The remodelers who win more jobs answer quote requests first, follow up on estimates without nagging, and stay in touch with past clients long after the dumpster leaves. Text messages do all three, and the cost of running the whole system is usually smaller than a single print ad. That makes texting the most practical piece of home remodeler marketing you can set up this month.
This post walks through five texts a remodeling business should send, gives a template for each, and works out what the whole system costs on Ready, our texting platform. We also cover the registration and compliance setup, because a text that carriers filter never reaches the homeowner.
Reply to quote requests in minutes, not hours
Homeowners shopping for a kitchen or bath remodel often submit the same request to several contractors in one sitting. The first contractor who responds with something useful gets the first conversation, and the first conversation often turns into the site visit.
A phone call at 2 PM to someone who filled out your form at lunch usually goes to voicemail. A text gets read. The goal of the first text is to book a short call or a site visit, not to sell.
Template (under 160 characters, so 1 segment):
Hi [Name], this is [Your Name] at [Company]. Got your [kitchen] request. Free for a 10-min call today or tomorrow? Reply with a good time.
That's about 140 characters with no emoji, so it bills as one segment. Add a single emoji and the limit drops to 70 characters, which turns the same text into 3 segments. Skip emoji in business texts. They triple the cost and add nothing.
When the homeowner replies "call me now," place the call from the Ready Dialer pad in the dashboard (or inside GoHighLevel, if you run it). The Ready Dialer bills $0.025/min, so a 12-minute scoping call costs $0.30. Calls can be recorded with consent and transcribed, which helps when you're writing the estimate later and can't remember whether they wanted the island moved.
Make sure the form collects consent
Your quote form needs a checkbox, unchecked by default, saying the homeowner agrees to receive texts from you, with a "Reply STOP to opt out" line. Your form or CRM stores that record: the time, the wording and the page. Ready records your attestation each time you send a campaign (and each API send that attests consent) (who sent, to how many, when), but it does not store per-contact opt-in proof. Keep the proof on your side. (A contact who signs up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page is the exception: Ready stores that sign-up, with the time, IP address and exact wording, and support@tryready.com can send you a copy.)
Run an estimate follow-up drip that doesn't nag
Most remodeling estimates don't get a yes or no. They get silence. The homeowner is comparing bids, talking to a spouse or waiting on a bonus. A short drip campaign keeps you in the conversation without calling five times.
A reasonable cadence for a $30,000+ project:
- Day 0, estimate sent: "Hi [Name], your estimate for the [bathroom] is in your inbox. Happy to walk through any line item. What questions came up?"
- Day 3: "Quick note: our [cabinet supplier] lead time is about [6] weeks right now, so a start in [month] means ordering by [date]. Want me to hold a slot?"
- Day 10: "Hi [Name], checking in on the [bathroom] estimate. If budget is the sticking point, I can price a version with [stock vanity / standard tile]."
- Day 21: "Last check-in from me on the [bathroom]. If you went another direction, no hard feelings. If you're still deciding, reply anytime."
Every step gives a reason to reply: a question, a deadline grounded in a real lead time, a cheaper option. None of them say "just following up." Stop the drip the moment the homeowner replies, and write that reply by hand. Our post on which texts to automate and which to write by hand goes deeper on that split.
Cut phone tag with project-update texts
Once the contract is signed, most homeowner frustration comes from not knowing what's happening. "Is the crew coming today?" turns into missed calls, voicemails and a project manager returning calls from the truck.
Send short updates at the points homeowners actually care about:
- Day before start: crew arrival window, where to park the dumpster, what to clear out
- Inspection days: date, and whether anyone needs to be home
- Material delays: what's late, the new date, and what it changes
- Selections due: "Tile choice needed by Friday to keep the [date] install"
- Final walkthrough: date and time to confirm
Each of these fits in one segment. A typical project might generate 10 outbound updates and about 10 inbound replies. Replies are billed like a sent text on Ready (the per-segment rate plus the carrier fee), so plan on roughly 20 segments per active job. Replies land in the same Inbox as everything else, so your office manager and project lead see the same thread.
If you schedule site visits or design appointments, our guide to appointment reminder SMS has timing and templates that carry straight over.
Ask for referrals right after the final walkthrough
Remodeling runs on referrals and reviews, and the best time to ask is when the homeowner is standing in a finished kitchen. Wait three weeks and the excitement has faded into the next thing.
Send this the evening of the final walkthrough:
[Name], thanks for trusting us with your kitchen. If you're happy with it, a quick review helps us a lot: [review link]. And if a friend is planning a project, we'd love an intro.
That's two segments with a link. Use your own domain or the review platform's direct link. Shared public URL shorteners are a common reason texts get filtered.
One referral ask, one gentle reminder a week later if there's no response, then stop.
Send seasonal campaigns to past clients
Past clients are a pipeline most remodelers ignore. Someone who did a bathroom with you in 2023 may want a deck in 2026, and they already trust your crew.
