[Steve Gunn]

Speaking to various trades people recently they struggled to come to terms with how much I charge,lad who did my decking charged me £150 for two and a half days work and he had a helper,garage charged me £40 for fitting brake shoes and wheel cylinder after explaining I was a mechanic asked why I wasn't doing it myself I told him I could make more money cleaning carpets.Painter just decorated my 3 bedrooms,lounge and staircase £150 3+ days.Now most days I aim for £250 a day without killing myself 2 or 3 jobs some days its more others it less

So what makes us able to justify our charges?Or why do we think we can justify our prices?

[M.Acorn]

Not sure,but i think if it did go boobies up,you could do a lot of money`s worth of damage in a day !
New decent carpets are a big investment,cleaning them makes them last longer,and i suppose if you weigh up the cost of cleaning as opposed to replacing,then it`s not so much ?

[wynne jones]

If you are charging more than you are worth you will soon find out.

[andrew christopher]

Speaking to various trades people recently they struggled to come to terms with how much I charge,lad who did my decking charged me £150 for two and a half days work and he had a helper,garage charged me £40 for fitting brake shoes and wheel cylinder after explaining I was a mechanic asked why I wasn't doing it myself I told him I could make more money cleaning carpets.Painter just decorated my 3 bedrooms,lounge and staircase £150 3+ days.Now most days I aim for £250 a day without killing myself 2 or 3 jobs some days its more others it less

So what makes us able to justify our charges?Or why do we think we can justify our prices?

Iv thought the same kind of thing. I find it easier on jobs around the £100 mark as can get done quickly and customers dont think too much about time to money ratio, struggle on large houses that could take say 3.5 to 4 hrs and wanting £300 for example. Customer then thinks £300 and not even here all day.

I explain time taken on jobs and pricing if asked, by saying the set up i have is £20k plus, NCCA member, best chemicals etc. Explain i can be quick as no filling or emptying of machine,bring my own water, all solutions metered by machine etc etc.

I think it comes back to selling yourself and being confident that you are worth the money! We only get to kow we are worth it because we can earn it! Your not worth £40 a day if you cant get business to earn it but if you can get 4 jobs a day at £100 then your worth £400 a day!
Its as wynne said.

I think the thing with carpet cleaning is, if you can earn good money doing it, it probably means your good at running a business which means you could probably pick something else and earn good money too.Actualy being able to clean the carpets is a small part of the equation!

Andy

[Mike Halliday]

customers are not paying for an amount of time they are paying for a result.

Steve you paid £150 for your decking not 2.5 days work, just like you would pay a surgeon £8000 for the ability to walk around the park,  you are not paying the surgeon £8000 for the 2 hours it took him to replace your knee joint.

its the value of the result that is important that's where the price comes from.

[Neil Williams]

I could go on about this for hours but I'm not going to, I've got other things to do.
I accept there's machinery purchase, chemical purchase, wear and tear, fuel costs, tax, NI etc etc but I really cringe when I see people on here charging £300 or more for 3 hours work.
Whilst I accept Mikes comment about the value of a surgeon making you walk again, the other end of the spectrum is that in all honesty this is a unskilled profession, it is manual labour and anyone with 2 brain cells who work out common sense can make a living out of it. How many of us would be honest and say we don't have the memory skills, outright ability and enough money behind us to spend 7 years training to become a top doctor/dentist/barrister etc. Yet we some on here earning more per hour than those few examples. (Or at least they claim to be!)
We are only worth what people are willing to pay us, measured against the value of the goods, measured against the time and effort needed for them to do it themselves.
Like Steve I'm too an ex mechanic but I begrudge paying £70/hour for something I can do myself unless the job is quite major and requires specalist eqiptment and a lot of time. Old cars were a doddle whereas new ones require electronic diagnosis machines. Carpet cleaning requires spray, scrub, suck with the odd slight variation of course. End of.

[Mike Halliday]

Neil I'm not compaing what we do to the skill of a sergeon but saying its the result that important not how long it takes to do it.

we clean a living room for a customer, they are not just getting a clean carpet, perhaps they also get other beneifits that they value more.

 how many carpet do we clean because a pensioner can't handle the stress of shopping for a new carpet or the upheavel of empting the room.

they are not paying £60 for the hour it takes to clean the carpet,  they are paying £60 so the don't have to replace the carpet.

[Neil Williams]

I totally agree with you Mike but like I said, We are only worth what people are willing to pay us, measured against the value of the goods, measured against the time and effort needed for them to do it themselves.
What gets my back up are people who 'claim' on here that they always work at £100/hour or more and that for what is really an unskilled manual labour job is obscene, compared to other professions where years of studying and expense are required before you even talk to your first customer never mind actually doing the job.

[andrew christopher]

Neil,

The hourly rate that an individual can achieve is depended on machinery, preparation and how hard you push yourself.

I charge the same using a truckmount as i did with a portable but im quicker as no filling emptying.
All chemicals are pre mixed before i get to any job. I carry a few different pre sprays to run through inline sprayer and stock solution for rinsing. I push myself hard on jobs and dont stop for tea etc.

My hourly rate does not take into account making up solutions, filling tank etc in the morning before going out.
I ring the doorbell at the customers carrying something to take in, not normally a vacuum but i wont start that off!

Hourly rate was less with portable, filling/emtying, filling hand sprayer etc etc takes time.

