You do not have to buy a quote template, or pay for one with your email address: the structure fits on a single page, you will find it below in full, and you can rebuild it in Word, in a spreadsheet or straight as a PDF. In my template the fields come in this order: your details, the client's details, quote number and date, one sentence referring back to the conversation, the line items, a paragraph on what is not included, the price with its VAT treatment, the delivery period and validity date, and at the bottom a single next step. Unlike an invoice, a quote has no statutory form requirement under German law, so that list is good practice, not a set of legal must-haves. Two real legal consequences do attach to it: under section 145 of the German Civil Code (BGB) you are bound by your offer once it reaches the recipient, unless you excluded that binding effect, and towards consumers section 3 of the German Price Indication Ordinance (PAngV) requires total prices to be stated. The template itself is the easy part. Whether a quote gets accepted or sits there is decided in two fields: the description of the work and the reason behind the price. And on file formats it usually comes out like this: Word and the spreadsheet are the workshop, the PDF is what goes out.
A quote here no longer comes from a copied template file but from services and prices entered once; I only check the finished draft. How a quote is built legally and structurally, from the validity date to the difference from a non-binding cost estimate, is in How to Write a Quote That Convinces. This post does not repeat that; it delivers the finished structure. The concept behind it is on Hiring AI employees.
The template, top to bottom
Everything in square brackets is a placeholder and has to be replaced. One line is deliberately optional: the tax number and the VAT ID are mandatory details on an invoice under section 14 (4) UStG, not on a quote. A VAT ID in the letterhead helps business clients; the tax number belongs on the invoice. Type the structure out once, save it as a template file, and work with copies from then on.
[Your company name]
[Street and number]
[Postcode and town]
[Phone] · [Email]
[Optional: VAT ID, if you have one]
[Legal form and register entry, if registered]
[Client company]
[Contact person, spelled correctly]
[Street and number]
[Postcode and town]
Quote no. [YYYY-NNN] [Place], [Date]
Subject: [What is being offered, in one sentence and in the
client's own words]
Dear [Name],
[Reference: when you spoke and which problem they described.
One sentence, their words.]
THE WORK
Item 1 [Name of the deliverable]
[What exactly happens, in one to three sentences.]
[Why this item, one subordinate clause.]
[Amount] EUR
Item 2 [Name of the deliverable]
[Description.]
[Reason.]
[Amount] EUR
NOT INCLUDED
[What is explicitly not part of this quote, and what happens
if extra work comes up.]
PRICE
Net total [Amount] EUR
plus [rate] % VAT [Amount] EUR
Total [Amount] EUR
PERIOD AND VALIDITY
Delivery period: [from] to [to]
This quote is valid until [specific date].
NEXT STEP
[A single, concrete next step: sign and return, confirm by
email, book a slot.]
Kind regards
[Your name]
Two places get adjusted to your situation. If you are a small business under section 19 of the German VAT Act (UStG), the price block shows no VAT rate but a single amount, with a line stating that no VAT is charged under section 19 UStG. That applies only as long as your total turnover did not exceed 25,000 euros in the previous calendar year and stays under 100,000 euros in the current one. And if you, as a business, quote to a consumer, the gross amount belongs somewhere visible: the Price Indication Ordinance governs price information given by businesses to consumers, and section 3 PAngV requires the total price there, which has to be highlighted where prices are itemized. Towards business clients the net presentation is the common form; if you serve both groups, keep two template files.
The version with quantities and unit prices
As soon as you are selling quantities rather than outcomes, so material, hours, square metres or units, the work block becomes a table. The rest stays as it is.
Three notes on that. Put material and labour in separate rows instead of bundling them into one lump sum. If quantities come from a site measurement and can change on the day, add a sentence on how extra quantities are handled. And write full sentences in the description column rather than keywords, because that is where the selling actually happens. What else works differently in the trades, from master data to variation orders, is in Automating Quotes in the Trades.
The two fields it really hangs on
What leaves quotes sitting unanswered are the two fields a template cannot fill in for you. Here is the same line item twice, weak and strong, as a constructed example, not an extract from a real project.
Description of the work, weak:
Item 1: Consulting package Basic, 1 day. 1,800 EUR
Description of the work, strong:
Item 1: Workshop day on handling incoming enquiries, on site,
9 am to 4 pm. We walk through the three steps where enquiries
currently stall at your end, and by the end we write down one
process that all four people in the team apply the same way.
All four attend at the same time, so nobody is left working
from a second-hand version. 1,800 EUR
The difference is not length. The weak version names a product label only you understand, plus a duration. The strong version names the problem in the client's own words, the result that exists afterwards, and the reason behind a decision you made: everyone at once instead of one after another. That turns a price line into a decision line.
Reason behind the price, weak:
Total 4,900 EUR. Happy to put together an adjusted quote if
required.
Reason behind the price, strong:
Total 4,900 EUR for the whole thing: the workshop day, the
written process document, and two 45-minute follow-up calls
in the eight weeks after. Those two calls are priced in
because the questions tend to show up exactly when the new
process meets a real customer for the first time.
