# Estimates & Quotes > Quote it, get it approved, bill it — without re-keying a thing. PineBill's estimate generator lets freelancers and small teams send professional quotes in seconds — bill by product or by the hour, in your own currency and four templates. Share each estimate by email or a secure link, and your client accepts or declines right from the page. When they say yes, one click turns the accepted estimate into an invoice, carrying every line item, price and term across. ## Estimate builder - **Templates** — Four professional designs — Classic, Bold Professional, Mono and Startup Modern. Choose one per estimate, or set your default once. - **Details & custom fields** — Terms of payment, a closing message and unlimited custom label-value pairs — Project Reference, Quote ID, anything you need on the document. - **Six statuses, on your terms** — Draft, Sent, Accepted, Declined, Expired, Converted. Every change is yours to make — nothing expires behind your back — and Converted locks for a clean audit trail. - **Settings & numbering** — Sequential, secure-random or timestamp numbering behind your own prefix, plus a default validity period. Owners configure it once for the organization. ## Sharing & client approval Send it for review, or hand over a link they can act on. Either way, their yes or no comes straight back to you. ### Send it straight to their inbox Your estimate goes out as a professional email with the PDF attached and a secure link to view it online. Add a personal note and it rides along. - PDF attached automatically, every send - Custom note, up to 500 characters - Send to up to 5 recipients at once - Every send and link click logged in Email History ### They accept or decline, right from the link Share a secure link your client just opens — no account, no login. From that page they approve or reject with a note, the status updates itself, and your team hears about it. - Client accepts or declines with an optional note - Status flips to Accepted or Declined, team notified - Password protection, 4 characters minimum - Expires in 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week — or never; view limit up to 10,000 ## Convert to Invoice The moment a quote is accepted, it's ready to bill — no copy-paste, no re-entry. When a customer accepts, one click turns the estimate into a draft invoice. Line items, pricing, tax, discount, customer and terms all carry over exactly as quoted — you just set the dates and send. - Only Accepted estimates can be converted - Items, pricing, tax, discount, shipping, currency, custom fields, terms and assigned employee all carry across - A fresh invoice number and dates are generated — nothing is reused - The estimate locks to Converted, with a link to the new invoice - The new invoice starts as Draft and counts toward your plan's invoice limit ## Built for how you actually quote Five ways teams estimate with PineBill — and the mode each one uses. ### Freelance Consultant — Hourly Mode Quote time across different service types — consulting, strategy, implementation — each at its own rate, with the estimated hours in the line description. Example: 8 hrs × $150 + 2 hrs × $200 = $1,600 ### Agency — Product Mode Scope-based quotes with the estimate assigned to an account manager, custom fields for project IDs, and a discount on the whole engagement. Example: $5,000 + $1,500 + $800 − 10% discount = $6,570 ### E-commerce Business — Product Mode Quote product orders straight from your catalog, with SKUs, product photos, shipping costs and tax worked out for you. Example: 5 × $25 + 10 × $15 + tax + shipping = $317.50 ### Professional Services — Hourly Mode Mixed quotes: estimated hours alongside fixed fees added as temporary items, on professional Net 30/60 terms. Example: 4.5 hrs × $300 + 2 hrs × $250 + $150 fee = $2,000 ### Retail / Wholesale — Product Mode Bulk-order quotes off a wholesale price catalog, with quantity-based discounts and delivery dates on the document. Example: 100 × $12.50 + 50 × $8 − 5% + shipping = $1,617.50 ## Frequently asked questions ### Can my client accept or reject an estimate themselves? Yes. Open the estimate with a secure share link — no account needed — and your client can accept or decline right from that page, with an optional note explaining their decision. The status flips to Accepted or Declined, and your team gets an email and a dashboard notification. ### How do I turn an accepted estimate into an invoice? One click. Once an estimate is marked Accepted, the Convert to Invoice button appears — it copies every line item, price, tax setting, discount, custom field and term into a new draft invoice. A fresh invoice number and dates are generated, and the estimate locks to Converted with a link to the invoice it created. ### Do estimates expire on their own? No, and that's deliberate. The valid-until date is a reminder, not an automation — every status change, including Expired, is one you make yourself. Nothing moves behind your back, so the status you see is always the one you set. Converted is the only exception: it's set automatically on conversion, and then locks. ### Can I control who sees an estimate I've shared? Yes. Any share link can carry a password (four characters minimum), an expiry of an hour, a day or a week, and a view limit of up to 10,000. A link with no expiry is permanent and public — and once you've made one for an estimate, you can't add expiring links to that estimate later. ### Will I know when a client opens my estimate? Yes. Every click on the 'View Estimate' link in your email is tracked, along with how many times and when it was last opened. To be precise: we track opens of the estimate itself, not opens of the email — there's no tracking pixel in your customer's inbox. ### Can I bill by the hour on an estimate? Yes. The generator has two modes. Hourly Mode quotes time at a rate; Product Mode quotes items from your catalog with SKUs, tax and shipping. You pick the mode per estimate — and whichever you use carries straight through when you convert it to an invoice. ### How many estimate templates do I get? Four: Classic, Bold Professional, Mono and Startup Modern. Choose one per estimate, or set your default once and forget about it. ### Who can change estimate numbering and settings? Only organization owners. Numbering — sequential, secure-random or timestamp, behind a prefix like EST — and the default validity period (30 days by default) are configured once for the whole organization, so your numbering stays consistent no matter who raises the estimate. ### Can I try it without signing up? Yes — the free estimate generator makes a professional PDF with no account at all. Signing up adds the things a tool can't: saved customers and products, sharing, client approvals, and one-click conversion to an invoice. ## Links - [Estimates & Quotes](https://www.pinebill.app/features/estimates): this page. - [Free Estimate Generator](https://www.pinebill.app/tools/estimate-generator): create an estimate with no account. - [Pricing](https://www.pinebill.app/pricing): plans and pricing. - [Documentation](https://www.pinebill.app/docs/estimates): full estimates documentation. - [Sign up](https://www.pinebill.app/auth/signup): start a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.