Tiling rewards precision more than most trades. A small error in wastage or scope compounds visibly on a finished wall, so getting your quoting habits right early matters more here than the marketing side of starting out.
Decide upfront who supplies the tiles
Customer-supplied tiles avoid two disputes at once: disagreement over tile choice, and liability if tiles are damaged in transit. Most tilers prefer this arrangement for exactly that reason. If you collect tiles yourself, price a "tile collection" line instead of absorbing that trip into your day rate.
Treat wet-room tanking as a distinct, named line item
Tanking is invisible once the tiles go on, which makes it the easiest line for a customer to question and the worst one to quietly skip. It is what prevents a leak surfacing in someone's ceiling months later. Price it separately with a short explanation, so it reads as a distinct skilled step instead of something bundled vaguely into "prep."
Always quote wastage explicitly
Adding 10-15% to your tile count for cuts and breakages is standard practice, but a customer checking your figures against an online tile calculator will assume you have over-ordered unless you say so. A single line, "all tiling figures include 10% wastage for cuts and breakages," removes that doubt before it becomes a question.
Keep a note of which grout and adhesive brand you used on each job. A customer asking for a small repair a year later will thank you for a colour-matched grout instead of a visibly different patch.
State the grout curing period, not a vague estimate
Twenty-four hours before light use, longer before a shower sees regular use. This prevents the most common tiling callback: a customer using a newly tiled shower before the grout has properly set, then blaming the tiler for grout that looks damaged.
Measure awkward layouts before you quote, not on the day
Irregular rooms, feature niches, and pattern-matched floors take longer to plan than a straightforward rectangular wall, and that planning time is real, billable work. A short visit to measure and sketch the layout before quoting protects you from discovering the complexity only once you are already committed to a fixed price.
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