The weak version invites comparison and turns the price into an opening bid. The strong version breaks the number down into what it stands for and explains one component the client would not have asked for. If a line item has no reason you can give, that is a signal: either the item does not belong in the quote, or you have not finished evaluating the conversation.
Word, spreadsheet or PDF
The three formats solve different problems, and it is rarely either-or.
The practical route for most people: calculate items and totals in the spreadsheet, write the text in the word processor, export to PDF, send that. The PDF export is built into both. Without a Microsoft package, Writer and Calc from LibreOffice do the job; it is free and open source.
Two things a PDF does not do. It does not protect against editing: Microsoft points out in its own help that many programs, Word included, can open and edit PDF files. And it does not clean up: Word's "Publish as PDF or XPS" dialog explicitly offers to carry document properties, bookmarks and tracked changes into the PDF. The PDF is only clean if the source file was clean.
Why sending an editable file can be a problem
Anyone sending their quote as .docx or .xlsx is sending more than what is on screen. Microsoft lists what its Document Inspector finds in Office files: comments and revision marks, document properties such as author and template name, content in headers and footers, text formatted as hidden, and in workbooks hidden rows, columns and entire worksheets.
For a quote those are not trivia. If you copied the file from a quote for another client, that client's name may still sit in the document properties. If purchase prices, your hourly rate or margin assumptions live on the sheet next door, one right-click on the tab is enough. And a cell with a formula shows how you calculated the moment it is selected.
On top of that, an editable file invites editing. If you and your client later hold different versions of the same file, it is unclear what you agreed on, and that is exactly the question that matters in a dispute. The rule I settled on: editable is the workshop, what goes out is an export. If a client explicitly wants an editable file, clean it with the Document Inspector first and delete helper sheets rather than just hiding them. Then give the finished PDF the same once-over, document properties included. Doing that for the first time is easier with company: bring the question to my community, where others have worked through the same list. That is the practical side, not legal advice for your specific case.
When the template fills itself
A template takes the structure off your hands, not the work. Filling it in is still manual, and that is where the familiar mistakes come from: the wrong contact person carried over from a copied file, a price from last year, an item never discussed here, a leftover "[Amount]" in the totals line.
That is where Anton, the AI employee for quotes and invoices, comes in. He does not build the quote from a template file but from the services and prices you have given him, writes the line items from the evaluated first conversation, and delivers the result as a PDF in your design. If the client says yes, he creates the contact, the quote and the invoice as drafts in the accounting tool, typically Lexware Office. Two limits are built in, and they are the reason this holds up day to day: he drafts, you release, and no price without a source. If he finds two different prices for the same service, he lists both with their source and asks, rather than averaging them. Anton is available as a finished package in my community, in two forms: build him yourself on the Standard tier at 9 $ a month, or take the ready-made employee folder with 13 lessons in Premium at 45 $ a month (as of September 2026).
Frequently asked questions
Is a quote template really free?
Yes, and you do not need a download for it. The structure above is complete; type it out once and save it as a template. Many template portals ask for a registration or tie the file to a tool subscription. For your first quotes that is unnecessary: the value is in the structure, not the file.
Word or Excel for a quote template?
Word if your quote is mostly text, for example in consulting or coaching. A spreadsheet if you multiply quantities by unit prices and want the totals to add up on their own. Many people combine the two: calculate in the spreadsheet, write in the word processor. Either way, what goes out is a PDF export.
Should I send the quote as a Word file?
Usually better not to. According to Microsoft, Office files can carry comments, revision marks, document properties, hidden rows and entire hidden worksheets, which means your calculation too. A PDF export only shows what gets printed, but it will carry document properties and markup along if you let it. So clean the source file with the Document Inspector first, then export.
Which template do I need as a small business under section 19 UStG?
The same one, with one change in the price block: a single amount instead of net, VAT rate and gross, and below it the note that no VAT is charged under section 19 UStG. What the invoice looks like afterwards is shown by the free invoice template. Showing VAT by mistake gets expensive. The details are in Invoicing as a Small Business in Germany.
Does the German e-invoicing mandate apply to quotes as well?
No. The mandate covers invoices between businesses established in Germany, not quotes. A quote can still go out as a PDF, on paper, or in the body of an email. What applies to invoices and from when is in E-Invoicing in Germany: Who, From When, Exceptions.
How to take it further
Type the structure above out once and save it as a template file rather than a normal document, so you do not overwrite it by accident. Then take the last quote you sent and rewrite exactly two fields: the description of your most expensive line item, and the line under the total. If nothing comes to mind for the second one, what you are missing is not text but a price list every item can be derived from. Without that list, neither software nor an AI employee can take the draft off your hands. Writing it down is on you; if you get stuck, put your item list up for discussion in the community, where others have been down that road.
Which tasks are suitable for handing over at all is covered in Which tasks you can hand to AI. What this looks like together with the inbox and bookkeeping is in AI Agent for Bookkeeping and Inbox and, from a one-person business point of view, in AI for freelancers: what pays off. The finished quote and invoice employee, course included, is in my community Claude Practitioners.
