Most customers are fine. They want the job done, they’ll pay when it’s finished, and they’ll leave you alone in between. A small number will cost you more than the job is worth. They’ll nickel and dime you on the scope, they’ll drag out payment, they’ll find reasons the work isn’t good enough to be signed off. The worst part is that you can usually see it coming in the first fifteen minutes, if you know what to look for.
These are the customer red flags that experienced tradies watch for. None of them are automatic disqualifiers on their own. Two or three together is your cue to either price the risk in or walk.
They lead with “what’s your best price”
A customer who opens the conversation with a price negotiation before you’ve even walked the site is telling you how the whole job will go. Price-first customers fight you on every variation, question every line item, and tend to be the ones who stall the final invoice because they decide retrospectively that something wasn’t worth what you charged. Good customers care about the price, of course they do, but they want to understand the scope first. If the only question is “how low can you go”, you’re dealing with someone who sees you as a cost to minimise, not a tradesperson to work with.
They’ve already fired two tradies on this job
Sometimes the first two really were dodgy. Usually the common factor is the customer. If someone tells you they’ve sacked the previous plumber and the one before that for “poor workmanship”, listen carefully. Ask what went wrong and how it ended. Their answer will tell you whether they were genuinely unlucky or whether they’re the kind of customer who decides no work is ever good enough. A healthy dose of suspicion here has saved a lot of businesses from becoming the third dismissal.
They won’t sign anything
Refusing to sign a written quote, a contract, or a variation form is a statement of intent. It means when the disagreement comes, they want to be free to say “that’s not what we agreed”. A customer who insists on a handshake for a job worth more than a few hundred dollars is not saving on paperwork, they’re reserving the right to move the goalposts. The good customers welcome the paperwork, because it protects them too. The ones who resist it have usually resisted it before.
They start the job with a favour
“While you’re here, could you just…” is a phrase that sounds friendly and costs you an hour. Once, it’s nothing. Every day for a week, it’s the job. Customers who start a project by adding small off-scope jobs “as a favour” on day one are setting the tone. They’ve just told you they expect the scope to be flexible in their favour. If the favour is small and you’re happy to do it, fine. If it’s already a pattern in the first day, price the next one. If they’re shocked that the next one has a price, you’ve got your answer.
They want you to start without a deposit
On most jobs, a reasonable deposit covers the initial materials and locks in the time slot. It’s standard. A customer who pushes back hard on a deposit is either cash-flow stressed, testing how firm you are on your own terms, or planning to use the lack of deposit as leverage when the invoice comes. None of those are good signs. Hold the line on a sensible deposit. If they walk, they were always going to be a problem.
They talk about the last tradie a lot
A customer who spends the whole quote visit running down the last tradie is telling you exactly how they’ll talk about you once the job is done. It doesn’t matter how terrible the last bloke actually was. The question is whether this person reaches for grievance as their default setting. If every story they tell about working with trades is about how they got ripped off, protect yourself on paper, and think twice about the job.
Their Passport is thin or flagged
A brand-new customer with no Passport isn’t a red flag on its own. Everyone starts somewhere. A customer with six jobs on their Passport and a pattern of late payments or scope disputes is something else. Check before you quote. Reviewey shows you the record in a way that wasn’t available before the platform existed. Using it costs you nothing and saves you the exact kind of job that used to eat three months of your life.
Your gut is already uneasy
This one is the hardest to write about because it sounds soft, but every experienced tradie has a story about a job they knew they shouldn’t have taken. The customer was off, the vibe was off, something about the way the house was kept or the way they spoke to their partner didn’t sit right. Usually the gut was right. You don’t have to justify it to yourself or to anyone else. If you don’t want the job, don’t quote it, or quote it at the price that makes it worth the risk. Walking away is a valid business decision, and sometimes it’s the most profitable one you’ll make all year.