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Pricing for Domestic Homes

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cooperman

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Hi, I'm new to this and looking to start little sideline business cleaning windows, with the aim to grow it large enough to quit my day job.

I'm just a little curious about how I should go about pricing for domestic jobs. I'm based in Yorkshire and have asked about to get a general idea on what people are paying and it seems this varies from £4 for a bungalow to £25 for a large house, with some people charging £1 per window regardless of size.

I was just curious as to how you guys go about pricing up your work.

Regards

Dan

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Depending on size and how long it takes you really! Where I live we charge around 7-8 per house 3 bedroom and obviously if they have conservatory it's usually 10 pound per house! Charge 6-7 pound for bungalows just don't under charge mate you will still get the work don't worry about that, I am a traditional window cleaner looking into reach and wash systems so not sure how much they charge as they have more out goings! Hope this helps


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Cheers mate. My initial plan was to charge £8 for average 3bed semi, £10 4bed detached. And about £5 for bungalow.
How long does it take you to do an average 3bed? My aim would be to get good enough to get through 1.5 houses an hour. So about 30-40mins per house as to give me a little time for travel. Would you say that's achievable, or am I dreaming?

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I do mine by time mate and how much I want to earn per hour. For an easy example if you want to earn 20 quid an hour and a house takes that long it's a 20 quid house. If it take 30 mins 10 quid.  Some want to earn 10 an hour some 40 only you can set that. Always factor in travel time though and access. I charge more if I have to go round an alley ext as all takes time. You will quickly see how long houses take once you get going and after a while will be easy quoting. 

 
Cheers mate. That makes good sense. My aim would be to try and get groups of houses close to each other (ideally on the same street) so I could do them in blocks, and spend a full day doing a block.
How do you go about taking payment? Cash in person, or business card through the letter box with bank details on each visit?

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My round is very compact so usually there for 2-3 days at a time, I usually aim for 3-4 houses per hour, I carry receipts that say windows cleaned today the day it is and how much the house is, that way they know I have been and then I usually go collect on a night or some of my customers have places they put the money, some prefer to send bank transfers or cheque's, which ever works best for you both!?


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Thanks for all the replies guys. This is great information. One of my concerns though is what happens during winter (or times of bad weather)?
I don't mind working in all weather's, but I'm wondering if customers still want their windows washing in rain for example when they perhaps wouldn't feel like they could see much difference?
I would guess in snowy weather, there would be the advantage of actually being able to see through freshly cleaned windows.
Just wondering if you guys work through the winter, or if you aim to be busy during the summer months to compensate?

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I work all year round mate my customers want there's doing 1 every 4 weeks I usually get there 5 due to work load and weather, if it rains I can't work or if it's to windy but if you have commercial work they are not so bothered what weather you do it in, hope this helps bud


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I won't clean in the rain mate I feel like a cowboy, maybe that's just me lol customers are not to pleased either but if you have commercial they don't mind


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Sorry guys. Disagree with not cleaning in the rain.
The WFP system works just as good in the rain as any other time.
We have been trading for 5 years and in the 5 years we have had 4 callbacks to reclean and 3 of them wasn’t our fault but we always say to our customers if they not happy let us know so we can come back to reclean to put their minds at rest.
We find you condition your customers to the way you want to work and a lot of people are negative with cleaning in the rain because of how traditional window cleaning works. Leaves streaks etc.
Also I think there are a few videos on YouTube that give the explanation to why you can clean in the rain.
One thing we have found beneficial is that we keep our water at 0ppm and I assume that’s why we’ve never had much problems.
Hope this helps and sorry to ramble on.



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Cheers mate. That's good info. Currently I'm looking to start up just doing traditional work, then potentially progressing to WFP.
All I've got at the moment it a set of T-bars, scrubbers and squeegees, a 4m pole and a wagtail. Still need to purchase ladders and a van/estate car (as I'm currently using a company car for my main day job.)
Althiugh r lass has a Ford Kuga so could use that in the interim but that would mean she's at home with the kids and no use of a vehicle.
This leads me onto my next question.. Have you guys got any preference on equioment/vehicles etc?
Although I think I may start a new thread for that :)

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I would suggest you do WFP from the start. For less than £500 I reckon you could get a decent backpack (Gardiner's v3), pole (Gardiner's again) as well as what's required to purify water.

