Automated estimate follow-up texts for home services

Who sends estimate follow-up texts?

Contractors and home services businesses that quote before they work: HVAC, plumbing, roofing, remodeling, cleaning, landscaping and solar.

For home services teams, the estimate is written on site or sent that evening, and the homeowner is often comparing two or three. The office runs the follow-up so the crew can stay on the job.

What does an estimate follow-up sequence look like?

Three texts over about a week, counted in business days: a check that the estimate arrived, an offer to change price or timing, and a text that closes the file.

• The Condition steps read a Job status column. A Condition step reads the person’s row in your list at the moment it runs. Change a column by hand, or let your CRM’s sync change it, and the next Condition step sees the new value. The moment someone in the office marks a job Booked, that homeowner gets no further text.
• The close-the-loop text leaves the door open with the same number, which is the one the homeowner saves.
• Fields such as {{Job}} and {{Rep}} come from your list. If a field is empty for someone, they pause at that step with the missing column named, so nobody gets a text with a gap in it.

When should estimate follow-up texts go out?

The first one the day after the estimate, in the morning, then the next ones two and four business days apart.

Push the day’s estimates into the campaign each evening, or schedule tomorrow’s launch for 9 AM, so the first text lands while the visit is fresh. Waits count whole days, from 1 to 30, and Business days only skips Saturdays and Sundays. To start a batch at a set time, use Schedule on the Launch tab and pick the date and time.

Each campaign has its own sending days and hours. With Send in each lead’s local time on, those hours follow each person’s time zone, read from the area code of their number, and Textually never sends a campaign text before 8 AM or after 9 PM on their clock, the window US federal rules set for telephone solicitations (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). A text that falls due outside the hours waits for the next allowed time.

Do I need consent to text a homeowner about an estimate?

Yes: their agreement to get texts from you, recorded with where and when. The booking form or the call that set up the visit is the easiest place to ask.

When the homeowner texted you first, carrier guidance says “no additional permission is expected” for your reply (CTIA, 2023). A follow-up that adds a discount or an offer is promotional, and in the US those need prior express written consent when sent with an autodialer (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2)). In Canada, a text that solely gives a quote or estimate the person asked for skips CASL’s consent requirement (s. 6(6)(a)). The estimate follow-up guide goes through each way a job gets booked. This is a summary of public rules as of October 2026, not legal advice.

In Textually each person needs a consent record, the source and the date they agreed, carried from columns on your list or your CRM, or you confirm consent for the whole campaign at launch. A text step skips anyone without one and saves the reason on the lead.

What happens when a homeowner replies or texts STOP?

A reply ends the estimate sequence and goes to the office in the shared inbox. STOP or clear stop wording opts the homeowner out across your workspace.

• A reply of any kind ends the sequence for that person, and no later step goes out. The thread lands in the shared inbox with a label such as Interested or Declined, and whoever answers sends from the number the person already knows.
• STOP, or clear wording such as “please stop texting me” or “remove me from your list”, opts the person out across your whole workspace: this campaign, every other campaign that holds their number, and any you run later. The inbox won’t send to them, and a later text from them does not undo it.

Every member of the workspace sees the reply in the bell inside Textually, and each person can turn on email or browser alerts. A thread that has waited more than 4 hours is marked overdue in Needs reply. “We went with someone else” is still worth a kind answer, and the thread stays on file.

An opt-out on an estimate also means no review request or seasonal reminder later, because every campaign in the workspace skips that number.

How do I connect my CRM for estimate follow-up?

Connect the CRM and the contacts come into a list you push into the estimate campaign. Each reply and opt-out goes back on the record as a note.

Pipedrive adds the note on the person, HighLevel on the contact in the sub-account you connect, and Zoho CRM on the lead or contact. Match a job status field and Keep in sync, every hour, keeps the Condition steps current.

Field service software without an integration works through a CSV export, pasted or uploaded into a list, or through the API.

Guides on this topic

• Estimate follow-up texts for contractors and home services10 min
• Follow-up text message templates for sales and customers9 min
• Review request texts: when to ask and what the rules allow10 min