How to Pull Your Unsold HVAC Estimates Out of ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro
The exact report to run in ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, what to export, and which unsold HVAC estimates to work first before the heating calls fill your board.
Key Takeaways
- ServiceTitan's Follow Up screen lists every unsold estimate and filters by job type, technician, date range, business unit and status.
- Housecall Pro exports its Estimates report as a CSV you can download or email to yourself.
- ENERGY STAR flags a furnace or boiler over 15 years old and a heat pump or air conditioner over 10 years old as replacement candidates.
- 53% of 1,000 residential contractors rank retention above new customer acquisition at 31% (ServiceTitan, 2026).
- Buying 300 new heating leads at the $129.02 median search cost per lead runs about $38,706 (LocaliQ).
Every HVAC shop has the same pile. Somebody walked the house, sized the system, wrote a number on the proposal, and the homeowner said they would think about it. That was spring or summer. Now the first cold nights are here, the old furnace is a few months older, and the proposal is sitting in your CRM with no signature.
Our post on re-closing unsold HVAC estimates after the 25C credit ended covers the price story. This one covers the step before it: getting the list out of your software. The ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro steps below come from each vendor's own help pages.
What counts as an unsold HVAC estimate in your CRM?
An unsold HVAC estimate is a priced proposal your team delivered that the homeowner never signed and never declined. In ServiceTitan it is an estimate that was created but not sold. In Housecall Pro it is an estimate with no approval. Both systems can list them. Neither list is clean until you fix it.
An unsold estimate is a delivered, priced proposal with no signature and no decline. A dismissed estimate is one the customer turned down, and it belongs on a different list with a different message.
How do you pull unsold estimates in ServiceTitan?
Use the Follow Up screen. ServiceTitan's help page says it exists to help you stay on top of sold and unsold estimates, and its first tab is Unsold Estimates. Managers and office staff can open it. If the button is missing, your account administrator has to grant the permission.
- Click Follow Up in the toolbar and open the Unsold Estimates area.
- Filter by date range first. Start with everything since January 1, so the heat pump and furnace quotes from spring and summer are all in.
- Filter by business unit to keep install and replacement quotes and drop small repair estimates.
- Set the opportunity status to Open. ServiceTitan labels open opportunities Not Attempted, Unreachable or Contacted, and Dismissed means the customer declined.
- Click Export. The help page does not describe the file format, so open the first export and check the columns before you build on it.
The Not Attempted label is the useful one. Those are estimates nobody has followed up on, and they are the first names to text.
How do you pull unsold estimates in Housecall Pro?
Export the Estimates report from your dashboard. Housecall Pro's help article walks through it: click the eye icon in the top-right corner of the Estimates report, set your filters and date range, then click the Excel icon and choose Download CSV or Send by Email.
Housecall Pro's article does not name a status filter. It says you can filter any column through the funnel icon in the column header, so filter the status column there to drop approved and declined estimates. If the report times out, shorten the date range and pull the year in pieces.
Which columns do you need before you clean the list?
Six fields do the work. If your export is missing any of them, add the column in the report settings before you export again. Then check the file against your job history, because a customer who signed a different proposal last month still shows an unsold estimate on the old one.
- Customer name, mobile number and email
- Estimate date and quoted amount
- Equipment type quoted: furnace, heat pump, AC or full system
- Age of the existing equipment, if your technicians recorded it
- The advisor who ran the visit
- Any call, text or do-not-contact flag on the customer record
Remove anyone who has booked a job since the quote date, anyone marked do-not-contact, and duplicate households. The step-by-step version of this cleanup, written for roofing, is in our JobNimbus dead lead export guide. The same logic applies in an HVAC CRM.
Which unsold estimates should you work first this winter?
