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Asked to justify Hourly rate

Eddie dragon

Active member
Messages
374
Location
Oxford
OK so been sitting on this one for a month and jobs due up again. Sub contracted job. Old Farm house extension glass room and matching green house. Priced as trad £45. Two men 40 45 minutes with a brew. Me an water fed pole still the same.

Got asked to do ten skylights and glass box roof. No problem gave them all a wash took an hour and fifteen minutes. All packed up. Now how mutch to charge? Conversation went. Hi how mutch. Me honestly not sure let's see you pay 45 so plus ten skylights and glass roof. Normally I would add £2 per skylight. And as the roof is just a quick brush and rinse half price at fifteen pounds. Can u you guess his reaction. Oh boy did he go purple. Hour and fifteen minutes that took you. Yes sir. What else can you say. Are you seriously trying to charge me £80 for a little over an hours work. Now we chatted for a while, main points. Me I have done a lot more cleaning than ever before. Him I'm questioning that I'm a fully qualified engineer I went to college and still take courses. You get more per hour than me. No way it's unskilled labour at the end of the day. I pay qualified electricians less than fifty pounds per hour. That's what I will pay no more. So your thoughts gentlemen please.

I don't think I can argue realy. If he wants the extra done for £50. Oh I'm going to do it Monday with my part timer so how mutch time can be saved.? This one might be interesting.

 
That's the trouble with this job, they hate us earning more than them.

Without the wfp system those sky light windows would not be getting cleaned.you should of told him £60 & keep him happy , that's still good money for 75 mins work,once you've quoted your price you must stick with it imo

 
Supply and demand. If people are happy to pay your hourly wage, then there's nothing wrong with it.

We sell only our time, there's no added cost for materials like an electrician more or less always will base a lot of his income on. (Maybe 2-10x price increase compared to what he pays for it wholesale).

 
Are you seriously going to allow someone else to dictate to you how to run your business and what to charge?

'I see sir, what you pay electrictians is your business, what you pay me is mine'

'Price is the price sir, if you decide you want it doing just let me know and i'll see of I can squeeze you in somewhere'

This is why there are still £4 window cleaners out there, they asked for £8 and the home owner said 'I only ever paid £4'

Why are we the only industry that allows clients to dictate prices to us? They can dictate terms of service but NEVER the price. Chancing a haggle never goes a miss but if they tell me that they are only going to pay £XYZ then the can walk on.

Another good retort for this situation:

You: Price is £A sir.

Custy: Oh no, I will only pay B

You: That's why you've never had them done properly then sir, give me a call when you want them done right.

I don't think you are super desperate for the money @Eddie dragon so why let him dictate? Second you do you are his b***h for life mate.

 
That old chestnut.

Have you factored in

Travelling time to job

Fuel

Water cost

Equiptment cost

You do training on the job training every day sinse you have started. You use the website and litrature as a training resource.

You are at a professional level as you have a apprentice and a number of years experience.

It is not relevent to what this guy does thats his life chioce.

These are your prices and your life chioce.

More than justifys what you charge.

 
OK so I don't need the job. I could dump him no problem. I have sat on this for a month. If he was rude I would have on the day. My thinking is he's right. £50 an hour is a realy good wage.

OK it's annoying that so much extra got done for a fiver. However it did take just over the hour.

Torn about it realy. He is a really nice guy, wasn't rude or insulting. Just justify Hourly rate realy. So being honest hourly rate ranges £30+ with some nice little runs averaging 50.

Ignore the idiots doing (latest one I saw the card for. Four bed house and conservatory £7.50) even doing a realy realy good job. Can we justify more than £50 an hour. ??

 
It's not about the hour @Eddie dragon , it's a one off, it's piece work not regular hourly work.

I didn't say dump him, I just said if he want's extras make him pay for it.

I called out the TV ariel man last week. £90 cash, he ran up my roof, put 4 bolts in the chimney, added a new connector to the coaxial already there and was off. 'I'm in the wrong game' was my comment'

I had it with a custy on a gutter job, £80 for the job. Took less than 30 mins (quicker than expected) so I bundled in windows, conservatory windows, doors. She then wanted to pay less as I had originally said no more than 2 hours when she asked how long it would take.

As it had taken less than half that she wanted to pay less than half that even though I had done loads of extra to compensate.

I pointed out price was for job and not for time.

Simple

 
Are you seriously going to allow someone else to dictate to you how to run your business and what to charge?
'I see sir, what you pay electrictians is your business, what you pay me is mine'

'Price is the price sir, if you decide you want it doing just let me know and i'll see of I can squeeze you in somewhere'

This is why there are still £4 window cleaners out there, they asked for £8 and the home owner said 'I only ever paid £4'

Why are we the only industry that allows clients to dictate prices to us? They can dictate terms of service but NEVER the price. Chancing a haggle never goes a miss but if they tell me that they are only going to pay £XYZ then the can walk on.

