Customers ask prices in Instagram DMs; should I reply with a number or a PDF quote?

When a number is enough

• The product is listed with its price in your store or post, and the customer is just checking.
• One item, with no customisation, special delivery or production time.
• The price will not change before the customer orders.

In these cases a message like ‘It's 180 SAR including gift wrap, and delivery within Riyadh is 25’ is faster and more fitting than a file.

When it deserves a quote

A customer wants two embroidered abayas made to her measurements, with delivery. In the chat you trade photos and questions about colour, size and timing, and twenty messages later nobody remembers the last figure exactly. This is where a quote earns its place:

If tax applies to your business and you enter its rate, 15% for instance, the total is 833.75. What matters is that the figure is written in one document with a number and a date.

What a quote adds that a message does not

• A reference number: when she comes back a week later she can say ‘quote Q-0142’ instead of scrolling through the chat.
• A validity date: the price is tied to a period, not open-ended.
• Written terms: tailoring time, the deposit, and the return policy for made-to-measure pieces.
• A professional look for a small shop that runs on Instagram.

How to get the file into the conversation

1. Create the quote in the Quotation generator in the customer's language and download the PDF.
2. If the chat lets you attach the file, send it directly.
3. If the chat does not accept PDFs, turn the quote page into an image with PDF to images and send that, keeping the PDF itself on file.
4. Or move the conversation to WhatsApp with a direct link made in the WhatsApp link generator, and send the file there.

Whichever route you take, put the quote number, the total and the validity date on one line in the accompanying message, because many customers read the message before they open the attachment.