Why we built the price engine

The problem with reno quotes

A renovation quotation mixes two very different things. Services — carpentry workmanship, painting, tiling — where quality genuinely varies and a higher price can be honest. And branded products — dish racks, sinks, taps, aircon units, digital locks — which have model numbers and market prices, exactly like a hotel room has a market rate.

Markups hide in the second group. A branded item with a real trade price of $300 quoted at $450 isn't "quality" — it's a 50% margin you were never meant to see. We call it a carrot, because that's what you'd be if you paid it without checking.

What the engine does

CarrotLah maintains a database of real trade prices — the prices wholesalers and contractors actually pay — for branded products commonly specified in Singapore renovation projects. When you send your quotation, the engine reads it, extracts every branded item, and matches each one against the database in the background.

Then a human validator reviews every match before your verdict is released. Machines are fast; humans are accountable. You get both: item-by-item verdicts, emailed to you within 4 working hours.

What we deliberately don't do

• We don't price-check services. A cheap paint job looks different from a professional one — price alone proves nothing about workmanship, so we refuse to issue verdicts we can't stand behind.
• We don't guess. If an item can't be verified by brand or model, the verdict says "no data" — we never pad a report to make it look fuller.
• We don't keep your quote. It's used only for your check, never shared with IDs, suppliers or anyone else, and deleted after the verdict is sent.
• We don't hate IDs. Plenty of quotes come back fair, and honest designers have nothing to fear from a free check. We flag inflated markups, not hard work.

Why it's free

One dollar keeps the check accessible to every homeowner, filters out non-serious requests, and pays for exactly what it is: one honest answer. No subscriptions, no upsells attached to the verdict, no commissions from anyone whose price we check.