[AJCleaningServices]

My business mainly comes from domestic cleaning, that is why I do not mention commercial cleaning charges.

Thank you for your participation, any comments welcome.

Kind regards,
Arthur

[mxg]

Are these figure inclusive or exclusive of vat where applicable ?

Mick

[*Chris Browne]

are these what you charge the customer or what you pay the cleaner?


chris

[MrsMeredith]

I charge the customer £9 per hour for a basic domestic clean and the only person i have to pay at the moment is myself, at least until the business/customer count goes up. 

Tracey.

[AJCleaningServices]

The numbers are what you charge your customer inclusive VAT,
Kind regards,
Arthur

[Tim Downer]

There seems to be quite a range of votes there......but what is interesting is nearly all the votes concentrating on 3 prices!! Quite a difference - £9, £10 and then all the way to £16 getting the vote.
Are all the ones at £9 and £10 per hour from the smaller cleaning companies? And are those who vote for the £16+ per hour from the larger companies??

Be interesting to see

Regards

Tim

[lisa123]

i charge 9 - 10 per hour, and am a small company, people round here say we are expensive!
i couldnt make ends meet if i charged any less.

[MrsMeredith]

Hi Lisa, you know what i get roughly the same responses as you regards to price, some say yes i will pay that no problem,,, others will say ok i'm just getting some quotes!!

I am a very small company at the minute but i only regard it that way as i have 4 regular cleans (domestic) and only have to pay myself.

I agree with lisa about charging less than £9 per hr would not make it pay and be disastrous, there are costs to consider!

Tracey.

[Phoenix]

mine is £9 -£10 plus VAT, size of turnover for domestic work = £150 thousand per year.  Is that small or what???.. the rest of our work is mainly build cleans

[therapist]

I am absolutely astounded that any busines is charging as little as nine pounds, plus vat for a cleaning service and presumably solvent............

In addition to c/c business I have a Domicilery Care business where we are restricted by the Local authority to charging ten pounds twenty five pence, per hour, with carers getting paid six pounds, twenty, plus the cost of training, uniforms, NI and some transport.

We have the additional cost of running an office, with associated, phone, stationery, copiers, etc.

We have a regular 24 care workers and struggle to make a profit.

rob m

[MrsMeredith]

Hi rob m,

What sort of hrly rate do you think we should be charging then? and did you not start off small in your business and then build up your clientele and thus increase hrly rates when 1+ staff are involved??

At the moment I have only achieved the customers i have by being competitive amongst local competition and i'm pretty sure if i charge £10 + per hr for small domestic cleans i will not get any business. I have to get established and known for a good top notch cleaning service before i consider increasing hrly rates.

Tracey.

[*Chris Browne]

i think the lower end are probably smaller companies or one man bad cleaners(been there) and the top end are more than likely companies employing staff. if i charged £9.00 all in, then i would have to pack it in i think


chris

[lisa123]

the way i work it is 9 quid per hour for the first 4 weeks clean and then 10 quid per hour thereafter.
as i always think it is important to try before you commit yourselves. first 4 weeks is a trial period.
even so, people still think they should be paying 5er an hour. i did have one lady who though the cleaner pockets the full £10 per hour. I had to explain that i runa busioness and the cleaner gets around 5.50 per hour, and i do the cleaning i get paid even less. She was a strange picky type of woman. It takes all sorts.
We are never respected are we as cleaners.
My commercial (I have 2 now) are very happy to pay my prices, £9 - £10 per hour per cleaner and they supply all cleaning stuff.
They have even suggested that when the cleaning stuff runs out that we review our prices as they want us to bring in our own chemiclas etc.

[lisa123]

i think chris meant to say one man band up there, 
I have 10 domestic clients and 2 office contracts.
there is myself, my biz partner and i am just recruiting my first permanent cleaner.
So yes we are still small.

[*Chris Browne]

Many thanks!, have to stop picking my nose while im typing


chris

[MrsMeredith]

Lol@chris browne,,,,dirty boy!

Well done lisa for your cleaning/customer achievements!! I want to get to that level but have to be patient (only been going 5 weeks now) and have 4 regular domestic cleans so far. You inspire me!! how long you been set up in business Lisa?

Tracey

[lisa123]

Hiya  ive never been called an inspiration before 

we set up late august 2005, to be honest the only way we have advertisied is the website, a small weekly ad in local paper, and delivered a few hundred leaflets. I do send spec letters out every now and again.
The clients all find me at the moment.

so all in all around 6ish months. for 3 months of that i worked temp full time aswell, and didn't do anything with the biz. (sept - Dec), its all coming together now.

[lisa123]

how far is wheathill (wv16) from you tracy? I notice you are in kiddiminster. that place is a nightmare, i was stuck on a roundabout in kiddy for ages once lol

[MrsMeredith]

Tell me about it Lisa! Kidderminster is a nightmare at times, all roundabouts and uphill/downhill!

Wheathill,,,,,erm,,never heard of it,,is that where you are based Lisa?

[Tim Downer]

If you get yourself established and get known for doing a fantastic job.....and all for £9!! No wonder people start going crazy when you put the price up.

As has been mentioned many a time by other posters.....and i know it is difficult when you first start your business......but you must price up your work as you mean to carry on.

For example, if in say a years time you anticipate all your work being done by teams of cleaners....surely you need to have priced the work up to cover this from day one in anticipation of this increase in workload - then you will not have to tell the customer of such a large price increase.....especially when you work so hard anyway.

I can understand that if a cleaner does a rubbish job.....then the price will stay down. Having said that, if you do a fantastic job, market yourself properly.....then you will find the people that are willing to pay for your work.

