Check your impact window quote
A complete impact window quote lists every opening with its size, names the product and its approval number, says who pulls the permit, prices repairs to whatever is found behind the old frame, splits the manufacturer and workmanship warranties, and ties payment to milestones — and this page checks yours against that list, one box at a time.
Ask before you sign
Nothing here matches a documented pattern, but the quote leaves questions open. Get the answers in writing before signing — a legitimate company will have no problem with any of them.
Price check
Enter the quote total and the how many windows is the quote for? to check the price against the published range.
Range: HomeGuide. Published national figures, the same ones our impact window cost calculator runs on. Not our measurement, and not a quote.
Ask these 10 questions before signing
- “Can you give me the window schedule with the size and type of every opening in this price?”Impact window prices move on opening size more than on anything else, and two quotes that count openings differently are not two prices for the same job. The schedule is also what tells you whether the sliding doors are in this number or not.
- “Which exact product, and what is its Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade notice of acceptance number?”A storm-rated window is a tested assembly, and the test result is public. The approval number is the one thing on the whole quote you can verify yourself in about five minutes, and it is what tells you the unit will pass inspection where you live.
- “What design pressure do my openings require, and does the quoted unit meet it on every elevation?”Requirements differ by elevation and by how close the house is to the coast, and inside Florida's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone the bar is higher than the state-wide one. A quote that never mentions the rating has not been engineered to your house.
- “Are you pulling the permit, is it included, and who meets the inspector?”An unpermitted window replacement can surface years later at the point of sale, and it is also how the insurance discount evidence goes missing. The company pulling the permit is the company standing behind the install.
- “What do you charge if you find rot or damaged framing once the old window is out?”Nobody can see behind a window until it comes out, and this is the most common reason a window bill grows after signing. An honest quote sets the rate for it before anything is removed.
- “Is the exterior finish and the interior trim and paint included, and to what standard?”This is the line most often left out, and the one that decides whether the job looks finished. Two quotes hundreds of dollars apart per window often differ entirely on this.
- “Is removal and disposal in this price, and is a skip or a dumpster included?”It is a real cost and a real inconvenience, and on a whole-house job it is not trivial. It is also easy to leave out of a quote without anybody noticing until the day.
- “What is the manufacturer's warranty on the product, what is your workmanship warranty, and what voids either one?”A leak around a new window is nearly always an installation question rather than a product one, so the workmanship warranty is the one that matters most. They come from two different companies and should be two different documents.
- “Is this licence number yours, in this company's name, and active today?”No state we have verified licenses window installation as its own class, so the check is against the company's general contractor registration. Where a state runs a lookup it is free and takes about five minutes.
- “What is the payment schedule, and does the final payment wait until the permit inspection has passed?”Impact windows are made to order, so a deposit at ordering is ordinary. Holding the last payment until the inspection passes is what keeps the company present for the part that decides whether the job is finished properly.
Want a second opinion?
We measure which impact window companies AI assistants actually recommend, metro by metro. Nobody can pay to be on those lists. Pick your metro to see them:
Not listed? We have not measured your metro yet — see every metro we cover.
Sources last read on August 22, 2026. The verdict is about the quote in your hand, never about a person or a company.
The longer reads behind this checklist: The negatives of impact windows, and Are impact windows worth the money?.
What this checker actually checks
Three things, and it shows its work on all of them. First, completeness: whether the quote lists every opening with its size, names the product and its approval number, states the design pressure your house needs, says who pulls the permit, prices repairs to whatever is behind the old frame, covers the finish work and the disposal, splits the two warranties, prints a licence number and ties payment to milestones.
Second, price: the total divided by the number of windows, held against a published range you pick — the same HomeGuide and HomeGuide figures our impact window cost calculator runs on. We have not measured window prices and this page never pretends to.
Third, the deal terms: the patterns the Federal Trade Commission lists for home improvement work generally — full payment demanded up front, no written contract, no verifiable local address, cash only, and pressure to sign today. Every flag cites its source in the result.
Why there are two published ranges here instead of one
Because one publisher gives two different answers for the same product, and hiding that would be the dishonest option. Its window replacement guide prices a hurricane window at $400 to $1,200 each installed. Its storm-protection guide prices impact windows at $40 to $70 per square foot installed, and states that as $280 to $490 for a 24-inch by 42-inch opening. Both are published; neither is averaged into a third figure nobody wrote down.
So the checker asks you which one fits your openings. Small and standard, use the lower range. Large openings, use the per-window range. If your quote is mostly sliding glass doors, the checker refuses to score it at all, because nobody publishes a price for those and a made-up number would be worse than no number.
The approval number is the check nobody tells you about
A storm-rated window is a tested assembly with a public test result. Florida publishes every approved product in a searchable state database — you can look up the exact unit on your quote yourself at the Florida Building Code Online product approval. Miami-Dade County runs its own notice-of-acceptance system for the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, which is stricter than the state-wide standard.
That matters more than the brand on the sticker. Two units from the same manufacturer can hold different approvals, and the one that passes inspection in your county is a question of the number, not the name. If a quote will not give you the number, that is the question to ask before any other.
What a green result does and does not mean
Green means the quote in your hand carries the elements a complete quote typically includes, and the price per window sits inside a published national range. It does not mean the installation will be good, and it is not a verdict on the company. It means the document is complete enough to compare with the other two you should be getting.
Questions people ask next
- How much should an impact window quote be?
- Divide the total by the number of windows and compare it with a published range. HomeGuide publishes $400 to $1,200 per hurricane window installed on its window replacement guide, and $40 to $70 per square foot — $280 to $490 for a 24-inch by 42-inch opening — on its storm-protection guide. A number far below either usually means missing scope; above it should be explained by opening size, access or a premium glass package.
- What should an impact window quote include?
- A schedule of every opening with its size, the product named with its approval number, the design pressure your location requires, who pulls the permit, a rate for repairs found behind the old frame, the exterior and interior finish work, removal and disposal of the old windows, the manufacturer and workmanship warranties separately, the licence number, and a payment schedule that ends after the inspection passes.
- Why do two impact window quotes differ so much?
- Usually scope rather than price. One may include the stucco and interior trim repair and the other may not; one may count the sliding doors and the other exclude them; and the glass packages may hold different approvals. Hand both companies the same opening schedule and most of the gap turns out to be what each one is actually pricing.
- How do I check the product approval number?
- In Florida, search it yourself in the state's product approval database, which lists every approved product and application. Inside the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, Miami-Dade runs a separate notice-of-acceptance system with a stricter standard. Outside Florida, ask the building department which standard it enforces and ask the bidder to show the unit meets it.
- Is a big deposit normal for impact windows?
- A deposit sized to the order is ordinary here, because the windows are manufactured to the measurements of your openings and cannot be sold to anyone else. Full payment before any work starts is different, and federal consumer guidance lists demanding it as a warning sign. Ask for the deposit as a written dollar amount rather than a percentage.
- Does this tool tell me if my window company is overcharging me?
- No, and it never will. It checks the quote — the document and the deal terms — against published figures and published consumer-protection guidance. A yellow or red result means ask more questions and verify, not that anybody is dishonest.
Built for homeowners by Most Recommended Impact Windows, which measures which impact window companies AI assistants actually recommend across U.S. metros. The checklist logic here is ours; the prices, the deal-terms guidance, the product approval database and the licence lookups belong to the sources named above, in the copy, where you can check them. How we measure.
Keep reading
Free tools
What things cost