Another good retort for this situation:

You: Price is £A sir.

Custy: Oh no, I will only pay B

You: That's why you've never had them done properly then sir, give me a call when you want them done right.

I don't think you are super desperate for the money @Eddie dragon so why let him dictate? Second you do you are his b***h for life mate.
Absolutely bank on the price is the price couldn't have wrote the above better

Yesterday prime example

Price per clean will be £16,

But the old one charges me £5,

Just replied there is a reason he charges what he does and what I charge, still got the job

Say it with conviction we are worth the money we are it's bodgers that pull the whole industry down and want to keep it in the dark ages

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

 
Sometimes in life (when starting out and you really need the money) you have to swallow your pride and do it with gritted teeth.

Now I don't earn a fortune but I still wouldn't back down just because of how he spoke. not a cat in hells chance I would be cleaning anything for less than I quoted even if it was cutting my nose off to spite my face.

 
With me it all depends on my mood and whether i am already in the area but it is my choice what i quote and the customer wouldn't know i had done it a touch cheaper to get the job

I certainly wouldn't be told what i am charging

 
Supply and demand. If people are happy to pay your hourly wage, then there's nothing wrong with it.
We sell only our time, there's no added cost for materials like an electrician more or less always will base a lot of his income on. (Maybe 2-10x price increase compared to what he pays for it wholesale).
thats wrong mate, we have a lot of equipment costs resin, batteries ,pumps , poles etc etc all this is included in our time

 
Sometimes not telling them the price before you do it causes problems like this. However just because he uses "skilled electricians" and pays them £50 an hour, would they travel to his house and work for one hour and charge £50, I doubt it, doesn't allow him to pay you an extra few quid to do a lot more work. They would charge 50p+ a mile and £35 an hour travelling time. Just tell him electricians are 10 a penny where you come from.

 
Are you seriously trying to charge me £80 for a little over an hours work.
I agree with @daveyboy and @peter rogers - the price is the price if you don't like it, then jogg on and find someone who will do the same job cheaper.

Your self employed so you set your own rates - none of this 'hourly rates' BS.

My mates dad has a haulage business. One day he gets a call from a randomer asking him to move two giant stone statues, weighting about 10 ton in total. The distance was 1.5 miles. You know how much he charged him to use his low loader and do the job? £500.

Point being that when you offer a service you charge YOUR rates, not somebody elses. And I agree with Green aswell about these windys who do jobs for peanut money - they drive down prices for professionals who take pride in the work. Having said that, one of my core beliefs is that 'There is always more than enough work out there, and more than enough grateful custys who will pay well for my services'. Everythiing is about your beliefs. Just saying

 
That's the thing

I work my quotes out in my head by how long i think a job will take so i don't short change myself but i don't say to a customer "your house will take 15-20 minutes that will be £12"

I give the customer a price irrelevant of time spent

I could cane it in 10 minutes or take an hour..that is my prerogative

 
Yeah I know what you mean daveyboy. I look at a job and I dont even take into account an hourly rate - I just know what I want for doing it.

 
Yeah I know what you mean daveyboy. I look at a job and I dont even take into account an hourly rate - I just know what I want for doing it.
Eaxactly because its not always about the hourly rate sometimes its as simple as that looks a ball ache so im quoting.

Funny ive just quoted a car via email, she wanted the outside washing only, thats it just a wash, something she could get done for a few quid locally. quoted her £40, she thought it a ridiculous price, however i knew it would be an hour all in including travel and i really cant be arsed breaking off my windows tomorrow to go do this then come back. If she had accepted the price then happy days but i couldnt care less either way because thats what i wanted for the job for no other reason than thats what i wanted lol

 
I cleaned a house regularly many years ago, it was £20 every 4 weeks. The bloke who was a bit of a d1ck asked me to clear the gutters as well as clean the windows one day. I charged an extra £20 and his Mrs paid up. Next time I went he went ballistic and asked why I'd charged a total of £40. He turned round and said he would have paid £25 for both the jobs and he was fuming with his Mrs for paying me. I turned round and said 'so you're expecting your gutters to be cleared for £5!!!! Utter tw@t he was.

Asian phones last week. "How much?"

Me: £50 (I'd been past the house and decided to add Pak tax)

"But my last window cleaner......."

Me: Put phone down.

 
I regularly walk away from jobs when people don't like the price I quote. 8 times out of 10 they get back in contact with you and accept the quote anyway. If I feel a job is worth X amount then I'm not going to settle for Y amount. I'll just be annoyed doing the job and I don't like to work like that.

Speaking of hourly rates, I think a lot of it is jealousy. They see you earning £80 for a two hour job and think it's outrageous because they view it as unskilled work and they don't earn that much so why should we.

I left school at sixteen with no qualifications. I have a family member who left school with excellent GCSE and A level results, has two degrees and various other qualifications and their hourly rate isn't even half what I aim for (and achieve) per hour.

 
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