Almost every bathroom quote you receive will contain at least one allowance — a number set aside for tile, or fixtures, or a vanity, rather than a price for a specific item. People often read that as vagueness. It is usually the opposite.
What an allowance actually is
An allowance is a placeholder for a cost that depends on a choice nobody has made yet. Tile is the clearest example. Setting the tile is the same labor whether you pick something for three dollars a square foot or thirty. But the material cost between those two on a single bathroom can be more than a thousand dollars, and no honest quote can pretend to know which one you will stand in a showroom and fall in love with.
So the bid prices the work, and carries a number for the material. When you choose, the number resolves — up or down — and the difference belongs to you either way.
How to tell a fair allowance from a lazy one
A fair allowance tells you what it assumes. It should name a unit and a quantity: so many square feet of tile at a stated cost per foot, not simply "tile allowance — $1,800." If you cannot see the arithmetic, you cannot tell whether it is generous or whether it has been set low to make the total look competitive.
That last point is worth sitting with. An allowance set deliberately low is one of the easiest ways to make a bid look cheaper than the bid beside it, because the shortfall does not appear until you are choosing materials — by which point the contract is signed and the wall is open.
The questions worth asking
- What does this allowance assume, in units? Square feet, each, linear feet.
- What happens if I come in under it? The answer should be that you keep the difference. If it is not, ask why.
- Is labor inside or outside the allowance? A tile allowance that quietly includes setting labor behaves very differently from one that does not.
- When do I have to decide? Every allowance has a date attached, whether the bid says so or not. Tile that arrives late holds up everything behind it.
Where allowances should not appear
Anything that can be measured now should be priced now. Framing, drywall, waterproofing, the plumbing rough — those depend on the room, not on your taste, and a bid that carries an allowance for them is telling you it has not been scoped properly yet.
If you are holding two bathroom quotes and one is meaningfully cheaper, compare the allowances before you compare the totals. That is usually where the difference is hiding.
You can see how we set out a bathroom scope on the bathroom renovation page, or send us the room and we will tell you what we would need to price it.