Pricing security work against tariffs and supply shocks
Hardware costs moved more in 2025 than in the previous five years combined. A short essay on quoting durably in a noisy market.
I do not want to write a doom post about tariffs. Plenty of people are doing that. I want to write about what changed in how we quote work in our category, because the shocks of the last 18 months pushed some new practices into the field that I think are worth keeping even when the noise subsides.
What broke about the old quote
The traditional integrator quote was a fixed-price bundle. Hardware, labor, integration, three year service. Customers liked it because it was simple. Integrators liked it because it was easy to compare on. The problem is that hardware moved 20 to 30 percent in unpredictable directions over the last year, and the fixed price either ate the margin (if the price moved up) or felt like a ripoff to the customer (if the price moved down).
What is replacing it
- Hardware quoted at current spot, with a 30 day validity window stated clearly
- Labor quoted on the typical structure
- An optional locked-cost provision the customer can buy for an extra 4 to 7 percent, useful for long projects
- Clear language about substitution if a SKU becomes unavailable during the project
Why the customer accepts this
Because the alternative is worse. The fixed price either includes a fat hedge or contains a clause that lets you re-price mid-project. Both feel bad to the buyer. The transparent quote, broken out into components with stated validity, is the move that builds the most trust, and trust is the only durable pricing strategy in a noisy market.
The integrator who quotes transparently wins more late-stage deals than the one who quotes lowest. We watched it twice this quarter alone.
A note on AI in the quote
We have started seeing AI-generated bills of materials at the early stage of bigger deals. Some of them are good. Some of them quote SKUs that have not shipped in six quarters. The mistake is treating the AI quote as a contract instead of as a draft. If you let the AI write the quote and skip the human review, you will quote work you cannot deliver, and the deal will collapse at the install phase.
“Transparency is the new fixed price. Customers do not want a number that hides the risk. They want a number that names the risk.”
If this resonated, it'll feel familiar in the product.
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