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Pricing too high?

ECLM
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I have got every job I quoted in the last 4 weeks, but I don't go canvassing as my rounds are now full so I will only take on jobs in they are next door to each other. I only have 7 of these across the estate and not all together

County Durham Lad

 
Can’t be bothered to read all the previous posts, but yeh I sort of to pound a window etc. One pound for small 2 pane windows, £3ish for a set of French doors, £4/£5ish for maybe a 5 pane bay window etc. Of course that includes all frames & sills.

But I have a lot of 8 weekly rounds, easier to put a higher price on. Your average £18/£20 house, you can get away with saying £22/£25 on a 8weekly clean. 

 
On the estate these houses are it's being a hard nut to crack, I do similar house's for £7.50 on another estate in 4-5 years I have only gained 22 jobs, their is lads charging £3.50 for 2-3 bed houses of a similar style on this estate.

But on other new build estates across the town I have gained 2-3 days of work of well priced work and on larger houses some lads are £5.00 or more cheaper than me.

But as with all these pricing debates prices can vary wildly even from village to town to city.

County Durham Lad

 
When I first started I priced based on house size, had a couple of customers take offence to me asking how many bedrooms they have, a couple were wise enough to realise their 4 bed had the same amount of windows as the 3 bed over the road. One guy told me he was disgusted I was charging an extra £5 just because he was in a 4 bedroom house. I changed tact and started to look at the amount of windows, how long it would take etc. I base the price around my hourly rate and go from there. The other day I found myself cleaning a 4 bed for £13, didn't even realise it was a 4 bed until the customer said to me.

I offer 4/6/8 weeks. I have a couple of mates who are on monthly but I don't charge them full price and they are cool with me doing them when I feel like. I've started to find the customers overlap because of the 6 weeks but I just move people around to balance the diary.

I've always kept track of how much these customers are work on average per month, as strange as it is they have always come in at an average of £10 PCM, some are £27 some as low as £8 but the average has been £10 give or take a few pence the entire time. This time next year I want that to be £12 per customer. Some of my work is priced well, some could be better. I get the bulk of my quotes and I don't think thats just because of price as some claim, I live in an affluent area and a lot of the customers aren't really price driven, they're after quality.

My best advice would be not to be afraid to price yourself really high end if they have a conservatory because they will slow you down. Ideally you want a bunch of houses with no conservatories, no windows you need to clean at angles, basically just like the one Iron Giant posted a pic of, in and out in minutes and on to the next one. Don't worry about the prices the chaps up north are talking about, go with the average in your area. At first you might want to drop the price a little bit to get the ball rolling, make sure you ask those people to recommend you to their friends and get your name out there. Once you're off comes the tricky part, you get a phone call ''I'm looking for a window cleaner, Sue recommended you to me'', you do a 3 bed semi with a conservatory for £15 for Sue because you wanted to get the ball rolling and now her mate wants you. You will be thinking you need to quote a similar price, and you might, first things first though get chatting and gauge how well she knows Sue, if she knows her from slimming world then crack on and charge full price... on the other hand if Sue is her daughter you will probably need to do another cheaper one. The expensive jobs will come in time and in the meantime you can take on some slightly cheaper jobs (Without ripping yourself off) and have a view to increase the prices later on.... before anyone asks if Sue is a real person yes she is, I have loads of them. I have more Sue's and Kathy's than anything else haha.

Completely agree with the other lads who have said charge higher prices for longer periods. a 2 bed semi new build I might charge £10 every 4 weeks, £13 every 6 weeks, £16 every 8 weeks. If they ask why I just explain there is more to do and that windows of customers who have them every 4 weeks are still clean when I arrive, I am just maintaining clean windows which is less work and therefore I charge less.

 
Iron Giant said:
£119,000 I think they are.

County Durham Lad
 
Click to expand...
https://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/find-your-home/england/north-yorkshire/saltburn/larkfields

This is the estate going up next to us. The 2 bedrooms are £169950. Customer put a note through my door asking me to quote their 4 bed place. They didn't pay £299, 950 but thats the house.

She fired her window cleaner as he wasn't cleaning the windows properly. Its still a building site and will be for the next 18 months. I quoted £10. She was surprised as her previous cleaner was just over half that.

We were told that she has had a lot and window cleaners touting for new business. She had hardly any at the old house not so far away. Funnily enough, an old (long standing) customer moved for the poorer side of Skelton to a big house on a new estate. Never had a cleaner knock on the door when they lived on the old estate, now their new home get canvassed/leafletted regularily.

