How to Use the Lead Gate to Capture More Enquiries

What the lead gate does

The lead gate changes the order of steps in your quote widget. Without the lead gate, a customer fills in their job details, gets a price, and can leave without giving you their contact information. With the lead gate enabled, they must enter their name, email and phone number before the price is revealed.

This means every customer who wants a quote becomes a captured lead. You get their details regardless of whether they book.

Why it works

Most people who reach the point of entering their job details into a quote widget are genuinely interested. They have already invested time in the process. When they are asked for their contact details at the final step before seeing the price, the majority will provide them.

The alternative - showing the price first and hoping they contact you - results in many visitors getting the price and leaving without any interaction.

Enabling the lead gate

In your QuoteKit dashboard, go to Widget Settings and find the Lead Gate option. Toggle it on. The widget will now require contact details before displaying the final price.

What the customer sees

The customer fills in their job details as normal. At the final step, instead of seeing the price immediately, they see a form asking for their name, email and phone number with a message explaining their instant quote is ready. Once they submit their details, the price appears.

The experience is smooth and most customers do not object - they understand they are getting a real price in exchange for their details.

What you get

Every submission lands in your QuoteKit dashboard with the full job details, the price quoted and the customer contact information. You also receive an instant email notification. The lead is in your pipeline before the customer has even closed the browser tab.

When not to use it

The lead gate works best when the price you show is genuinely useful - a specific distance-based rate, a fixed price per service type, or a clear hourly estimate. If your pricing is highly variable and the widget can only produce a rough guide, consider whether gating behind contact details creates the right expectation. For most service businesses with structured pricing, the lead gate is worth enabling.

Why not just build your own or use a free tool?

This is a fair question. There are free contact forms, basic quote calculators and AI tools that can generate something similar in minutes. Here is the honest answer.

A free contact form captures an enquiry but gives the customer nothing back. No instant price. No confirmation. No reason to stay on your website. Most people who fill in a form and hear nothing for a few hours move on.

A basic AI-generated calculator can show a price. But it does not capture lead details, does not send notifications, does not track delivery of confirmation emails, does not flag fake addresses, does not handle booking requests and does not give you a searchable dashboard of every enquiry you have ever received. It is a display, not a system.

QuoteKit is the full system. The calculator is the part customers see. Behind it is lead capture tied to a real database, instant email notifications, email delivery tracking that flags bounced or fake addresses, booking confirmation with automatic customer emails, a mobile dashboard you can manage between jobs, and surcharge logic that prices evenings and weekends correctly without you doing anything.

That is not something you can replicate for free in an afternoon. And the cost of missing one job per month because your system could not capture the lead or confirm the booking is already more than the subscription.