[Griffus]

I am happy for the carpet cleaning side of our business to pull in an average of £25 per hour (per person) worked. This to me is fair and reasonable when all things are considered.
 
Pressure washing aside, it is also way above what we can get for all other sides of our business.

In my opinion people talking of regular earnings of £100 per hour (per person) are not in the real world and are either stretching the truth or worse, ripping their customer off.

I would say good luck to them but I'm more inclined to feel sorry for the poor fool's they're working for, regardless of standard of finish.

I would agree that truck-mounts and super fast porty guys can easily achieve higher rates than £25 per hour but surely those claiming to achieve £100 per hour should questioning of their morals.

[andrew christopher]

Ian,

in the real world area i live in a mid terrace 3 bed house sells for £400k.I cleaned a tiny living room and stairs for £75 on friday in a two bed mid terrace house, took an hour. House next door up for sale at £330k. I dont need to question my morals.

Its prime commuter belt 15 mins into kings cross, i dont have a problem with £100 per hour if i could earn it after investing time and money into a business and living in the area i do.

Not sure where the £100 an hour has come from in my post i mentioned 3.5 to 4 hours and wanting £300 thats more like £75 per hour.



Andy

[andrew christopher]

Andy,

On the points you made about the NCCA i find that for the cost of membership it cant do any harm to be a member. I use for marketing and when i get enquiries. Customers havnt heard of it but they have after iv told them about it!

Andy

[edward coller]

why not work for nothing....keeps almost every customer happy...no margin no mission...

[jasonl]

One reason we can charge so much is that the public have no idea what our margins are , those who I have spoken with about this think 30-40%  is our chemical cost ,when in reality it is1-2 %  ., I spend more on diesel than chemical.

I just got in from a £100/hour job , for a footballer , his mrs said I nearly did not get the job because I was so cheap, 2 bedrooms, hall stairs and landing, £180 , was just over 2 hours from leaving home to getting in.

[Pristine Clean]

I totally agree with you Mike but like I said, We are only worth what people are willing to pay us, measured against the value of the goods, measured against the time and effort needed for them to do it themselves.
What gets my back up are people who 'claim' on here that they always work at £100/hour or more and that for what is really an unskilled manual labour job is obscene, compared to other professions where years of studying and expense are required before you even talk to your first customer never mind actually doing the job.

Well said Neil

[Neil Williams]

I just got in from a £100/hour job , for a footballer , his mrs said I nearly did not get the job because I was so cheap,

If I was lucky enough to quote on a professional footballers place then I would go in high, why would I do that? Because these people have lost all sense of reality and if they are happy to mug their employers for £10k - £20k a week then I'd be happy to mug them back But these people are few and far between in the carpet cleaning world. The vast majority of our customers are hard working genuine people with their feet still attached to planet earth, and that's a different ball game.

Andrew, the £100/hour remark wasn't aimed at you directly (the maths you suppied just worked out near that), it's just that we do have posters who consider £100/hour as the regular right price for unskilled manual labour.....I don't. Except for customers who deserved to be mugged (see above).

[wynne jones]

Why is it so important anyway. If someone charges £100 an hour good luck to them if someone charges £20 that's their business.

Surely there are more things to worry about in YOUR OWN BUSINESS that would be a better use of time.

[Joe H]

QUOTE "if they are happy to mug their employers for £10k - £20k a week"

Could say "If their employers are happy to pay them 10k-20k then so what. Its their perceived value".

Likewise, if someone is happy to pay a carpet cleaner £100 for what amounts to an hours carpet clean - then thats their perceived value too.

But is it really £100 for an hour cleaning carpets.
What about the half driving there, the half hour driving back. There is labour costs to be accounted for as well as cost of provision and of running a van.
It will work out a lot less then £100 per hour - so even if I was getting "£100 per hour" (which I dont) I dont think I would feel too bad about it.

[jasonl]

I just got in from a £100/hour job , for a footballer , his mrs said I nearly did not get the job because I was so cheap,

If I was lucky enough to quote on a professional footballers place then I would go in high, why would I do that? Because these people have lost all sense of reality and if they are happy to mug their employers for £10k - £20k a week then I'd be happy to mug them back But these people are few and far between in the carpet cleaning world. The vast majority of our customers are hard working genuine people with their feet still attached to planet earth, and that's a different ball game.

Andrew, the £100/hour remark wasn't aimed at you directly (the maths you suppied just worked out near that), it's just that we do have posters who consider £100/hour as the regular right price for unskilled manual labour.....I don't. Except for customers who deserved to be mugged (see above).

I did not realise it was a footballer at the time of quoting, the carpets were white, with a few black marks, the whole flat was very nicely fitted out , my price reflected the risk of me damaging something.

[Dave_Lee]

I wouldn't agree that this is UNSKILLED trade. I'm not saying it is a highly skilled trade but is definitely more than an unskilled one. If it wasn't why do so many new start ups have to ask so many questions even after they have attended a course and why do we commonly hear customers saying "you are the expert".
I am 30 years in this business and yet still have to learn because new fabric and textiles come into fashion all the time, and if you think they can all be cleaned the same way with the same solutions, then you really are unskilled.
Speak for yourselves but I regard myself as skilled in what I do and my customers see me as the same, and that's what matters.
Dave.