We canvassed a new build estate about 10 years ago. We hit it as the builders had left and got about 50% of the estate. Over the next few years we were left with a handful of decent customers. The rest moved out, were evicted, got divorced, split from their partners, couldn't afford to pay, etc.

Even if we were short of work I would stay away from canvassing new build estates, especially if the builders are still there. The windows will never dry clean with all the dust and lorries driving up and down.

 
spruce said:
https://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/find-your-home/england/north-yorkshire/saltburn/larkfields
 
This is the estate going up next to us. The 2 bedrooms are £169950. Customer put a note through my door asking me to quote their 4 bed place. They didn't pay £299, 950 but thats the house.
She fired her window cleaner as he wasn't cleaning the windows properly. Its still a building site and will be for the next 18 months. I quoted £10. She was surprised as her previous cleaner was just over half that.
 
We were told that she has had a lot and window cleaners touting for new business. She had hardly any at the old house not so far away. Funnily enough, an old (long standing) customer moved for the poorer side of Skelton to a big house on a new estate. Never had a cleaner knock on the door when they lived on the old estate, now their new home get canvassed/leafletted regularily.
 
We canvassed a new build estate about 10 years ago. We hit it as the builders had left and got about 50% of the estate. Over the next few years we were left with a handful of decent customers. The rest moved out, were evicted, got divorced, split from their partners, couldn't afford to pay, etc.
 
Even if we were short of work I would stay away from canvassing new build estates, especially if the builders are still there. The windows will never dry clean with all the dust and lorries driving up and down.
Click to expand...
Same here these estates are constantly being canvassed and leaflted, other estates I have built a solid reputation but on this one not much of a hope as they want the cheapest price and that's it. If you quoted £10 every 4 weeks on that house then you are cheaper than me just guessing what's round the back and that you also include the garage door as I also do some similar wimpey houses. 

County Durham Lad
 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Iron Giant said:
Same here these estates are constantly being canvassed and leaflted, other estates I have built a solid reputation but on this one not much of a hope as they want the cheapest price and that's it.

County Durham Lad
 
Click to expand...
The problem is that is the best work, it's the easiest and quickest. Normally no access issues. Even easier before they get chance to bang a conservatory on the back. Shame people go around ruining what should be a good earner.

I've found that the ''new build'' houses that have been up 15-20 years are my best earners. In that time it seems a lot of the houses have been sold. As @spruce said people move out, get divorced, can't afford the mortgage... etc etc. Over time decent people have moved into the estates round here. The long standing windies will have done what you guys are saying and canvassed, been priced out of the street, had messers and people leave etc and probably see the place as a poisoned chalice. I have about 20% of my work in one estate that was build between 1996 and 2000. Unfortunately a lot of them have stuck stupid conservatories on the back but the ones who haven't are the easiest work I have. I have no competition round there at all. The other day I turned up to do a quote and he told me he's already booked someone.... I bit my tongue about him not cancelling the quote and he started asking me how much I charge etc. I said I don't wanna take bread from someones mouth, if you've agreed a price then you've agreed a price. He explained the other guy was charging him around £250 for gutters and windows and wanted £25 a month to keep coming back so he had only booked a one off. Clearly doesn't want to work in the road, I assume because of a previous experience.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
P4dstar said:
The problem is that is the best work, it's the easiest and quickest. Normally no access issues. Even easier before they get chance to bang a conservatory on the back. Shame people go around ruining what should be a good earner.

I've found that the ''new build'' houses that have been up 15-20 years are my best earners. In that time it seems a lot of the houses have been sold. As @spruce said people move out, get divorced, can't afford the mortgage... etc etc. Over time decent people have moved into the estates round here. The long standing windies will have done what you guys are saying and canvassed, been priced out of the street, had messers and people leave etc and probably see the place as a poisoned chalice. I have about 20% of my work in one estate that was build between 1996 and 2000. Unfortunately a lot of them have stuck stupid conservatories on the back but the ones who haven't are the easiest work I have. I have no competition round there at all. The other day I turned up to do a quote and he told me he's already booked someone.... I bit my tongue about him not cancelling the quote and he started asking me how much I charge etc. I said I don't wanna take bread from someones mouth, if you've agreed a price then you've agreed a price. He explained the other guy was charging him around £250 for gutters and windows and wanted £25 a month to keep coming back so he had only booked a one off. Clearly doesn't want to work in the road, I assume because of a previous experience.
Click to expand...






