---
title: "How do quotes and bookings differ?"
description: "How a quote (a price you send) differs from a booking (committed work)."
url: "https://support.pr-10.orbit.do/en/faq/how-do-quotes-and-bookings-differ"
locale: "en"
lastReviewed: "2026-10-15"
---

# How do quotes and bookings differ?

How a quote (a price you send) differs from a booking (committed work).

> **Note:** A quote is a price you send a customer for work they haven't committed to; a booking is confirmed work that Orbit turns into real records. A quote only becomes a booking once the customer accepts it.

A **booking** captures work a customer has committed to. When you submit it in Orbit MissionControl, Orbit creates the real records for that job: an `Order`, its `Shipments`, and often a `Tour` ready to plan or dispatch.

A **quote** (sometimes called an RFQ, a request for a price) is different: the customer has only asked what the work would cost. You build the quote and send it with the **Send Quote** action. This emails the customer the price and makes it available in Orbit Hub to book, but it creates no `Order`, `Shipment`, or `Tour` yet.

So the two differ in both the action you take and the outcome:

* **A booking**: you submit it, and real records are created straight away.
* **A quote**: you **Send Quote**, and it waits for the customer's yes or no. Only when the customer accepts does it become a confirmed booking and produce real records.

In Orbit MissionControl the two sit in different sections of the drafts area, bookings-in-progress under **Inbox** and **Drafts** and price requests under **Quotes**, so you can tell at a glance which is which. One point of vocabulary: Orbit calls a price sent to a customer a quote, as in the **Send Quote** action and the **Quotes** list in Orbit MissionControl. An offer is something else: a `Callout` sent to a carrier in the Marketplace.

While a sent quote waits for acceptance in Orbit Hub, the displayed price and line items stay as quoted. Accepting books the stored quote. If you decline, ordinary pricing can resume in the draft.

## Example

A customer-service agent at Orion Industries in London takes a call from ACME Ltd asking what an overnight run from Paris to Berlin would cost. They fill in the form, choose **Send Quote**, and ACME receives the price by email, and no work is scheduled. Two days later ACME accepts, the quote becomes a booking, and Orbit creates the `Order`, `Shipment`, and `Tour` ready to plan.