---
title: "Quote Expiry"
description: "Lock an offer for a set number of days, with a countdown for the customer."
url: "https://docs.gytabuyback.com/features/quote-expiry/"
---
## Quote Expiry

Quote Expiry promises the customer that the price you quoted will be honored for a fixed number of days — and then holds you both to it. Every trade-in order is stamped with a deadline the moment it is placed, the customer sees **"Your offer of $120.00 is locked until March 14, 2026"** on the order screen and in their emails, and once that date passes the plugin refuses to accept their approval until you send a revised offer.

It is worth turning on if devices reach you slowly, or if used-device prices move enough that a quote from three weeks ago is no longer one you want to pay. It gives customers a reason to ship promptly, and it stops an old quote being approved at a price you would no longer offer.

![Quote expiry setting controlling how many days an offer stays locked](../../assets/images/gb-quote-expiry.png)

Quote Expiry is a **PRO feature**. On the free plan the setting is shown but disabled with a PRO badge and an upgrade link, and no order is ever stamped with a deadline no matter what value is stored — so nothing is shown to the customer and no approval is blocked.

## Turning It On

Go to **Gyta Buyback → Settings → Checkout** and find **Quote lock (days)**. Enter the number of days you want to honor a quote for — 14 and 30 are common — and save.

*   The field accepts whole numbers only, with a minimum of 0.
*   The default is **0**, which turns the feature off: no deadline is stamped, so no countdown is shown and no approval is blocked.
*   Setting it back to **0** later only stops *new* deadlines being stamped. Orders that were already stamped keep their deadline, still show the line, and are still blocked once it lapses.

## How It Works Day to Day

*   **At checkout** the order is stamped with a deadline of exactly that many days from the moment the order is placed.
*   **The customer sees the lock line** on the order-received (thank you) page, on the View Order page in their account, in their order emails, and on each card in the **My Trade-ins** account tab. The amount quoted in that line is the order total as it stands, so after a re-quote it shows the revised figure.
*   **You see it too.** On the WooCommerce order edit screen, just under the re-quote panel, the plugin prints "Quote locked until …" with the date and time.
*   **If the deadline passes**, the same lines switch to an expiry message: the customer is told the offer expired and that you will send an updated offer, and your order screen shows a red warning that approval is blocked.
*   **If the customer tries to approve anyway**, the approval is refused, they get an error notice explaining why, and the order status is left untouched.
*   **Sending a revised offer** from the re-quote panel re-locks the price for a full fresh window, counted from the moment the revised offer goes out.

## Good to Know

*   **The clock starts at checkout, not at inspection.** The deadline is a plain countdown from when the order was placed, so the shipping time the customer takes eats into the window.
*   **Only orders placed after you switch it on get a deadline.** The stamp is applied at checkout (classic and block checkout), so orders that already existed — and orders you create by hand in the admin — start with no lock, no countdown and no block. Sending one of them a revised offer from the re-quote panel does stamp it, from that moment on.
*   **Changing the number of days does not move existing deadlines.** Each order keeps the deadline it was stamped with; the new value applies to orders placed (or re-quoted) from that point on.
*   **Expiry blocks approval, not decline.** A customer can still decline a lapsed offer, and the decline is processed exactly as normal (including automatic return labels, if you have those turned on). Nothing is auto-cancelled and no order status changes on its own when a quote expires — the order simply sits there until you re-quote.
*   **You are alerted the first time a customer is blocked**, not when the quote lapses. The plugin adds an order note and emails your WordPress admin address once per expiry. Sending a revised offer resets that guard, so a later lapse alerts you again.
*   **Only trade-in orders are stamped.** In Buyback store mode that is every order; in Dual and Net modes, ordinary sales orders are skipped.
*   **The deadline is an exact moment, not end of day.** A 14-day lock set at 3:12 pm expires at 3:12 pm on day 14. The customer-facing line shows only the date in your store's date format; the admin line shows date and time.