I think you are missing  a trick houses with conservatory’s are considerably dearer prices to clean than ones without why rush around to 20 houses @ £15 a go when you can do 10 @ £25-30 a go I wish all my customers had conservatory’s difficult to reach windows are good ,charge more they cannot do it themselves , addon jobs like cleaning the roof , guttervaccing above a conservatory adds to what you can earn from one customer , we regularly clean inside of them for £400 half a days work easy money , if you want to splash and dash then this type of work isn’t for you but customers like a regular quality job doing offer them a variety of services and ultimately you need less clients earning more money for less travel , since we have started taking this approach we are reducing our expenses and earning more less customers to have to chase for money 

 
Pjj said:
I think you are missing  a trick houses with conservatory’s are considerably dearer prices to clean than ones without why rush around to 20 houses @ £15 a go when you can do 10 @ £25-30 a go I wish all my customers had conservatory’s difficult to reach windows are good ,charge more they cannot do it themselves , addon jobs like cleaning the roof , guttervaccing above a conservatory adds to what you can earn from one customer , we regularly clean inside of them for £400 half a days work easy money , if you want to splash and dash then this type of work isn’t for you but customers like a regular quality job doing offer them a variety of services and ultimately you need less clients earning more money for less travel , since we have started taking this approach we are reducing our expenses and earning more less customers to have to chase for money 
Click to expand...
Yeah agreed, i'm trying to rectify this. It dawned on me about a month ago after doing a day full of conservatory cleans that I haven't been charging enough for them. In some cases I was just sticking £2/3 on the job. I've now gone down the route of £4/5/6 depending on the size of the conservatory. A couple of people with large conservatories have told me to do it every other time which suits me perfectly because i'm in and out. One of them had a massive conservatory covering the entire of the back wall. I charge him £15 a month the same as his neighbour but we agreed £21 every other month when I do the conservatory. The thing is his neighbour has two windows and a set of patio doors that this guy doesn't because the conservatory is in there. i'm fond of the good old add on services, they're topping me up nicely while I work on filling the round but the issue is they aren't regular.

 
P4dstar said:
Yeah agreed, i'm trying to rectify this. It dawned on me about a month ago after doing a day full of conservatory cleans that I haven't been charging enough for them. In some cases I was just sticking £2/3 on the job. I've now gone down the route of £4/5/6 depending on the size of the conservatory. A couple of people with large conservatories have told me to do it every other time which suits me perfectly because i'm in and out. One of them had a massive conservatory covering the entire of the back wall. I charge him £15 a month the same as his neighbour but we agreed £21 every other month when I do the conservatory. The thing is his neighbour has two windows and a set of patio doors that this guy doesn't because the conservatory is in there. i'm fond of the good old add on services, they're topping me up nicely while I work on filling the round but the issue is they aren't regular.
Click to expand...
It depends how you view add ons, they can be “regular” if you clean a conny anually for 100 quid or so then you can deem it regular, an fsg bi-anually or driveway clean annually also. Even though you go there less, it probably brings in roughly the same as what the regular window cleaning would and you have to make a lot more visits and travel time for that.
Also, i’ve found that add ons are very good for recommendations, because people value the job a lot more, so in my eyes they’re well worth it


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Iron Giant said:
I close 90%+ of my quotes because I am so bleedin great
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County Durham Lad
 
Click to expand...
So your the one?????(quote from Top Gun)

 
Iron Giant said:
£119,000 I think they are.

County Durham Lad
 
Click to expand...






This is why prices can vary all over the UK.

That house in my town would be 325-375k.

It just goes to show how much of a north / south divide in property there is you couldn't buy a 1 bed flat for that where I am.Hence the need to charge and earn more just to buy the same home.

 
Cghwindowcleaning said:
 
 
This is why prices can vary all over the UK.
That house in my town would be 325-375k.
It just goes to show how much of a north / south divide in property there is you couldn't buy a 1 bed flat for that where I am.Hence the need to charge and earn more just to buy the same home.
Click to expand...
I moved back to St Helens for 3 years because I could buy a nice 2 bedroom house in a nice area. In Gloucestershire the cheapest you’ll find anything now is 200k. Standard 3 bed semi costs 240k, it’s mad.

This is why we can charge more down here though, everything costs more and therefore you need to earn a higher wage to live. People understand this and pay more for their windows to be cleaned, simple as that


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