Guides
A mobile notary quote template: twelve fields and what each one prevents
A twelve field mobile notary quote template with notes on each line, three worked examples using letters instead of dollar amounts, and answers to common questions.
This quote skeleton is ready to copy. Each field has a note explaining its purpose and the problem if omitted.
The worked examples use letters rather than dollar amounts. Your state statute sets the act fee, and your own costs set the travel line. An invented figure would mislead every reader in every state.
A quote in this trade does one job: it makes the boundary of the appointment visible before anyone drives.
What to take away
- Twelve fields. Two of them, the identity check and the failed-appointment term, prevent most of the trouble.
- Keep the notarial act fee on its own line, always. Some states require it and everywhere it protects you.
- Quote a travel band, not a mileage estimate. Bands are honorable; estimates are arguments waiting to happen.
- Give the quote an expiry. Drive times and your own costs both move.
The skeleton
| # | Field | What it must say | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quote reference and date | An identifier and the day it was issued | Disputes about which version was agreed |
| 2 | Client and payer | Who booked it and who is paying, if different | Invoicing the wrong party after the fact |
| 3 | Signer names as printed on the document | Exact spellings, including middle names | The failed act at the table |
| 4 | Identification requirement | The types your state accepts, stated plainly | Arriving to find an unacceptable document |
| 5 | Location and access notes | Floor, unit, ward, visiting hours, gate or desk procedure | Being turned away or lost on arrival |
| 6 | Date, time and the window you commit to | A window rather than a moment, if traffic is involved | A late arrival being read as unreliability |
| 7 | Acts included | The number and type of notarial acts covered | Six documents appearing when two were booked |
| 8 | Notarial act fee | Stated separately, at your state's permitted amount | A bundled total that hides a statutory fee |
| 9 | Travel line and band | The named band and what it covers | Mileage arguments |
| 10 | Allowances | Waiting minutes, signers, printing included | The four quiet leaks |
| 11 | Extras and their rates | Additional acts, additional signers, out-of-hours, shipping | Renegotiation at the table |
| 12 | Failed appointment term and expiry | What is payable if no act occurs, and when the quote lapses | The unpaid trip |
Twelve lines fit on one page. Anything longer stops being read.
Twelve fields of a notary quote
- Quote reference and date
- Client and payer
- Signer names as printed
- Identification requirement
- Location and access notes
- Date, time and window
- Acts included
- Notarial act fee
Field notes on the three that matter most
Field 3, the signer names. Take them from the document, not from the person booking. A daughter arranging a signing for a parent will give you the name she uses, and the document may carry a full legal name with a middle initial. Where the identification does not match the document, the act may not be possible, and that is discovered at the table unless you check here.
Three fields that matter most
Field
- Signer names
- Failed act at table
- Act fee
- Bundled total hides statutory fee
- Failed appointment
- Unfriendly dispute after bad day
Risk if wrong
- Signer names
- Act fee
- Failed appointment
Field 8, the act fee. Your state sets what may be charged for a notarial act, and in some states it also sets what you must disclose about it. Keeping it as its own line is the practice that survives a challenge. The authority that decides both is mapped in what your commissioning office governs.
Field 12, the failed appointment. This is the one people leave out because it feels unfriendly at the moment of booking. It is much less friendly to raise afterwards, when someone has already had a bad day. State it once, in a sentence, at the point of quoting.
Worked example one: a single household appointment
Take a booking for two acknowledgments at a home in your second travel band.
Single household quote formula
- 2aact line for two acknowledgments
- t2travel line for band two
- 2a + t2quote total
- 15 minwaiting included
Let a be the statutory act fee your state permits, and there are two acts, so the act line is 2a.
Let t2 be your published travel line for band two.
The quote total is 2a + t2, with allowances stated: two acts included, two signers included, fifteen minutes of waiting included, no printing.
The extras line says what a third act costs, what a third signer costs, and what waiting beyond the allowance costs. The failed appointment term says what is payable if no act occurs.
Note what the client can see: the part set by the state, the part set by you, and the conditions. Nothing is hidden and nothing needs explaining on the doorstep.
Worked example two: a document-heavy appointment
Now a booking where documents arrive electronically and you print them.
Document-heavy appointment quote
- Documents arrive electronically
- You print them per set
- Act line: n multiplied by a
- Cutoff time for documents stated
- Failed appointment term applies
The act line is n multiplied by a, where n is the number of acts in the package, and n is often not known precisely at booking. So the quote states an included count and the rate for each act beyond it.
The travel line is the band, as before.
A printing line appears, stated per set, because two sets is common in this work and the paper is spent before the appointment happens. And a cutoff appears: the time by which documents must reach you, with a statement of what happens if they arrive later.
The failed appointment term matters far more here than in the first example, because a postponement after printing costs you real materials as well as time. Say so at booking.
Worked example three: a standing institutional account
For a law office or a care facility booking repeatedly, the quote becomes a rate sheet with a response commitment and monthly invoicing.
Standing account rate sheet
Element
- Act fee
- Statutory amount, unchanged
- Travel line
- Single figure if one band
- Response commitment
- Window holdable on worst day
- Payment terms
- Monthly invoicing
Treatment
- Act fee
- Travel line
- Response commitment
- Payment terms
The act fee stays as its own line at the statutory amount; it does not change with volume. If all their locations sit in one band, the travel line may be simplified to a single figure.
The response commitment is the substance of the arrangement. It should describe a window you can hold on your worst day, not your best.
Add payment terms. This is the client type most likely to pay well after the work, and the gap between doing the job and being paid for it is what the arithmetic in break-even measured in appointments has to carry.
Turning a quote into a record
Every issued quote should leave a trace: which band, which allowances, whether it converted, and what the job actually cost you door to door. That record is what tells you, a quarter later, that one allowance is too small or one band is priced below its drive time.
Quote record to keep
- Which band was quoted
- Which allowances applied
- Whether it converted
- Door-to-door cost of the job
Keep it as ordinary business records, in the form the IRS describes in its guidance on what a business should keep. Keep it separate from your notarial journal, which is a statutory record and not a commercial one. The method for rebuilding the bands from that data is in how to construct a travel band schedule.
What a quote may claim
A published rate sheet is advertising, and so is a response commitment attached to it. Both have to be supportable before you issue them, which the Federal Trade Commission sets out in its guidance for small business advertisers.
Be careful with two specific claims. Availability, because a stated window is a promise about traffic. And anything implying you can assist with the content of the documents, which is not a service a notary may offer.
In an unfamiliar area, the drive-time assumptions behind your bands may not hold. Check that before quoting, as covered in how to read a local market with checkable signals.
The structural reason the travel line rather than the act fee carries the quote is explained in the regulated half and the unregulated half of the invoice.
One more sanity check before publishing a rate sheet: confirm that the travel line covers a wage rather than merely covering fuel. Wage estimates by occupation, state and metropolitan area are in the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational employment and wage tables.
Common questions
How long should a quote stay valid?
Long enough to be useful and short enough to protect you. Two to four weeks is common practice, and the expiry belongs on the document rather than in your memory.
Should I quote by phone?
You can, and then send it in writing before traveling. A quote that exists only in a conversation is the one that gets disputed.
What if the client wants one number?
Give one total, with the act fee identifiable within it. That is a quote for a specific job you have scoped, which is different from a published flat rate across an open area.
Do I need a signature on the quote?
An acknowledgment in writing is usually enough, and an email reply agreeing to it serves. What matters is that the failed-appointment term was agreed before you left.
