A couple in Hintonburg sat at their kitchen table last month with three quotes for the same renovation. A low number, a middle number, and a high number, far enough apart that the spread between them was larger than the cheapest quote itself.
Three contractors. Same kitchen. Same drawings. Same address. The spread was wide enough to feel like an error.
They asked me which one was honest. The answer is all three. The reason one kitchen quote can sit far above another and both be truthful has nothing to do with greed. It has to do with what was assumed, what was excluded, and how each contractor structures his business.
Here is what is actually happening when you see that kind of spread.
1. Scope clarity (or the lack of it)
The single biggest reason quotes diverge is that they are not quoting the same job.
If your scope is "renovate my kitchen," every contractor fills in the blanks himself. One assumes you keep the existing layout. One assumes you move the sink. One assumes you take down the wall to the dining room. One includes new flooring through the whole main floor. One only does the kitchen footprint.
Until somebody draws the kitchen, lists the cabinets, names the appliances, picks the counters, and writes a scope-of-work document, you are not comparing quotes. You are comparing guesses.
The fix
Before you ask three contractors for a quote, get a basic scope-of-work document. One page. Listing every item, every fixture, every finish. The contractors fill in numbers next to identical line items. Now the variation is real.
2. Material tier assumptions
"Quartz counters" can mean a basic Caesarstone slab or a premium Cambria with a waterfall edge, several times the price per square foot. Same word. Different planet.
Same with cabinets. "Custom cabinets" in one quote means stock IKEA boxes with a custom door front. In another it means in-house built poplar drawer boxes with dovetail joinery. The labor and material on those two is 3x apart.
Tile, plumbing fixtures, lighting, hardware, flooring, paint grade, trim profile, all of it has a 3-to-5x range from low end to high end. If your quotes do not specify brand and model, you are reading fiction.
3. In-house labor vs. subbed labor
Some contractors employ their carpenters, cabinet makers, and project managers on full-time payroll with WSIB and benefits. Others sub out 100% of the work to whoever has availability that week.
The in-house guy carries higher fixed costs (insurance, equipment, shop space, year-round payroll). His quote is higher. But his quality control is also higher because the same hands are on every project, and he can pull a crew off another job if yours falls behind.
The all-sub guy has lower overhead so his quote is lower. But every job is a fresh negotiation with whichever sub is cheapest that month, and his ability to control the trade quality is whatever the sub feels like delivering. We run an in-house cabinet shop in Ottawa for exactly this reason. The cost is real, but so is the control.
4. Markup and profit structure
Every legitimate contractor adds markup. The number varies more than people think.
A small one-truck contractor with no office and no project manager runs 12 to 18% markup. He can quote low because he has almost no overhead. He also has no project manager, no design support, no warranty department, and if he gets sick or busy, your project sits.
A mid-size design-build firm with a shop, office, designers, project managers, and a warranty desk runs 25 to 38% markup. The number is bigger because there are more people to pay, but those people are why the job runs on time, the change orders are documented, and somebody picks up the phone when a tile cracks 18 months later.
Both are honest. They are pricing different products.
5. Contingency built in vs. left out
Renovation always finds something. A wall that is not where the drawings say. A pipe that needs to move. A floor that needs leveller compound. A subfloor with rot.
One contractor adds 8 to 12% contingency right into his fixed-price quote and never mentions it. Another quotes the bare minimum and lets you pay for every surprise as a change order. The first quote looks higher on paper. The second one always finishes higher in reality.
The fixed-price contractor is buying himself room. The cost-plus or "open contingency" contractor is buying himself flexibility, which usually means buying himself profit on your surprises.
6. What is included that you did not see
Read every quote line by line. The cheap one almost always excludes things that are not optional:
- Permit fees and plan-review charges (the City of Ottawa permit minimum is $117, and kitchens with electrical or structural work scale up from there)
- BCIN-stamped drawings if a wall is moving
- Structural engineering if you are pulling a load-bearing wall
- Disposal bins and dump fees
- Site protection (floor paper, plastic, dust walls)
- Electrical panel upgrades
- HVAC re-balancing after layout changes
- Final paint touch-ups
- Substantial completion cleaning
- Warranty period and what it actually covers
If those lines are missing from one quote and present in another, the difference is real money you will pay anyway, just later and as change orders.
7. Who carries the risk
This is the one homeowners almost never think about, and it is half the price difference on a real project.
A fixed-price quote means the contractor carries the cost of every surprise. If the kitchen demo reveals a rotted joist, that is his problem to fix at his price. A cost-plus quote means you carry it. The hourly rate looks lower in the headline, but you pay every minute of the surprise.
For a renovation in a 1958 Alta Vista bungalow, the surprises are guaranteed. Knob-and-tube. Cast iron stack. Old galvanized supply lines. A fixed-price contractor priced those surprises in. A cost-plus contractor will hand you the bill on day 21.
Two honest quotes can differ by 60% if they are pricing different products. The job of a homeowner is to figure out which product they want to buy.
8. Project manager included or absent
A real project manager runs the trades, runs the schedule, runs the change orders, and runs the homeowner communication. That is a full-time salaried role, and it shows up on the quote as 10 to 15% of the project.
A no-PM operation has the owner-contractor running between job sites in a truck. He is on yours for two hours, then he is on three other projects. The cheap quote almost never includes a PM. The expensive one almost always does. On any sizeable project, the PM saves you more in errors than he costs.
9. Warranty differences
"One year warranty" is the legal floor for new home work in Ontario. Some contractors meet it. Some exceed it. Some have no real warranty department at all and you discover that when you call.
We carry a 1-year DTR labor warranty plus the 25-year manufacturer warranty on cabinets and the 10-year structural on engineered work. That warranty is staffed by an actual person who answers an actual phone. A solo contractor with no office cannot offer that, even if he writes the same words on his quote.
10. The cheap quote you should still listen to
Sometimes the low quote is just a smaller, leaner contractor doing solid work and quoting honestly. He is not lying. He is also not running the same machine the bigger firm is running.
If you can manage your own decisions, ride out a longer schedule, and absorb the surprises that come without a PM in your corner, the small contractor can be the right pick. We have referred work to small operators we trust, when the project fits their model and the homeowner is up for the partnership.
What you should never do is assume the low quote is the same product as the high quote and just take the lower number. That is the call I get six weeks later, when the project is half-done and the contractor is gone.
How to read three quotes side by side
Lay them flat on the table. For each line item, ask:
- Is the same brand and model named, or is it a generic word like "quartz"?
- Is the labor scope identical, or has somebody assumed less work?
- Are permits, drawings, and engineering listed and priced?
- Is contingency named, and at what percentage?
- Is there a project manager and what does he do?
- What is the warranty, in writing, and who administers it?
- Who carries the surprise (fixed price vs. cost-plus)?
If those seven answers are different across three quotes, the price spread is honest. If they are identical and the price still spreads widely, somebody is lowballing to win the work and plans to make it back on change orders. Our estimating process is built to make all seven of those answers visible upfront.
What we do differently
Every quote we write is a fixed-price scope-of-work document, with brand-and-model selections, permit fees, drawings, engineering, contingency, project manager, and warranty all listed by line. The price is bigger than the cheap quote on paper. It is also the price you will actually pay, with no change orders driven by missing scope.
If you have three quotes in front of you and you cannot tell which one is honest, send them to us. We will read them with you for free and tell you what each one is actually pricing. Call 613-862-4555 or book a 30-minute review.