> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.clarely.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Build a quote with Clarely AI
> Turn site notes, exclusions, and spec documents into a draft quote you review before sending.
The Clarely AI Quote Builder writes a first draft of your line items from what you captured on site. You review every line before anything goes to a client — Clarely AI never sends a quote, and never changes a quote you've already sent.
The builder has four steps — **Capture**, **Build**, **Options** and **Preview**. Capture and Build are where you work; Options and Preview save the draft and hand it to the normal quote editor.
## Starting a build
Go to **Quotes** and tap **Quote with Clarely AI**. On a phone the button reads **AI Quote**. It's also in the quick search — the same box you use to jump around the app.
Pick the client this quote is for. Nothing can be captured until you do — notes, exclusions and documents all attach to the quote, and choosing a client is what creates it.
Add notes, exclusions, and any spec documents. See [What to capture](#what-to-capture) below.
Tap **Build quote**. This usually takes a minute or two.
Work through the draft on the **Build** step, set your options, and preview. Nothing is sent until you send it.
This is one of [Clarely AI](/clarely-ai/overview)'s two features. The other is the chat, which answers questions about your business. Being one tool, they share an on/off switch and a daily allowance — but they become available at different plans: the chat from Professional, the Quote Builder from Business.
## What to capture
| What | Notes |
| - | - |
| Notes | Write what you saw. Rough is fine — Clarely AI reads it, the client doesn't. |
| Exclusions | What you're *not* doing. Clarely AI reads these alongside your notes so the draft respects the boundary — they aren't printed as their own section on the client's copy. |
| Documents | **PDFs and CSV spreadsheets** — spec sheets, plans, supplier quotes, price lists. PDFs up to 25 MB each; CSV spreadsheets up to 4 MB. A photo from your camera won't upload; save or scan it as a PDF first. Tap a document's name to open it again at any time. |
Exclusions are worth the extra ten seconds. "Not touching the garage. Not hauling the old fixtures away" keeps the draft from quietly including them. If you want the client to read the boundary in your own words, put it in **Scope of work** on the Options step.
## Where the prices come from
**Clarely AI is never asked for a price.** Every figure on the draft comes from one of exactly two places:
1. **A service in your own catalogue** — matched to the work it recognised, priced at your rate.
2. **A number you wrote yourself** in any note on this quote, not just the one the line came from. If your notes give different prices for the same work, Clarely AI goes with the one you saved most recently. Either way, the price is one you wrote.
Anything it can't price from one of those is left blank and flagged, not guessed at. So a price on the draft is your price. The wording around it is Clarely AI's, and that's what to read.
## Teaching it about your business
**Settings → Clarely AI** is where you tell Clarely AI about your
business and how you want quotes written. It reads these settings every time it
builds.
The page has two groups: **General**, for what your business does, and
**Quoting**, for how Clarely AI drafts your quotes.
**What does your business do?** — a sentence or two. It shapes what the draft
recognises as your work: "commercial window cleaning on monthly contracts",
"brand and signage design, install included".
**How much detail on the quote?** — **Itemised**, a line for each task;
**Balanced**, the default; or **Batched**, grouped into phases.
**Clarely AI writes quotes in your style. Anything it consistently gets wrong?**
— your own corrections, in your words. "We say *visit*, not *callout*." "Never
split setup out from the job itself."
**Let Clarely AI suggest prices from your service catalog** — when this is off,
Clarely AI still matches work to your services, it just leaves the price blank
for you to fill in.
Turning it on reveals **How should Clarely AI use your catalog?**, for
instructions like "Our hourly rates already include travel."
**Let Clarely AI ask clarifying questions** — on by default. When it's off,
Clarely AI still builds your quote — it just doesn't ask. See
[Clarifying questions](#clarifying-questions) below.
Switches save as soon as you flip them. Typed text saves when you tap
**Save changes**. Either way, changes apply from the next build or rebuild.
These settings tell Clarely AI how to **write**. It is never asked for a price
— see [Where the prices come from](#where-the-prices-come-from) above, which
the catalog toggle does not change: it decides whether a price already in your
catalogue may be suggested, not whether Clarely AI may invent one.
## Reviewing the draft
The draft comes back as ordinary line items. Three flags mark the ones that still need you:
| Flag | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Needs name** | Clarely AI found something it couldn't name. The line is there; the name is yours to write. |
| **Needs price** | No price was found in your catalogue or in your notes. |
| **Needs quantity** | The matched service's rate is priced by a measurement — a square foot, an hour — and no quantity was stated in your notes. The rate is already there; Clarely just needs the number it multiplies. |
A line may also be flagged for confidentiality — either because it repeats something you captured, or because the line's own wording reads like your cost rather than your price: margin or markup, wholesale or trade pricing, a supplier's name. Clarely shows the reason on the line and changes nothing itself. It doesn't stop a send, but treat it as a warning rather than a note — your client reads every word.
A panel on the draft — **Kept out of your client's copy** — lists what was held
back and where each item came from, so you can see it rather than go looking.
