---
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-4.orbit.do/en/faq/how-do-quotes-and-bookings-differ"
locale: "en"
lastReviewed: "2026-10-09"
---

# 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.

## 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.