Writing Quotes by Email: Templates, Subject Lines, Deadlines

The email is the envelope, the PDF is the document. This division has a practical reason: the customer often forwards the offer – to accounting, to a co-owner, to the property management company. A PDF with number, date, and line items arrives there complete. An email text, on the other hand, gets quoted, shortened, mixed in with other messages.

There is one exception. If the offer consists of exactly one service with one price and needs no conditions, the email text is enough. "Maintenance of the heating system on 11/12, flat rate 189 € net plus 19% VAT" is such a case. As soon as a second line item, a discount, a materials clause, or a payment term is added, the whole thing belongs in a numbered PDF.

What the cover email needs to do

Five building blocks, in this order:

1. Reference: What are you responding to? Date of the inquiry, phone call, or on-site appointment.
2. Core: What will be done, in one sentence.
3. Amount: Total net and gross – exactly as it appears in the PDF. For private customers, the total price including VAT must be stated and highlighted when prices are itemized (§ 3 PAngV); a net price alone is not sufficient there.
4. Deadline: A date until which the offer is valid.
5. Next step: How does the customer confirm? Reply to the email, signature on the PDF, phone call.

Nothing more is needed. The email doesn't have to sell what the PDF already explains. It has to ensure that the recipient knows within ten seconds what it's about, what it costs, and what to do.

What belongs in the PDF

The PDF contains the complete details: sender with address, recipient, offer number, offer date, description of services with quantities and unit prices, net amount, VAT, gross amount, validity, and payment and execution terms. The full structure with a calculation example and checklist is shown in the article How do I write a proper offer? 12-point checklist. How to turn a template into a clean PDF and which export options exist is described in Offer PDF Export Template: structure, use, and export.

An email satisfies text form. This is the formal requirement from § 126b BGB: a legible statement on a durable medium, naming the person making the statement. For an offer between businesses or to private customers, no stricter form is required in the vast majority of cases – so email is a fully valid way to make an offer.

An offer is basically binding under § 145 BGB: whoever offers another person the conclusion of a contract is bound by it, unless they have excluded this binding effect. In practical terms, this means: if the customer accepts within the deadline, the contract has been concluded – and at the prices in your PDF. A typo in the total then becomes your problem.

How long the binding effect lasts is governed by two provisions:

• Without a stated deadline, an offer made to someone not present can only be accepted for as long as you may normally expect a reply (§ 147 para. 2 BGB). How long that is cannot be pinned down in days – which is exactly what makes a wording without a date impractical.
• With a stated deadline, the customer can only accept within that deadline (§ 148 BGB).

If the acceptance arrives too late or with changes ("Will do, but for 1,700 €"), it counts under § 150 BGB as a new offer from the customer. Then the ball is back in your court: you can accept it, reject it, or send a new offer. Anyone who simply starts working in this case without clarifying it in writing will later lose track of which version applies.

Non-binding: The offer without commitment

With the addition "non-binding" or "freibleibend," you exclude the binding effect. Legally, this then becomes more of an invitation for the customer to make an offer themselves. This fits for rough estimates before a site visit or for materials with fluctuating purchase prices. It does not fit if the customer needs a reliable commitment in order to get internal approval.

Where the line to a cost estimate ("Kostenvoranschlag") lies and what applies in case of overruns is explained in Offer vs. Cost Estimate: The Difference. For disputes in individual cases – for example, if a customer wants to enforce a late acceptance – legal advice is the right path, not a blog article.

Replace the placeholders in square brackets. All templates use the formal "Sie" form; for regular customers you address informally, adjust the salutation accordingly. The PDF is intended as an attachment in every template.

Template 1: Offer following a written inquiry

The most common case: a customer writes, you send the offer.

If you are a registered merchant or run a GmbH or UG, the signature must also include the mandatory details for business letters that also apply to emails: company name, legal form, registered office or location of the branch, register court and registration number, and for a GmbH also all managing directors (§ 37a HGB, § 35a GmbHG).

The pre-formulated acceptance sentence is the most important part. It names the offer number – and that is exactly what's missing from replies like "fine, go ahead," which get tacked onto an old email chain.

Template 2: Offer following an on-site appointment

In trades, the offer usually follows a site visit. Referring to the appointment shows that the calculation is based on what you saw – and records what you could not check.

The "Not included" line prevents most disputes before they start. In late autumn, outdoor work should also include a sentence about weather: frost or persistent rain delays appointments, and the customer should know this in advance.

Template 3: Rough estimate, non-binding

For inquiries where you can only give a range without a site visit.

Do not attach a PDF here. A PDF with letterhead and a number looks like a firm offer even if "non-binding" is written on it.

Template 4: Following up when there's no reply

A follow-up about an offer comes across as pushy if it just asks "Have you decided yet?" It comes across as helpful if it makes the decision easier for the customer: an appointment, an open question, an alternative.

Send this as a reply to your own offer email, not as a new email. That way the PDF stays directly below in the thread.

Template 5: Confirming acceptance

When the customer accepts, you confirm in writing which version applies. With two or more offer versions, this is not a mere formality.

Template 6: Requesting a cost estimate (customer's perspective)

Anyone requesting an offer or a cost estimate themselves gets more comparable answers if the inquiry specifies the key details.

A template for a customer's written acceptance of a received offer is shown at recht-finanzen.de. The principle is the same as in Template 1: state the date and designation of the offer.

An offer has only really arrived once the customer can find it again three weeks later. The subject line and file name take care of that, not the email body.

Our scheme has four building blocks:

Subject: Offer + number + service in three to five words + validity date.

