What are optional line items in a quote?

How optional items work

In a quote with optional items, the main scope is listed and always counted in the total. Below or beside it are extras marked optional, each with its own price. Some are pre selected because most clients want them; others start unselected. The client reviews the list, ticks what they want, and the total recalculates before they accept. The accepted version records exactly which extras were chosen, so the invoice can follow the selection rather than a later conversation about what was agreed.

Why they work

Behavioural research on choice architecture finds that defaults matter a great deal, and the Behavioural Insights Team's EAST framework puts harnessing the default first among its ways to make a choice easy: options that start selected are kept more often than options that must be added. Optional items also protect the core price, because a client who finds the total high can remove an extra instead of asking for a discount on the main work. And they reveal information, since the extras a client picks tell you what they value for the next proposal.

Choosing what to make optional

Good optional items are genuine additions that some clients want and others do not: a second shooter at a wedding, an extra page on a website, a training session after software delivery, an annual service visit after an installation. Bad optional items are pieces of the core job, such as removing the rubbish after a renovation, because unticking them leaves a broken outcome. Keep to two or three, describe each in a sentence, and price each so it is clearly worth it on its own.

Common mistakes

Offering a dozen optional items turns the quote into a shopping list and slows the decision. Pre selecting expensive extras the client did not ask for can feel like a trap, and under the Australian Consumer Law pricing must not mislead, so make the total and what is included clear. Forgetting tax on optional items creates mismatched invoices. And failing to record which items were chosen leads to arguments at delivery. Keep the list short, honest and recorded.

Where it shows up in the product

Each item in the pricing table can be marked optional and selected by default or not, and a quantity can be made editable within a minimum and maximum. In the client's view, the client can tick optional items and change editable quantities, and the totals update. The client cannot edit the proposal text. Acceptance stores the exact selection, the acceptance certificate lists the selected items with totals, and the invoices created at acceptance follow that selection.

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