The business where only one person could quote
Ian knew the fabrics, the making and the fitting well enough to price any job in his head. That was exactly the problem. Every quote in the business queued behind one man, and a customer seen in the morning might not get a price until the next day.
Decades of knowing, kept in one head
Ian has spent decades in window furnishings, including running a national operation for one of the larger companies in the industry, before starting Studio Curtains and keeping it in the family. Today the business is Ian, his wife Deb, their son Callum, and Will.
That experience is what made the quoting so good, and what made it a bottleneck. Ian could look at a window, a fabric and a heading style and know what the job was worth. Nobody else in the business could do that the same way, so every quote went through him.
A customer seen in the morning might wait until the next day for a price, sometimes longer in a busy week. It was also the ceiling on the business. You cannot take on more work than one person can quote, and Ian wanted Studio Curtains to be bigger than that.
He had looked at software before
This was not Ian’s first look at quoting software. He had tried other systems over the years and never found one that matched how a curtain business genuinely prices a job. So the knowledge stayed where it was, and so did the bottleneck.
That scepticism is fair. A system that cannot carry your real fabric range and your real making prices is not a quoting system, it is a form.
Built with Callum, checked by Ian
The onboarding ran with Callum, who is the most technical of the team, while Ian reviewed everything as it was built. That split turned out to be the right one. Callum learned the system properly by configuring it rather than by being shown it, and Ian checked that every price coming out of it matched what he would have quoted by hand.
The range was the real test. Studio Curtains carries around 200 different curtain fabrics, plus a roman blind range spanning both soft furnishing fabrics and standard roller blind fabrics such as polyester. Those two price on different logic, and a system that handles one well will often handle the other badly. All of it went in during the setup.
Three weeks after starting, Studio Curtains were fully live. Every range configured, every existing customer imported, and the business running day to day through one system. It is one of the fastest onboardings we have done.
The part that matters most is not the three weeks. It is that Callum maintains it himself now. Adding a fabric or changing a price happens in-house, on the day it is needed, without raising a ticket with anyone.
“I have looked at quoting systems before and never found one that fitted how we actually work. Three weeks from starting and we were running the whole business on it, with every fabric we sell loaded.”
Ian, Studio Curtains
What it runs now
Studio Curtains do not use Rollify only for quoting. The office, ordering, manufacturing, installs and the sales process all run through the same system, so a job carries its own history from the first measure to the final invoice.
And the quoting is no longer one person’s job. The pricing logic lives in the system rather than in Ian’s head, which means the business is no longer capped by his calendar.
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Setup 3 weeks to fully live |
Range 200+ curtain fabrics, plus romans |
Quoting Was over a day, now in-house |
Outcomes as reported by Studio Curtains, October 2026.
Common questions
How long does it take to set up quoting software for a curtain business?
Studio Curtains were fully live in three weeks, including more than 200 curtain fabrics, their full roman range and every existing customer imported. The timeline depends mostly on how wide your range is and how quickly you can turn around price lists and answers during setup, so a smaller range can be quicker and a very large one longer.
Can one system price curtains and roman blinds differently?
It needs to, because they do not price the same way. Curtains are priced on fabric quantity, fullness and making, while romans vary depending on whether they are made in a soft furnishing fabric or a standard roller blind fabric such as polyester. Studio Curtains run both ranges in one system, each on its own pricing logic.
Do you need to be technical to maintain quoting software?
No. At Studio Curtains the setup was done with Callum, who is the most technical of the team but not a developer, and he now adds fabrics and adjusts pricing himself. The test of a system is whether someone in your business can maintain it without going back to the vendor every time something changes.
About Studio Curtains
Studio Curtains is a family-run window furnishings business in Brisbane, founded by Ian after decades in the industry and run alongside Deb, Callum and Will. They specialise in custom-made curtains across a range of more than 200 fabrics, together with roman blinds in both soft furnishing and roller fabrics, handling everything from measure and quote through to manufacturing and installation. Find them at custom curtains in Brisbane.
See how Rollify can do the same for your business
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