Why two quotes for the same stand can differ by 2× — and neither is wrong

You send the same design to a few contractors. Same renders, same square meters, same show. The quotes come back — and one is double the other. Every agency and every exhibitor has lived this moment, and the first instinct is always the same: somebody is trying to cheat me.

Almost never. The 2× spread has boring, structural explanations — and once you understand them, you can read quotes the way contractors write them. Nobody in the chain explains this publicly. Let’s do it.

The obvious answer — and why it’s not enough

Yes, some of the spread is middlemen. In this industry the same physical stand is often quoted by several layers at once: the workshop that will actually build it, an agency reselling that workshop, and sometimes a broker reselling the agency. Every layer adds its cut, so the same stand arrives at your desk under several different price tags.

But that’s the answer everyone already knows — and it explains less than you’d think. Two honest builders, both quoting their own work, can still land 2× apart. Here’s why.

The answer nobody shows you: cost structures

Every contractor’s price carries their whole company inside it, and companies are built very differently.

Same drawings, three business models — and all three prices are honest.

The big machine. A large firm carries large fixed costs — halls, machinery, payroll, management. It often literally cannot afford to fill its calendar with projects earning under ~10% margin; each job has to feed the machine. Their quote isn’t greedy. It’s the honest price of their overhead.

The name. Some firms’ reputation lets them skim the cream — 40% margin, because the client is buying certainty, an address, a brand to show their board. Also honest: you’re paying for the sleep you’ll get at night.

The revenue chaser. And some firms barely look at margin at all — they look at revenue. Crews need to stay busy, cash needs to flow, so they’ll quote close to cost just to keep the calendar full. That rock-bottom number is honest too — this month.

Same drawings. Three business models. Three true prices.

What’s actually inside the number

The rest of the spread hides in the assumptions — because your brief never specifies everything, and every contractor fills the gaps differently:

• Material grades. “White walls” can mean three price classes before anyone lies.
• What’s excluded. Transport, rigging, venue services, storage, dismantling, standby crew during the show — the cheapest bottom line is often the one that quietly leaves the most out.
• Risk pricing. An incomplete brief makes a careful contractor price the unknowns in — and an aggressive one price them out, planning to “find” the difference in change orders on site, where you can no longer say no.

The checklist: how to normalize quotes before comparing them

1. Send everyone the same brief — floor plan with the plot marked, venue and hall, design files with dimensions, build dates, and yes: the budget range. Hiding the budget doesn’t get you a better price; it gets you incomparable guesses.
2. Ask what’s excluded. Transport, rigging, venue fees, graphics, storage, dismantling, show-time support — line by line.
3. Pin the materials. Ask each bidder to name the material and finish class behind the three most visible elements.
4. Ask who builds. Own production, or resold? A resold quote isn’t bad — but you should know how many margins you’re stacking.
5. Ask how change orders are priced — before you sign, not on site.
6. Compare scope, not bottom lines. The number in bold is the least informative line on the page.

Find your people

So what should a manager do with a strictly defined budget and fantastic ideas to realize? Not hunt for the lowest number — hunt for the contractor whose business model fits the project. A 60 sqm build with ambitious details is a rounding error to the big machine, a cream-skimming opportunity to the name, and a perfect fit for a lean team that prices its overhead honestly.

The quotes will tell you who is who — once you know how to read them.

Find your people.

People Can Build — more about how we design and build stands at peoplecanbuild.com.

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