When nothing was withheld it says so. If the check couldn't finish, it says
that instead of showing an empty list, and nothing is missing from your quote —
read the draft through yourself before sending.
**An unpriced line does not stop you sending.** Clarely names the unpriced lines in a confirmation first, and then it's your call — the line reaches your client with no price and is left out of the total.
Typing a real price clears the flag. Typing **zero** does not: Clarely can't tell a deliberate $0.00 from a price you never set, so the line stays unpriced. If a job is completed while its quote still has an unpriced line, Clarely creates a **draft** invoice for the lines that do have a price — the unpriced ones are left off it, not billed at $0.00 — and tells you how many lines still need a price. That draft is never sent automatically while any of its source lines are still unpriced; send it yourself from Invoices once it's ready. If every line on the quote is still unpriced, Clarely creates no invoice at all.
## Clarifying questions
When a missing detail would change a price, usually a quantity like how many
windows or square feet, Clarely AI can ask you.
After a first build, the questions open in a sheet titled with how many there
are, like **2 questions that would change a price**. Each one names the line
it's about and offers a few suggested answers. Tap one, or type your own.
| Button | What happens |
| - | - |
| **Use 2 answers** (the number is how many you answered) | Each answer is saved to the quote as a note, with its question, and the quote rebuilds. You review what changed like any other [rebuild](#rebuilding). |
| **Build anyway** | No answers are saved and nothing is guessed. The lines stay flagged on the draft. |
If you skip them, or they come up after a rebuild, they wait on the **Build**
step. Tap **Answer** when you're ready.
It asks up to four, fewer on smaller jobs, and none on a small job that's
already fully priced. An answer only changes the draft through a rebuild you
review, so a line you edited or added yourself is never overwritten.
To stop the questions, turn off **Let Clarely AI ask clarifying questions** in
**Settings → Clarely AI**.
## Rebuilding
If you capture more after a build — another spec document, a note you forgot — you can rebuild from everything you've captured.
A rebuild changes nothing on its own — you review every proposed change and choose which to apply. Every build is saved as a version, whether or not you apply it, and you can go back to one.
A rebuild never changes a line you edited or added yourself. Where the work is
the same, it usually updates the line Clarely AI drafted rather than adding a
second copy of it.
Where a proposed new line looks like one already on the quote, Clarely says so
under it — *"Looks like X, which is already on this quote"* — and leaves it
un-ticked. Tick it only if it really is separate work. It is an advisory, not a
refusal: Clarely never merges two lines for you on a guess.
Restoring is **additive**: it puts earlier lines back, but it does not remove lines added since. Restore past a rebuild that added a \$4,200 line and that line, and the total it made, are still there. Clarely names those lines before you confirm; delete them on the draft if you don't want them.
A quote that has already been sent can't be rebuilt. To change a sent quote, edit it directly — see [Create a quote](/quotes/create-quote#editing-a-quote).
## Daily limits
Both Clarely AI features draw on [one daily allowance](/clarely-ai/daily-limits) — asking the chat a question and building a quote each count as one, and it resets every day at midnight UTC.
On Business and Enterprise that limit is unlimited, so in practice you won't reach it. On the 45-day trial you get 10 a day, shared with the chat — so ten chat questions leave no builds until it resets.
If you do run out, everything you captured is saved. Clarely tells you when your next builds are available, and you can keep capturing in the meantime.
## Plan requirement
Building a quote with Clarely AI is available on **Business plan and above**, and during the 45-day trial. Only the account owner can run a build.
Clarely AI's other feature, the chat, starts on Professional — so on Professional and Team you have the chat but not the Quote Builder, and its button doesn't appear in Quotes. Build the quote by hand instead — see [Create a quote](/quotes/create-quote).
## Common reasons it won't run
| Message | What to do |
| - | - |
| The Clarely AI Quote Builder isn't part of your current plan | Upgrade, or build the quote by hand — see [Create a quote](/quotes/create-quote). |
| You've used all your AI builds for now | Wait until the time it gives you. Nothing you captured is lost. |
| Clarely AI is switched off for this account | Clarely AI is off for the whole account. [Email support](mailto:support@clarely.co) to have it turned back on — see [Opting out](/clarely-ai/opting-out). |
| Only the account owner can build a quote | Ask your account owner to run the build. |
| There's nothing readable to build from yet | Add a note describing the work — what, where, and how much of it. |
| Everything you captured reads as internal | Add a note about the work itself rather than your costs, and build again. |
| The build ran out of time | Remove or split a document, or build from fewer notes. Nothing you captured is lost. |
If a build fails for another reason, or sits well past the minute or two it usually takes, nothing you captured is lost — go back to the **Capture** step and build again. If it keeps failing, [contact support](mailto:support@clarely.co) and tell us the client and roughly when you tried.
## What to do next
Open **Quotes**, tap **Quote with Clarely AI**, and try it on a job you've already walked — you'll know straight away whether its lines match yours. Or see [Create a quote](/quotes/create-quote) to build one by hand.
This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.