform covering solar, batteries and heat pumps sold exclusive leads in territories where it had one strong installer and shared leads elsewhere, and wanted to auction commercial enquiries above a size threshold rather than route them. Routing was done by hand from a spreadsheet and installers could not pause themselves.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because the commercial rules differ by territory and by request value, which a single-mode marketplace base does not express.

The scope we would propose

  • Routing rules stored per territory and technology, with exclusive, shared-with-cap and auction as the three modes
  • A bidding window on commercial requests with a reserve set by the platform and the request anonymised until won
  • A self-service capacity calendar where an installer sets weekly caps and holiday pauses that the router respects
  • A ledger that records the mode, the price and the allocation reason for every lead so invoices can be defended
  • A dispute flow whose reasons differ by mode

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of technologies covered and the depth of each request form
  • Routing modes: exclusive, shared with caps, auction, or several by territory
  • Installer onboarding depth, document expiry tracking and any scheme register lookups
  • Quote collection as structured entry or file upload, and the comparison page
  • Dispute and credit rules and who adjudicates
  • Installer billing: per lead, subscription, or both, and the payment provider
  • Review collection tied to completed jobs
  • Volume of installer, territory and historic lead data to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Installation quote package

Structured homeowner requests, installer onboarding with territories and caps, automatic lead routing with a defensible ledger, quote comparison, disputes, reviews and installer billing for quote platforms.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Would the package do, or do we need a custom build?

A platform that routes each request to a fixed number of installers by territory and technology, bills per lead and collects quotes for comparison is usually well served by the installation quote package configured with your caps and prices. Custom work is the honest answer for mixed exclusive and shared modes, auctions, white-labelled partner sites, or installers who need leads pushed into their own CRMs. Discovery settles it before anything is quoted.

How does the platform treat installer accreditations?

As fields and documents supplied by the installer at onboarding, with expiry dates and a reminder before they lapse. The platform displays what was supplied and when; it does not verify membership unless a scheme publishes a lookup interface, in which case the returned status is shown with its date. Whether an unaccredited installer may receive leads is a rule you set.

What stops the same homeowner being sent to too many installers?

The router records every allocation against the request, so a request can only be distributed up to the number your rules allow, duplicate submissions from the same contact details are flagged for a human to merge, and installers see in their ledger how many others received the lead where your rules disclose it.

How are bad leads handled?

An installer raises a dispute from the lead with a reason from your list and any evidence, within the window you set. Platform staff decide and the outcome, a credit or a rejection, is recorded on the ledger and reflected on the next invoice. Dispute rates per installer and per source are reported so patterns show up.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. Source code, installer records, request data, the lead ledger and review records are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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