Discount rules for quotes: who can approve what in a small team

A small team needs a written discount rule: how much each person can take off a quote on their own, what goes to a manager and what never happens. Set it by role and by quote size, so routine quotes go out at once and only the big or deep ones wait for a second pair of eyes. Then train everyone to trade something (scope, timing, payment terms) before they cut the price.

What a discount really costs

A discount comes straight out of profit, not out of revenue in general. That's why it hurts more than it looks.

Say a project is quoted at £10,000 and costs you £8,000 to deliver in time, people and tools. Your profit is £2,000. Give 10% off and the client pays £9,000, but your costs don't change. Profit falls to £1,000. A 10% discount just halved what you make on the job, and you'd need to win two discounted projects to earn what one full-price project paid.

This is an old lesson. Michael Marn and Robert Rosiello opened their 1992 Harvard Business Review article, Managing Price, Gaining Profit, with the line: "The right price can boost profit faster than increasing volume will; the wrong price can shrink it just as quickly." The numbers have changed since. The arithmetic hasn't.

There's a longer-term cost too. Once a client has paid less, that's their price. Simon-Kucher's Global Pricing Study 2025, drawn from more than 2,200 business leaders, found that companies realise less than half of the price increases they plan. Every discount you give makes the next increase harder.

Why discounts happen anyway

Most discounts aren't strategy. They happen because someone wants the deal closed and the price is the easiest lever to pull.

The first number sticks. Research on 26 million eBay negotiations, published in PNAS in 2023, found that "final sale prices are closer to buyers' initial offers than to sellers' asking prices." When a client opens with a low figure and the person quoting has no rule to fall back on, the price drifts toward the client's number.

Silence feels like price. A client who goes quiet is often unsure, not unhappy with the price. Matthew Dixon, whose research covered about 2.5 million sales conversations, told CustomerThink that 40 to 60% of deals are lost to customers doing nothing. A discount doesn't fix indecision. A clear scope and an easy next step usually do.

Nobody owns the margin. In a team, the person writing the quote often doesn't see the costs. They see a client who wants 15% off and a quote that's been open for a week.

A discount policy a small team can follow

Write it on one page. The point is to make the normal case fast and the unusual case visible. Here is a starting ladder for a team of two to twenty:

Add three lines under the table:

1. A reason is required. Every discount has a written reason on the quote record: repeat client, multi-project commitment, early payment, portfolio piece.
2. Discounts need something in return. See the next section.
3. No discounts after acceptance. Once a client has accepted a price, a later reduction is a credit note with a reason, not a quiet edit.

Adjust the percentages to your margins. A business with 50% margins can let people give more on their own than one running at 15%.

Trade, don't cut

Before anyone lowers the price, they should try to change the deal so the lower number still works for you. The usual trades:

• Less scope. Remove a deliverable, a revision round or a meeting. The client pays less and you do less.
• A smaller package. If you sell good, better and best packages, the answer to "can you do it cheaper?" is often the package below.
• Better payment terms. A bigger deposit, payment up front or a shorter due date is worth real money to you. Our post on payment terms and deposits covers the options.
• Flexible timing. A lower price for a slot in your quiet season, or for a longer delivery window.
• A commitment. A small reduction for a signed series of projects or a longer retainer, priced so the total is worth it.

If none of those work and the client still wants a lower price for the same thing, it's usually better to let the quote go. Record the reason when you close it as lost.

Review discounts every quarter

A policy only works if someone looks at what happened. Once a quarter, pull every accepted quote that carried a discount and check three things. How much was given away in total, as a share of revenue? Did the discounted deals turn into good clients, or into the ones who also paid late and asked for extra rounds? And who gives the most discounts, and does their win rate justify it?

If one person wins often at full price, ask how they talk about price and share it with the team. If discounts bunch up at the end of each month, the pressure is coming from a target, not from clients.

Approvals that don't slow every quote

Approval rules fail when they turn every quote into a queue. Three things keep them light:

• Only route the exceptions. If 80% of quotes need no approval, nobody minds the 20% that do.
• Send it to the nearest person who can say yes. Not always the owner. A team lead who knows the client is faster and better informed.
• Set a reply time. An approval that waits three days loses the deal. Agree that approvers answer within a working day.

How Delivvo routes big discounts to the right person

Delivvo builds the approval ladder into the quote itself, so a team member can send quotes freely within their limits and the exceptions go up the chain without anyone chasing.

1. Set limits per role. On Team and up, each role can have a maximum quote total and a maximum discount percentage. A junior role might send anything up to your usual project size with up to 5% off.
2. Quotes inside the limits go straight out. The client gets the link at once.
3. Quotes over a limit wait for approval. Delivvo checks the total the client could pick (after discount, before tax) and the discount when the quote is sent. If either is over the role's limit, the quote is held as pending.
4. It goes to the nearest manager who can approve it. Delivvo looks up the chain for the first manager whose own role can approve quotes and whose limits cover this one, and falls back to the account owner. The owner never needs approval.
5. The client sees one clean quote. Once approved, the quote goes out with packages, add-ons, the contract and the deposit on one page.

Pending quotes wait in the approvals list, nobody approves their own request, and while an approver is away their cover answers for them. On Business and up, approval chains can run through more than one level. Clients pay through your own Stripe, PayPal or Square account, and Delivvo takes 0% of the payment, discounted or not. See how quotes work on the proposals page and how roles work on the team workspace page.

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