Kind regards as always

Tim

[lisa123]

no, i'm based in shrewsbury. Wheathill is between ludlow and bridgnorth right out in the sticks.
i have a customer on my waiting list that lives there, but can't get out there as i cant drive.

[lisa123]

what do you charge tim?

[MrsMeredith]

Lisa I will email you.

Thanks

Tracey.

[Tim Downer]

Hi Lisa, as yet, we have not started the Domestic cleaning side.....although in principal it is there. We are looking to charge around £45.00 per 2 hours cleaning, and that includes a team of 2 maids and their own gear supplied by PDS.....however, it is still in the works at the moment.
Too busy all of a sudden to commit much time to it.......which is nice 

Regards

Tim

[therapist]

Lisa

we charge by the job.........every job is assessed and costed to return around thirty five pounds per hour minimum............that's for two people with us supplying products (  so we know what to expect )

An empty two bed flat would be charged at around one hundred and eighty pounds.

A young lady recently started a domestic cleaning business in this area and astonished me, by getting paid four hundred pounds for a 3 bed, 2 public rooms.

Since then she has been getting a steady flow of work.

This, of course, was a one off clean and you would not get that kind of money for regulars.

However,  the Maids services around here have been charging about twenty two pounds per hour for two cleaners, for the past ten years, probably more by now.

I'm in the West of Scotland

rob m

[lisa123]

end of tenancy and spring clean attract more, I charge at least £12 per cleaner for these. But people think this is too much. I did try and charge 12 p/h for regulars in shropshire, no one phoned me, or if they did, hung up on me.
It is difficult around here, i have noticed that potential customers that contact us have had cleaners in the past who they paid 5 or 6 quid an hour to, and then their cleaner leaves them, they phone us, and we say its from £9 per cleaner per hour and they go silent.
I might have to do something to get cleaners recognised around our area, to educate customers, and to try to get respected for a job, that apparently is the lowest of the low. (some one said this to me once!)

[MrsMeredith]

I can agree with you hand on geart Lisa when you say "lowest of the low", I have had it said to me in the hotel that i work at on weekends chambermaid-ing!! I can also connect to you Lisa when you say about customers ringing up for a quote and expecting to pay less than 7 or 9 £ per hr, they just do not understand the concept of running a professional cleaning company and having overheads/expenses etc and that the average rate nowadays is £8 plus at the minimum,,,,,,at the end of the day some domestic customers will always see it as "skivvying" and nothing "professional" about it!! I wander how many of them would actually work at such a low rate if they tried it!!

Tracey.

[Lesley J]

I charge between £11.50 and £12.50 per hour,more for 1 off and Builders cleans and we struggle to make a profit
we have lots of competion with cleaners who offer a service @ £9.00 per hour
We get  a few potential clients who will turn us down because of the price .  But I cannot operate at a lower price I pay my cleaners between £6.50 and £7.50 per hour
which is excellent rates for this area, but my ladies stay with me. I enjoy what I do. I make a living not a fortune, I keep 15 ladies employed and they all say that I make housework fun.  Lesley

[lisa123]

hi tracy, you had a think about that ludlow/bridgnorth one yet? its a bit out of both our ranges i think.

hi lesley
where are you based though? that can have an impact on prices, unfortunatly for us in the miserable midlands.

I do have a commercial pricing question, small contract, 1 or 2 cleaners at the most, probably around an 1hr a night mon - fri, no buffing, mostly carpets. What would you charge?
I haven't actually had the guided tour to survey yet, got that in the morning, I dont want to be too expensive, or too cheap.

[AJCleaningServices]

...We are looking to charge around £45.00 per 2 hours cleaning, and that includes a team of 2 maids and their own gear supplied by PDS...

Tim,

So I have work it out that your hourly rate is going to be £22,5 per hour per cleaner, is it including or excluding VAT?

and

Could you say what molly maid / merry maid / my home (well know franchisee) charge in your area?

and

What is PDS?

Kind regards,
Arthur

[Tim Downer]

Arthur

That would be plus VAT

I wish i could charge £22.50 per cleaner per hour     

PDS stands for PRESTIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES

It was conjoured up by the three all wise Directors of our Sister company DBD (Dave / Bob / Derek - thus DBD)

PDS is a company that they can use for any other business venture they deem to go into......currently, i manage the cleaning division = PRESTIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES - Cleaning Division

If they wanted to sell.......computers!!!!.....it would probably be - PRETIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES - Computers Division....or IT Division.....or whatever

Kind Regards

Tim

[AJCleaningServices]

Tim,

So it is £11.25 per hour plus VAT, then it is not as high as the sky  or I again missunderstoon something...

Kind regards,
Arthur

[Ian Gourlay]

As i have said elsewhere I have recently come across a Franchise who hour rate is £8


Aprox £5.50 to the maid paid by the client and £2.50 to the company paid thirteen weeks in advance,

I would be interested to know if Phonix Cleaners cover the costs of cars etc
on their hourly rate.

[MrsMeredith]

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for passing on that info and contact number, i called and left message yesterday no reply so far and i have tried again today,,,maybe shes away on hols. I will persevere! and let you know the outcome.

Tracey.

[bevldavies]

I charge £10 per hour for regular cleaning.  I only have 10 customers which is all I need to earn my spending money (I also work with my boyfriend who is a photographer)  I am not looking to expand or take on any more customers (although I am inundated with requests!)

[PHILC]

i charge £10-£11 +vat per person per hour bur most of my work is price work

[Lesley J]

I charge between £11.50 and 12.50 per hr for domestic and £15.00 per hour
for builders cleans