What am I doing wrong?

I seem to be out for nine hrs and earn a maximum of £130 sometimes £100.  I spoke to trad cleaner and he was on £30/hr.  He does 5 hrs a day.  I am wfp. I am not sure if it's my speed, the way van is set up. Organising customers so they're close to each other. I just don't know what it is. 

Applepicker said:

I seem to be out for nine hrs and earn a maximum of £130 sometimes £100.  I spoke to trad cleaner and he was on £30/hr.  He does 5 hrs a day.  I am wfp. I am not sure if it's my speed, the way van is set up. Organising customers so they're close to each other. I just don't know what it is. 

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I would suspect you’re under priced fella.


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First of all I would not believe everything people say about what they are earning. Having good compact rounds plays a big part in how much you can earn in a day if your driving around all over the place then that will have a big effect on your hourly earnings as I found in the early days. Over time the more work you take on the easier it gets to compact the rounds which will lead to faster days and a better hourly wage.


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Either underpriced or your too slow 

Mrwindowshine said:

Either underpriced or your too slow 

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Or both [emoji848], Jobs need to be priced accordingly if a cleaner spends as much time in the van as cleaning then jobs need to be pricked higher.

County Durham Lad

Incheck said:

I would suspect you’re under priced fella.


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Incheck said:

I would suspect you’re under priced fella.


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On our domestic round one man does £200 a day minimum our prices haven’t gone up for 10 years due to us not getting round as regularly as we’d like it is mainly pole tops and do bottoms by hand I just think the more you do your work the quicker you get. We work for 7/8 hours.

Yes agree should be doing at least 20 a hour though at lowest and yes all depends how close together houses are like you say you could be driving ten mins to another  house or 1 minute. If your in early days just go along and wait till you have a fair few customers then put them in a order change all the dates that's what I did and offered some a free clean that the dates was like 3 week early ect 

Have you timed yourself on your jobs, no point in me saying you should do a house in 20 minutes when it's a 5 bed detached or a 2 bed bungalow. Try and work out what you're earning whilst working, don't include travelling time, when you have this information we might be able to point you in the right direction. 

Yeh maybe your prices need to be adjusted, and maybe speed up slightly. I personally think I’m a little slow, but that’s just me, I am more of a slow & cautious person rather than rush etc. I’ve been going 4yrs, and my pricing is pretty good, but I only average £25-£30Max a hour. There’s window cleaners I know who started up after me that seem to do £35-£40 a hour and I don’t know how.

how long have you been going @Applepicker ?

I earn an average of about £40 an hour, more on town houses.

Some blocks of flats on contracts can earn more.

You must be under priced.

I charge £10 for a two up, two down house, more if its on it's own.

Don't know how long you been trading but I myself have only been trading 15 months and still building up average £100 - £140 days on domestic .... My busiest day sees me just over £140 .... I try not to think about the daily income but more the monthly as a whole as some good days/week some bad

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CM Cleaning Services said:

Don't know how long you been trading but I myself have only been trading 15 months and still building up average £100 - £140 days on domestic .... My busiest day sees me just over £140 .... I try not to think about the daily income but more the monthly as a whole as some good days/week some bad

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And to add my rounds vary from 8-10 on quiet day to 20-23 my busiest day

Overall service 200ish customers

But I'm still building so take every day as it comes and keep canvassing , leaflet drops, what ever i can to increase the numbers

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Yeh everybody is different. I only go on hourly rate, I know that as long as I’m not really lazy I’ll always earn enough. I just long term want all my stuff to be £30-£40 a hour.

I’ve got a few houses that take a pound a minute (£30=30-35mins) but still few and far between. Where some of the big boys out there doesn’t matter how big the house is (£40/£50/£60) it still pays them a pound a minute, and sometimes even better!! Hats off to them. 

I think getting lucky helps a little bit at times to get the job, I know of a lad, who quoted £40 on a 6 weekly clean, quite a big house but he wanted to put in a big price (or so he thought) after the clean they wrote out cheque for £50, he said it’s £40, they said ‘ah come on don’t worry it’s only £10 and you did a great job’ (or something like that) then after a few months they asked to change from 6 to 4 weekly, but price stayed at £50.

He said he can do the house in 40 minutes. That’s just lucky, he’s not been cleaning that long. 

Do you have many house from one parking spot and many house on one road

I think you better off with more smaller house at ok price then with less bigger higher paid jobs


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Everytime I do a job cheap, I can be assured it will come back and bite me. It even takes the route that the customer begins to complain about the job or adds in more without extra money. I have come to think that they think you are daft doing it so cheap and then continue the abuse. No, I kicked those days into the long grass and have become expensive. When I get the job its a pleasure to do it. What I have noticed now is that my cheap clients don't call me now because they are embarrassed to ask for a quote. I just tell those folk that all I do is windows and they get the message.

Do you have many house from one parking spot and many house on one road

I think you better off with more smaller house at ok price then with less bigger higher paid jobs


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Mrwindowshine said:

Yes agree should be doing at least 20 a hour though at lowest and yes all depends how close together houses are like you say you could be driving ten mins to another  house or 1 minute. If your in early days just go along and wait till you have a fair few customers then put them in a order change all the dates that's what I did and offered some a free clean that the dates was like 3 week early ect 

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So carry on as it is until I get more customers? 

Anybody fancy having me come along with them?  I could work from my van for free just to get a feel for some of things I am doing wrong in comparison 

Your either to slow pal, or really

under pricing your jobs.

Been window cleaning now for 26 years trad and now Wfp on a normal day I am normally on £40 an hour good day £50/£60

I work Monday to Thursday 8 till 4 then and do a little Friday morning 

Applepicker said:

I seem to be out for nine hrs and earn a maximum of £130 sometimes £100.  I spoke to trad cleaner and he was on £30/hr.  He does 5 hrs a day.  I am wfp. I am not sure if it's my speed, the way van is set up. Organising customers so they're close to each other. I just don't know what it is. 

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A busy fool springs to mind.

I   keep off the estates (2 up/2 down property's ) really not worth your time even at a £10 each. unless you have a street of them.

Aim for the more affluent areas the £30 / £40 property's. 

Maybe your taking too long rinsing etc . turn up your flow rate, this may help

I work for 5 hours a day and average £160

We do 200 - 250 a day on the glass. Our work is spread out but priced okay, typically 10 £20 houses a day.