Seasonal hooks that fit remodeling:
- Late winter: book spring exterior work (decks, siding, windows) before the schedule fills
- Late summer: interior projects finished before holiday hosting
- Fall: basement finishing and winter-friendly interior work
- Year-end: a free design consult for projects starting in Q1
Template (2 segments):
Hi [Name], it's [Company]. We're booking spring deck and exterior projects now and have [3] openings in April. Want a free walkthrough? Reply YES. Reply STOP to opt out.
Two rules matter here. First, marketing texts need marketing consent. A homeowner who texted you about a project schedule did not necessarily agree to promotions, so add marketing-text consent language to your contract or final paperwork going forward. Second, send at a sensible hour. Ready holds texts sent outside permitted local hours, based on the recipient's area, and sends them later. Our post on the best time to send SMS marketing covers timing by industry. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations are held for up to 24 hours until the window opens.
When someone replies STOP, Ready honors it automatically and the opt-out carries across every campaign, so they can't be texted again by mistake.
Setting up home remodeler marketing on one local number
All five texts above can run from a single local number in Ready, so homeowners see one consistent number from first quote to the referral ask years later. A local area code looks like a neighbor, not a call center. If you later add numbers for multiple service areas, Local presence can send from the number closest to each contact's area code, with a listed price of $0.0015 for each segment of a delivered text, but one number is plenty to start.
Register before you send at volume
US carriers filter unregistered business texting, so you'll register a brand and a campaign (10DLC). Ready handles it in the app:
- Brand: $10/mo
- Campaign: $20/mo
- Each number: $2/mo
- At submit: $25, which is the first month (no setup fee)
- Timing: most approvals take 2 to 7 days
Pick the campaign use case that matches what you actually send. A remodeler sending quote replies, project updates and seasonal promos usually needs a mixed or marketing use case, not a plain customer-care one. Our guide on matching your use case to what you send explains why picking wrong gets you throttled.
Before registering, an account can send up to 500 texts a month at the normal rate. The first 20 one-to-one texts are free (campaigns are paid from the first text), and to send any text you need a card and a number ($2 a month, the first month charged when you get it). The free texts end when you pay for registration, so use them first to test your templates.
Optional: scrubbing
If you're importing an older contact list, you can scrub it against known TCPA-litigator and DNC-complainer lists. The standalone scrub costs $0.005 per contact. You can also switch on scrubbing and landline validation per account, at $0.003 extra per segment each, and both are off by default. It doesn't make you lawsuit-proof, but it removes the highest-risk numbers. TCPA exposure runs $500 to $1,500 per text. Compliance remains the sender's responsibility.
What it costs: a worked example
Ready's Standard rate is $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment, for sent and received texts alike. That all-in figure excludes the optional compliance surcharge above. Here's a remodeler with assumed numbers: 40 quote requests a month, 6 active jobs, and a quarterly campaign to 400 past clients.
| Activity | Assumption | Segments/month |
|---|---|---|
| Quote reply + estimate drip | 40 leads × ~15 segments (including replies) | 600 |
| Project updates | 6 jobs × ~20 segments | 120 |
| Referral asks | 4 finished jobs × ~6 segments | 24 |
| Seasonal campaign | 400 contacts × 2 segments, quarterly, averaged to ~267/mo | ~267 |
| Total | ~1,011 |
At $0.0075, that's about $7.58 in per-segment charges, plus 1,011 × $0.0045 in carrier fees, plus $27/mo registration (brand, campaign and one number). Add the Ready Dialer at $0.025/min for calls you place. A 400-contact campaign sits well under even the lowest T-Mobile daily cap of about 2,000 messages, so brand vetting isn't worth it at this size.
For a line-by-line breakdown of registration fees, see 10DLC cost: every fee explained.
To be straight about price: raw carrier APIs and GoHighLevel's built-in phone system charge less per message. What Ready adds is registration handled in the app, quiet-hours holds, opt-out propagation, the shared inbox, templates, drip campaigns and the Ready Dialer in one place. If you already run GoHighLevel, Ready installs natively with two-way sync. If you don't, the Ready app works on its own.
The practical takeaway
You don't need a marketing agency to run this. You need five texts: an instant quote reply, a four-step estimate drip, project updates at the moments homeowners worry, a referral ask on walkthrough night and a few seasonal campaigns to past clients. Write the templates once, keep them under 160 characters, collect consent on your forms and contracts, and register before you scale.
If you want to try it, sign up, send your first one-to-one texts to test the templates, then register. Developers can start from the quickstart docs.
FAQ
Can I text homeowners who never filled out a form?
No. Cold outreach belongs on the phone or in the mail. Text homeowners who requested a quote, are active clients, or gave you consent. Marketing texts need marketing consent specifically.
How long until I can start texting?
You can send up to 500 texts a month before registering. Registration costs $25 at submit, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days.
Do I need brand vetting?
Probably not. Brand vetting ($79 Standard / $179 Enhanced, one-time) helps high-volume senders. A remodeler texting a few hundred past clients doesn't come close to the caps where it matters.
Will AI answer homeowner texts for me?
No. Ready's AI message writer helps draft templates and checks them for spam-filter triggers, but replies are sent by you or your team. For a remodel, that personal reply is a selling point.
What happens if a homeowner replies STOP?
Ready honors it immediately and blocks that number across all your campaigns. A later send to that number is refused up front and not charged.