I think the prices suggested earlier on in this thread are too low - I would say you should pretty much double them. For example for a small 2 bed bungalow I would charge £10 to £12 & for a 3 bed semi £14. I'm in South West Wales - so not an affluent area.

 
Be choosy about the houses you want to do as well - I found that being a bit desperate for business at the start meant I canvassed and took work from houses I’d now rather not do (poor access or separate access to parts of the building/bad angle to get to the windows; dogs = back garden poop minefield; not as nice areas so less £ per house).

Some great advice on this site about dealing with “messers” and not undervaluing your work.


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Seems I'm late to the show but regards to pricing, wfp you need to be looking at £30 an hour at least... Remember you have overheads (filters, equipment, insurance etc) bad weather (losing 3 days a month adds up to 36 days a year) no holiday or sickness pay. And regards to cleaning in the rain, yes you can depending on type of job and how heavily it's raining, we clean older properties and heavy rain tends to run off the walls and onto the glass making the clean pointless.

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Prices in Yorkshire are generally on the low side.

Forget what anyone tells you regarding prices and do some market research in the areas you are targeting, local completition will be the deciding factor.

It's as simple as this imo, if the average price for a 3 bed semi is say £8 in your area then if you charge more than this you will pick up work slower, charge less and you will pick up work faster.

You can get prices much higher than what others are charging but obviously it's going to be much harder than if you were going in much lower, its pretty obvious when you think about it.

 
I'm always puzzled by 'the local going rate'.  You knock on a door, offer your services and give them a price.  Some will say "Oh, but my other window cleaner only charged....."  So what?  What someone did or didn't charge her is neither here nor there.  Why should the price someone else charged be taken as the 'norm'?

You knock on another door and they say "Is that all? My other window cleaner used to charge......"

Ask yourself this:  If you weren't a window cleaner and someone knocked on your door and offered to clean you windows how would you know what 'the going rate' is?

There's no such thing.  Window cleaners don't get together and discuss how much they're charging, it's each to his own. 

In your area (say within a 10 mile radius - that's 314.2 square miles!!) there will be perhaps a couple of hundred window cleaners.  Do you know how much they all charge?

Ignore 'the going rate' -  in my opinion it's just an excuse for people who are afraid to ask a decent price.  Decide how much you want to charge, sell your service emphasising the benefits of them using you and then give your price with conviction and confidence - if they want their windows cleaning they'll go for it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bumblebee72 said:
I'm always puzzled by 'the local going rate'.  You knock on a door, offer your services and give them a price.  Some will say "Oh, but my other window cleaner only charged....."  So what?  What someone did or didn't charge her is neither here nor there.  Why should the price someone else charged be taken as the 'norm'?

You knock on another door and they say "Is that all? My other window cleaner used to charge......"

Ask yourself this:  If you weren't a window cleaner and someone knocked on your door and offered to clean you windows how would you know what 'the going rate' is?

There's no such thing.  Window cleaners don't get together and discuss how much they're charging, it's each to his own. 

In your area (say within a 10 mile radius - that's 314.2 square miles!!) there will be perhaps a couple of hundred window cleaners.  Do you know how much they all charge?

Ignore 'the going rate' -  in my opinion it's just an excuse for people who are afraid to ask a decent price.  Decide how much you want to charge, sell your service emphasising the benefits of them using you and then give your price with conviction and confidence - if they want their windows cleaning they'll go for it.
Click to expand...






Yes and no

By all means ignore the "going rate" and price what you want but my point still remains, if you are cheaper you will pick up work faster and easier than if you are at the other end of the scale.

Local business set the "going rate" by price conditioning an area.

Its supply and demand, if you are in an are with lots of cheap shiners, yes of course you can charge a lot more and succeed but theres no doubt it will be much more difficult.

If you are in another area with a lack of cleaners then you are much likely to succeed faster at any price point as the demand outweighs supply.

Its basic market research, for some reason window cleaners dont think it applys to them and they can charge what they want as long as they "are confident and sell themselves"...well yes thats very true, some of the time...and again this will depend on what else is available locally, but its very much area dependant.

 

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