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The lowest number and the best outcome are rarely the same one.
Wanting to pay less is reasonable and we are not going to talk you out of it. What is worth knowing is that a dent contains one honest amount of work, so a quote well below the others is not a discount, it is a shorter job. Sometimes a shorter job is exactly right for the car. Sometimes it is the reason the panel has to be put right again later, and the second attempt costs more than doing it once would have.
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Wanting to pay less is reasonable and we are not going to talk you out of it. What is worth knowing is that a dent contains one honest amount of work, so a quote well below the others is not a discount, it is a shorter job. Sometimes a shorter job is exactly right for the car. Sometimes it is the reason the panel has to be put right again later, and the second attempt costs more than doing it once would have.
Almost all of the price is time, and the time is set by the dent rather than by the shop. Size, depth, how much of it sits on a body line, and whether the metal is steel or aluminum. A number far below everyone else is not buying the same hours.
Pushed too fast or too far, metal stretches and leaves high spots and poke marks that no amount of later work fully removes. That is the real risk in a rushed repair, and it is the one thing on a panel that cannot be undone.
Whether they have seen photographs, whether they know the panel is aluminum, and what happens if it needs more time than quoted. A price given without looking is a guess, and a guess that has to be revised is not the saving it looked like.
An older car, a work truck, a panel already carrying other marks. Spending top money on one dent in a panel with three other scuffs does not change how the car reads. Tell us what the vehicle does and we will say so plainly.
Paintless dent repair is usually less than refinishing, because there is no filler, no paint booth and no days of cure time. The cheapest quote and the best outcome are rarely the same number though. Ask any shop what the price includes and whether they have actually seen photographs of the panel before quoting.
It depends on the car and on what happens to it next. On an older vehicle or a work truck, less work can be the sensible call. On a lease return measured against a written tolerance, or a car you are keeping, it is usually the wrong one. The risk is not that you save money, it is that metal gets overworked and the damage becomes permanent.
Because the shops are not quoting the same job. Price follows time, and time follows the size and depth of the dent, how much of it crosses a body line, the panel material, and how many there are. A quote given without photographs is a guess that gets revised.
Sometimes, and it is always harder the second time. Metal that has been worked behaves differently when it is worked again, and stretched metal does not come back. That is why the target is worth agreeing before anyone starts rather than after.