Pricing guilt...

I have been quoting for jobs for the first time and they have all accepted my quotes, but I walk away with a sense of guilt that I have priced them too high.  For example, some regular semis were quoted at £17 (one had a conservatory and side windows, and another had a garage conversion and sky light window).  A fairly large bungalow was also quoted (and accepted) at £17 as there were windows on all 4 sides.

Now I know these aren't terribly expensive jobs but I still walked away thinking perhaps these were £15 jobs and I'm feeling a little awkward!  Is this sense of guilt normal or do I need to learn to be ruthless?!  To compound it, I have also picked up a fairly large listed building with sash windows (and rotten frames!) and quoted (and was accepted) at £20, which I feel was perhaps a little low.

I wish there was an art to pricing!

Your customers of the under priced jobs dont feel guilty so you shouldnt feel guilty about the 'over priced' ones.

If the customers happy with the price its NOT over priced

My only rule regarding pricing is if I lost I the job because someone quoted a price I would be happy at rather then my inflated price I'd be unhappy. If I lose a job at a price I think is fair then that's business. My moto is never leave the door open wide enough to let someone walk in.

The only way you can price right is to work out your hourly rate and then work out how long the house will take you to clean and then work out the price on that.  Your prices do sound a bit low though if it's wfp.

What I found works for me is to just walk round the house and look at each window and estimate how long each set of windows will take to clean and write it down, then after doing all the house add them all up.  So if it comes in at 37 minutes I'd charge them 40 minutes.  25 minutes I charge them 30 minutes.  In fact 30 minutes is my minimum charge.  I find it works well and means you price very accurately and consistently.  

In terms of feeling guilty, well you just get used to it, if anything you start wanting more for doing less.  I suppose it's human nature, I fully appreciate it and feel fortunate but I've spent near on 20 years in minimum wage jobs so I think I've done my time slaving for peanuts.  The rich have a good understanding of 'self worth', you need to value yourself in a higher regard.  Are you not worth having a holiday every year?  Are you not worth buying nice things for yourself and your family?  Should you be worrying about bills for the rest of your life?  Those people in the big houses, why shouldn't you have the money to buy one, are you not as decent a person as they are?  

It's not as if you're putting a gun to their heads and telling them to pay, they have invited you round to their house for a quote, if they didn't like the quote they can just say 'no', one therefore can only assume if they say 'yes' then they are accepting of it.

Another thing, things change, things can happen that might mean you can't earn as much as you can now, if and when that happens would you feel guilty about not charging more in the good times to build up savings to live on?  If you can earn more you should be charging more, it's just business that's how business works.

If you struggle to sleep just have a horlicks  : )

@NewGuy You're only guilty because you're new. The prices quoted above are less than I would charge some similar and you live in a slightly more expensive area. I remember doing the second clean on one where I charge £15 and thinking I was charging too much as I was in and out in 25 minutes. I do them even quicker now. I didn't put their price up in my first round of price increases because the price was already what it needed to be. They will be in the next round though.

Also worth thinking that what you've quoted only allows you to clean 2 an hour after travel time, thats only £34 an hour, hardly into rip off territory.

We know a local roofer. £150 for replacing 1 ridge tile. He might have no work for the rest of the week or not be able to work for 6 weeks due to the weather as per 2011/12.

A plumber will charge an £80 call out charge to replace a 10p washer in a leaking tap.

We have an old has boiler. Had a gas safety check done on it. Guy came, took the front cover off, got his battery dustbuster out, vacuumed some dust from the underneath, cover back on and issued a safety gas heath certificate. That cost us £150. He was here for 10 minutes. He didn't even check the gas pressure to the boiler was correct which I had checked later. 

As others have said. If the customer is happy then that's what counts. In fact if your are getting every job you quote then maybe you are under charging @NewGuy ?

I'm I really under charging? 

The two £17 jobs I calculated will take 20 minutes each, after the first clean. 

I appreciate the £20 job is definitely under value, I did say it's a £30 job at least then duly offered £20!

There's another house I do that I had trouble getting at £18. It's a 4 bed detached with windows all round. She used to pay £15 for her previous wfp guy who retired for medical reasons. 

I used to pay £12 for my 3 bed semi which took the guy 10-15 minutes. 

I tell a lie, I have got one rejection after quoting £15 for a 3 bed semi. He said I was the most expensive! 
 

I’m working on the basis of charging £1 per minute. 

When cleaning with a company last year, I recall one customer has 2 terraced houses cleaned, front and back, and her own mansion for a total of £44! 

I'm in Kent in a prime commuter area! Maybe our local rates are less than yours due to high number of competitors? 

NewGuy said:

I'm I really under charging? 

The two £17 jobs I calculated will take 20 minutes each, after the first clean. 

I appreciate the £20 job is definitely under value, I did say it's a £30 job at least then duly offered £20!

There's another house I do that I had trouble getting at £18. It's a 4 bed detached with windows all round. She used to pay £15 for her previous wfp guy who retired for medical reasons. 

I used to pay £12 for my 3 bed semi which took the guy 10-15 minutes. 

I tell a lie, I have got one rejection after quoting £15 for a 3 bed semi. He said I was the most expensive! 
 

I’m working on the basis of charging £1 per minute. 

When cleaning with a company last year, I recall one customer has 2 terraced houses cleaned, front and back, and her own mansion for a total of £44! 

I'm in Kent in a prime commuter area! Maybe our local rates are less than yours due to high number of competitors? 

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You're price shouldn't suit everyone, you set your stall and that's your place in the window cleaning market.  Some will want the cheapest, some will think if they pay a bit more they will get a better service and more likely to be reliable.  I have lots of people who think my price is really expensive, doesn't bother me, they're not my customers.  I get about 3 in 10 of the quotes I do but I've not lost any of the ones I've got.  