Start with the oldest equipment. ENERGY STAR says to consider a replacement when a furnace or boiler is more than 15 years old, and the same page sets the line at 10 years for a heat pump or air conditioner. A homeowner with an old furnace and your quote in a drawer is the likeliest to call somebody else the night it quits.
| Priority | Who | Why now | First message |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Furnace or boiler over 15 years old | Past the ENERGY STAR replacement line and about to be tested by cold weather | Ask if the heat has held up and offer to hold the quoted price |
| 2 | Heat pump or AC over 10 years old, quoted this year | Over the ENERGY STAR line, and a spring install is easy to book now | Offer a spring install slot and a financing figure |
| 3 | Not Attempted in ServiceTitan | Nobody has followed up on them yet | Text from the advisor who ran the visit |
| 4 | Chose a repair over replacement | The repaired unit is another season older | Ask how the repair is holding up |
| 5 | Quote under a year old on newer equipment | Low urgency, high goodwill | Offer a maintenance agreement and file for spring |
Work rows one and three before anything else. If the heat goes out in January, the homeowner calls the first company that picks up. Texting them in October means that company is yours.
How fast should the follow-up start?
As soon as the list is clean. Hatch analyzed about 163,000 HVAC estimate follow-up campaigns from the last six months of its own platform data and reports an average response rate of 60%, with the best campaign at 90.06% and the worst at 17.82%.
Treat that number carefully. Hatch counts response rate, not booked jobs or closed revenue. Every campaign ran on Hatch and started two days after the estimate, and the page compares only a few individual campaigns against each other. It tells you a shorter first message beat a longer one in the best and worst examples, and nothing more. Our own range is lower: we've found reactivation campaigns produce response rates of 2 to 5 percent, and a 60% average on a fresh estimate does not carry over to a pile that is six months old.
Once someone replies, the clock is short. Our speed-to-lead statistics page pulls together the response-time research, and the sequence itself is laid out in the 30-day lead reactivation campaign.
What are the texting and calling rules before you upload the list?
Federal rules bar telephone solicitation to a residential subscriber before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the called party's location. The same regulation requires you to honor any reasonable request to revoke consent within a reasonable time that cannot exceed ten business days.
Keep your consent records, put a working opt-out in every text, and register for A2P 10DLC before the first send. The details are in our guide to the TCPA rules for texting old leads. This is general information, not legal advice. Have your own counsel review the sequence.
Is a pile of old estimates worth more than new leads?
On cost to start a conversation, yes. LocaliQ's benchmark of 3,211 home services search campaigns, covering April 2024 through March 2025, puts the median cost per lead for heating and furnaces at $129.02. At that rate, buying 300 new heating leads costs about $38,706. A list of 300 unsold estimates cost you nothing more to restart. This is simple arithmetic on a benchmark, not a forecast of what your list will book.
Contractors are already leaning this way. In ServiceTitan's 2026 survey of 1,000 residential contractors, run by Thrive Analytics, 53% ranked customer retention above new customer acquisition at 31%. ServiceTitan states it makes no assurances about the accuracy of the survey data, so read it as sentiment.
The broader strategy for the whole customer list, not just estimates, is in the HVAC database reactivation playbook. If you would rather not run the sequence yourself, our lead reactivation service works the list and books the appointments.
Do one thing this week. Run the report, filter to open estimates since January 1, and sort by equipment age. The top 25 names are your first batch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find unsold estimates in ServiceTitan?
Open the Follow Up screen from the toolbar and choose the Unsold Estimates area. You can filter by job type, technician, date range, business unit and status, then use Export. You need the right permission, so ask your account administrator if the screen is missing.
Can Housecall Pro export a list of open estimates?
Yes. Open the Estimates report from your dashboard, set the date range, filter the status column, and download the report as a CSV or have it emailed to you. Housecall Pro's help article does not name a status filter, so check the exported file for approved estimates before you use it.
How old should an unsold HVAC estimate be before it is worth working?
Start with everything from the current calendar year, then work backward. Older quotes are still worth a message when the equipment is past the ENERGY STAR replacement ages of 15 years for a furnace or boiler and 10 years for a heat pump or air conditioner.
Should I call or text unsold estimate customers first?
Text first from the advisor who ran the visit, then call anyone who replies. Both are subject to calling-hour and consent rules, including the 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. window for residential subscribers. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is this different from the post about the 25C credit?
Yes. The 25C post covers how to rebuild the price story for heat pump quotes after the credit ended. This one covers how to pull and rank the list in ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro so you know whom to message first.