Example: Offer 2026-117 – Ventilation system maintenance office – valid until 15.01.2027

That's 70 characters. On a smartphone, a subject line of this length is often cut off – which is why the number and service come first, and the date comes last. If something has to be cut off at the end, it should be the least important element.

File name: Offer_2026-117_Mueller-GmbH_Ventilation.pdf

Without umlauts and spaces, because some filing systems and older email programs mangle them. A file name like Offer.pdf or Scan_20261116.pdf ends up next to five other identically named files at the customer's end.

Two things have no place in the subject line: "Urgent" and exclamation marks. Both are among the patterns that spam filters and humans alike use to recognize dubious emails.

A deadline in days sounds precise, but it isn't: does it count from the date of sending or the date of receipt? And where does it land? The table below works through typical sending dates from the end of this year.

Three of the five deadlines end on a day when neither you nor your customer is in the office. Whether the deadline shifts to the next business day in such cases under § 193 BGB is something you don't even need to figure out if you don't let the question arise in the first place.

The rule that follows:

• Sent by roughly mid-November: deadline of two to four weeks, written as a date.
• Sent from late November onward: set the deadline to a date in mid-January, for example Fri, 15.01.2027. That covers the period "between the years" when many customers leave offers sitting and only approve them in the new year.

If you're adjusting your own prices or purchase prices at the turn of the year, you face a conflict: a long deadline ties you to old prices. In that case, state two dates – "prices valid for execution until 31.01.2027" and "offer valid until 15.01.2027" – instead of shortening the deadline and putting the customer under pressure.

Following up in rhythm with the deadline

A rhythm you can set up in your calendar:

Do not follow up during calendar weeks 52 and 53. A reminder on 28.12. will, in most inboxes, only be read in January – along with everything else that has piled up.

The most common substantive error in offer emails is a total that differs from the PDF. This happens when the PDF is changed again after the email was written – a line item removed, a discount added.

Example with three line items:

The standard VAT rate of 19% is set out in § 12 UStG; reduced rates apply to individual services, which you need to check per item. Anyone using the small business regulation under § 19 UStG does not show VAT; in that case there is only one total, and the email states exactly that amount.

The checking rule: the figure in the email is written last, after the final PDF export – and read off the PDF, not from memory. Anyone who creates offers in software that fills the email text and the PDF from the same data doesn't have this problem. In MeinGewerbe, for example, you enter the customer and services once, generate the PDF from that, and turn it into a draft invoice after acceptance, without re-typing amounts.

The following errors come up again and again in practice when offers go out under time pressure. For each one, here's how to spot it early.

Forgotten attachment. The email says "attached," but the attachment is missing. Many email programs warn you when the word "attachment" appears in the text and no file is attached – but only if that feature is enabled. Early warning sign: the customer replies with a question within an hour.

Reply without reference. The customer replies "Yes, fine" to an email chain with three offer versions. Which one applies? Remedy: the pre-formulated acceptance sentence with the number from Template 1, and the confirmation from Template 5.

Wrong recipient. The address field auto-completes a name, and the offer for Müller GmbH goes to Müller & Söhne. This isn't just embarrassing – it passes on prices and customer data to third parties. Read the full address before sending, not just the display name.

Deadline without a date. "Valid for 4 weeks" – starting when? See the table above.

Attachments too large or wrong. Photos from the site visit at full size, multiple PDFs, a ZIP file: corporate inboxes sometimes reject large attachments or archives, or put them in quarantine. A single PDF a few MB in size is the least conspicuous route. If needed, photos should be shrunk and placed inside the PDF.

Editable format instead of PDF. An offer as a Word file can be altered by the recipient, and layout and page breaks look different on every computer. The PDF locks in what you actually offered.

No number. Without an offer number, there's no clean reference in the acceptance, order confirmation, and invoice. At the latest when the invoice refers to "your offer from November," things get confusing.

This list takes under two minutes and catches the errors above:

1. Subject line contains offer number, service, and validity date.
2. Recipient address read in full, not just the display name.
3. Salutation with the correct name; no leftover text from the previous email.
4. Reference to the inquiry or appointment with a date.
5. Total amount in the email matches the final PDF – net and gross.
6. Deadline given as a calendar date, not in days; not between 24.12. and 1.1.
7. Next step clearly stated, ideally with a pre-formulated acceptance sentence.
8. Exactly one PDF attached, file name follows the scheme.
9. PDF itself opened: pages complete, number and date correct.
10. Signature with phone number, so follow-up questions are possible without searching.

If you send offers regularly, it's worth having points 5, 6, and 8 handled by a template or software instead of checking them by hand. The basic structure of such a template is described in Offer Writing Template: Structure and Sample.

Is an offer sent by email binding?

Yes, generally. An email satisfies the text form requirement under § 126b BGB, and under § 145 BGB you are bound by an offer unless you explicitly exclude that binding effect, for example with "non-binding." If the customer accepts unchanged within the stated deadline, the contract has been concluded.

Is there a template for a cost estimate request?

Yes, Template 6 above is such a request from the customer's perspective. What matters is the scope, location, desired timeframe, possible site visit dates, and the request to show material, labor time, and travel separately. This way you get answers you can compare side by side.

What elements should an offer include?

The PDF should include sender and recipient, offer number and date, description of services with quantities and unit prices, net amount, VAT, and gross amount, validity date, and payment and execution terms. The cover email only summarizes the reference, core, total amount, deadline, and next step.

How do I phrase a follow-up on an offer?

Reply to your own offer email so the PDF stays in the thread, and offer the customer something concrete: a fixed execution date, a scaled-down variant, or clarification of an open question. Template 4 shows this structure. A good time is around the tenth business day after sending – not during the week between Christmas and New Year.