Another thing, don't copy other window cleaners prices, set your own price.  The traditional window cleaner that does the house opposite my parents house charges £3.50, it's a bay fronted 3 bed semi.  I'd charge £20.  I watched the traditional cleaner turn up in the rain before Christmas, put his ladder up against the wall in between the first floor and and ground floor bay, he went part way up the ladder and cleaned the middle top pane of the ground floor bay, then went over the garage to clean the back.  He just cleaned one pane on the front and it wasn't even the big pane in the middle, didn't touch the upstairs windows or the windows surround the door, it was just the slim pane in the middle top ground floor.  He did this as there were net curtains that only go up to that slim pane.  

So should I drop my price to compete with him?

There is no right or wrong answer.

It's whatever you want for your time. Simple as that really.

I am now looking for £40 an hour. That means when I do two £20 cleans then I should take an hour or less. Three £13 or £15 cleans should take an hour, after 2 years that is where I am now. Don't need the hassle, they either want me or don't, that's the way I see it. My stance on price has changed now and it doesn't matter if the price is £12, £13 or £14 because they all seem to pay by Bacs so it makes no difference.

Some will be taking what is written on Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert as gospel and think they should be getting a full house window clean for £3.50.

Unfortunately for us in the North East we have areas were the expected going rate for a window clean is still £5. There are still cleaners working for that amount. We just stay away from those areas and let them get on with it.

spruce said:

Some will be taking what is written on Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert as gospel and think they should be getting a full house window clean for £3.50

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That's why Martin sold his website for £50 million. He's like a money monster.

Ok thanks boys. I heeded your advice and quoted my next job at £25 which was accepted. But I should have quoted £40 in the hope I wouldn’t get it. 

i have to earn around £13k EVERY year before i make any money(all expenses,insurances and taxes)thats £250 a week for 52 weeks of the year even when im not earning......so i try and price up my jobs at £40-£50 an hour for most work....im also raising over 200 jobs a quid and some larger domestics and commercial by a fiver each in april....ive already started notifying customers.....some of my very compact domestic jobs are cheap but im still hitting £40-£50 an hour as im very efficient and organized.....so on a turnover of £45k im left with £30-£32k in profit which is ok but its hardly a fortune.....

dont EVER feel guilty for charging what you charge.....if you look at the bigger picture there is a whole lot more to being self employed than you think,and extra hidden expenses,no sick pay or holiday pay,etc.....equipment upkeep and van servicing,the list goes on!

i spend around a grand a year just  to heat my pure water up every day.....my customers have to pay for it for sure.....?

dazmond said:

i spend around a grand a year just  to heat my pure water up every day.....my customers have to pay for it for sure.....?

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Is that about a fiver  a day?

works out at around £4 a day as i only work short days

Not sure who said it on this forum? But they said every day you go to work, you are selling a day of your life. You can’t get that day back, so you might as well earn as much money as you can from it. As time goes on you feel less guilty about pricing well. Obviously if you price way above the going rate, you are less likely to get new customers from word-of-mouth as potential new customers will think it’s a lot to pay. However, you are closing a lot of your quotes so that would suggest you even have a bit of wriggle room to bump your prices up a tad.

brianbadonde said:

Not sure who said it on this forum? But they said every day you go to work, you are selling a day of your life.

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Never thought of it this way and put a new twist on work. I will be keeping this in the back of my mind for future use.

Doesn’t sound like ripping off to me.

true story I got called to Clean the gutters & fascias on a property a couple of years ago. I got called out as the first company/person online cleared out the gutters. When I got there he told me the full story. Long story short the last person quoted £120 to clear out the gutters (3 or 4 bed detached can’t remember now) 

There was a communication problem between the customer and the other guy it seems as the customer wanted clear and clean, but apparently they other guy said the price was just a clearance. 
 

Anyway the customer said, ‘do you know how long it took him?’ I said “with a ladder of gutter vacuum?” he said no on a ladder, he climbed up onto the roof and crawled round. I said “2hrs?”

He looked at me annoyed and goes ‘15 minutes!. He came down after 15 minutes with two buckets and said I’m all done.’

The customer went on to say that how can you justify those prices. The customer said that they had a small argument and gave him £100. He said the guy was there for 20 minutes all in including setting up & arguing lol. 

I quoted £90 to clean the upvc. Took me 3hrs haha. 
 

He’s not a cow boy as such, as they have a local sign written van, website etc. Not just a bloke in trainers in a car with no advertisement. 

RWCleaning said:

Doesn’t sound like ripping off to me.

true story I got called to Clean the gutters & fascias on a property a couple of years ago. I got called out as the first company/person online cleared out the gutters. When I got there he told me the full story. Long story short the last person quoted £120 to clear out the gutters (3 or 4 bed detached can’t remember now) 

There was a communication problem between the customer and the other guy it seems as the customer wanted clear and clean, but apparently they other guy said the price was just a clearance. 
 

Anyway the customer said, ‘do you know how long it took him?’ I said “with a ladder of gutter vacuum?” he said no on a ladder, he climbed up onto the roof and crawled round. I said “2hrs?”

He looked at me annoyed and goes ‘15 minutes!. He came down after 15 minutes with two buckets and said I’m all done.’

The customer went on to say that how can you justify those prices. The customer said that they had a small argument and gave him £100. He said the guy was there for 20 minutes all in including setting up & arguing lol. 

I quoted £90 to clean the upvc. Took me 3hrs haha. 
 

He’s not a cow boy as such, as they have a local sign written van, website etc. Not just a bloke in trainers in a car with no advertisement. 

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What a load of bs!! agreed price was £120 to complete the job and the job was completed! He didn’t quote an hourly rate!!! That’s really annoyed me ??