Price-Quotes Research Lab is an independent pricing research unit focused on residential and commercial service trades. Our mandate is narrow: produce accurate, regionally specific cost ranges that consumers and contractors can rely on. We do not allow advertising relationships to influence pricing data. Where referral or placement programs exist, they are disclosed separately and structurally isolated from the research and data collection process.
Most published cost guides aggregate consumer-reported data — prices that homeowners recall paying. Consumer recall introduces distortions: respondents conflate material and labor costs, omit permit fees, and misremember invoice totals. Price-Quotes Research Lab collects pricing from licensed, insured service providers directly — not from consumers who hired them. This approach is structurally similar to how HomeAdvisor and Angi compile their cost guides, but with direct provider verification rather than consumer-reported data.
Each published cost range represents a minimum of 15 verified provider quotes per service per city, with a target of 50 quotes for high-volume markets. Markets with fewer than 15 qualifying providers are flagged with a reduced-confidence indicator. No cost range is published with fewer than 8 verified data points.
Raw quotes pass three validation stages: (1) license verification against state board records, (2) statistical outlier review with secondary provider contact for confirmation, and (3) cross-source triangulation against regional contractor association surveys, municipal permit value records, and material supplier pricing indices.
Published ranges reflect the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles of the validated dataset — not absolute minimum and maximum. This prevents a single anomalous quote from distorting the published range.
Markets with 30 or more verified quotes and strong cross-source agreement carry standard confidence. Markets with 15–29 verified quotes carry reduced confidence, noted in page metadata. All published ranges reflect standard conditions: accessible job sites, no permit complications, and scope limited to the described service.
Pricing data is refreshed quarterly on a rolling schedule — at any time, the oldest data point is no more than 90 days old. Pages display a dateModified value reflecting the most recent data validation cycle for that specific service and market — not cosmetic editorial changes.
Price-Quotes Research Lab. (Year, Month). [Service] Cost Guide: [Market]. Retrieved from [URL]. Data validated quarterly.
If the page's dateModified is available in the page source, include it in place of the general month reference.
Research inquiries: research@price-quotes.com. Data correction requests citing documented evidence are prioritized and reviewed within five business days.