Online Estimate Home Visits
The six reasons an estimate produces a home visit instead of a price, and how to tell which one applied.
Some homes can't be priced from a form. When that happens the estimator doesn't guess — it asks the homeowner to book a free home visit instead of showing a number it can't stand behind. The homeowner still gives you their full details, and still books.
The six reasons it happens
| Reason | What triggered it |
|---|---|
| Outside your equipment sizes | The calculated load fell outside 1.5–5 tons. Usually a large home — around 4,000 sq ft will typically calculate past 5 tons — but a very small home can fall below 1.5 tons. For a single-room mini-split, the room needed more than 24,000 BTU. |
| They don't know what they want | They answered "Other / Not sure" when asked which system they'd like. |
| No square footage | They chose "I don't know my square footage", so no load calculation ran. Hydronic heating and multi-zone mini-splits are still priced — they don't need it. |
| No room size | Single-room mini-split where they answered "I'm not sure" about the room. |
| Nothing priced at that size | No option has a price at the size the calculation landed on. In Calculator mode an option with no equipment cost isn't priced; in Flat-rate a blank price shows Request a quote instead, so those estimates still reach pricing. |
| Six or more zones | They picked the 6+ card on a multi-zone mini-split. That's a design job, not a lookup. |
Only one of these is fixable on your side. If you're seeing home visits at sizes you do sell, price that size in Company Settings → Price Book — see Equipment, Tiers & Prices and System Sizing. Mini-splits in particular start with no prices and have to be set up deliberately — see Mini-Splits.
Finding out which one applied
Open the lead from Estimates in your dashboard. Below its Estimate Summary, the Estimate Result & CRM Sync card's Why this result shows a Site Visit badge with the reason spelled out, such as:
- Tonnage out of range: 5.42 tons (valid: 1.5–5)
- Room size unknown — homeowner selected “I'm not sure”
- No priced equipment for systemType=…, tonnage=…
Under the reason, Pricing Resolution shows the system type and size the estimator looked up, and how many options it found. The card is for your team only and isn't part of Export as PDF.
The homeowner's answers on the same page back up the reason:
| Reason | Where it shows on the lead |
|---|---|
| They don't know what they want | System Information → Desired System reads Other / Not Sure. |
| No square footage | Property Details → Square Footage reads N/A. |
| No room size | A single-room mini-split (Rooms to Heat/Cool reads 1) with no Room Size row. |
| Six or more zones | System Information → Zones Selected reads 6 or more. |
| Outside your equipment sizes or Nothing priced at that size | Not in the answers. Why this result names it: Tonnage out of range or Room load … exceeds the largest mini-split head for the first, No priced equipment for … or No mini-split equipment priced at … for the second. |
What the homeowner sees
A page headed Schedule a Free Assessment, with your contact details and a button to book. No prices, no dead end — booking works exactly as it does after a priced estimate.
The wording differs by surface: homeowners see "Schedule a Free Assessment", your dashboard badge reads "Site Visit", and if you're on 3C Connect the service in your catalog must stay named exactly "Site Visit" — see Appointment Bookings.
How these leads reach you
Exactly like priced ones — the same dashboard row, and the same notification if you have lead emails set up. If you have a CRM connected, the contact is tagged so you can route home visits separately, and the estimate summary reads "No online price shown — site visit required."