Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: paul searle on March 10, 2011, 06:10:30 pm
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Does 12p per sq ft sound right for domestic carpets?
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Hi
So for an average room 12 x 12 you would charge £17.28.
Can you make a profit at that rate?
I couldn't personally.
Dave
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You can easily double it and get customers, I charge nearly 4 times that and get jobs and there are cleaners that charge 8 times and more, you need to find a figure you would be happy to pay.
Shaun
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Shaun is right although I would add that if you're tight with money, don't base it on what you would spend ;D
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You can easily double it and get customers, I charge nearly 4 times that and get jobs and there are cleaners that charge 8 times and more, you need to find a figure you would be happy to pay.
Shaun
Blimey i thought i was expensive i charge about 0.35 per foot works out around £ 50 per room who on earth is charging £ 138 for an average sized lounge
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As much as we moan about them, Enterprise are charging more than that James!
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Two schools of thought
Option 1.
Build a business quick, do it cheap get lots of customers, the down side is those customers will always pay peanuts.
Option 2.
Build a business slow charging a reasonable price, those customers will always expect to pay those prices and you have more time to do a good job as you have fewer jobs per day, the downside is your business may not last long enough.
I have taken option 2 now in my second year i believe its a long term thing that i discovered on this forum and it made sense to me, the other thing is i would resent working for peanuts, and it is a service afetr all, last week i gave a lift to the local cafe to an elderly customer as he was about to call a cab, would i have done that if i was charging £17.00 per room, probably not i would not have had the time.
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Option 3 :- Advertise cheap and charge high
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Thanks for everyones help I thought that was cheap. Slot of companies near me advertise these prices. I was thinking more like 20p a sq ft but didn't want to price myself out of jobs
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Who on earth would pay £138 for an average sized
lounge cleaning.
Takes me an hour and 15 minutes from pulling up to
driving away for an average sized lounge and most
of that is prep work.
Got it down to a fine art these one roomers.
John
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You wouldn't be charging £17 for a average sized lounge
you'd be charging your minimum price because the price
per sq m falls below your minimum price.
Unless of course your minimum price is lower than £17.
John
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What is a minimum price???
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£65 for me to leave the house,more if further away
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£70 here, i don't work for peasants ;D
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My min is £50 average charge is 26p per sq ft
Mark
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ATM I'm going through about £20 a day in diesel you need to do a business plan or at least some projections before you start.
Shaun
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Minimum price is a total nonsence, do a good job, work every day and build your business, i'd rather take a £20 job (and still make a profit) than that job go to a competitor, phonew rings, secure the job, business leads to business.
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Simon
I am not saying you wrong but just puzzled
Someone phones up for a qoute
Do you just work on room size.
I find smaller rooms harder to clean as there is not a lot of scope to move furniture
So I actually charge more for a smaller room.
The only way you could make money is to have 10 a day lined up in adjacent streets. Have a Young person to move furniture etc
However the cost of achieving that in terms of marketing day in day out would still eat into the profit
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Hell Shaun you must be travelling some distances.
That's nearly 4 gallons, 180 - 200 miles for me.
John
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Hi
What you dont want to do is start off Charging to low.
You can always come down in price to get the job, but you cant go up!
Most people after a couple of years will want to charge more, but you lose the original customers.
Dave
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38 pence for a square foot is a fair price.
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There are so many factors in pricing though,eot will always be on the cheap side someone who owns and has paid for decent carpet circa £80 a sq m will think that charging 30p per sq foot is cheap,if you weigh up what it would cost to replace it,and how much use they will get out of it through cleaning,it's a bargain....I have booked a small lounge,of a reg customer,it's white,high wool content,and has quite a few spots and marks on it,prob about 16x 14 charging them £100 plus another £150 for the sofa.
They have a carpet in their dining room,that was hand knotted in India ,I have never seen a carpet like it it's so thick cost them thousands
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I don't agree Mark.
The cost of the carpet should have nothing to do with it as it has no impact on your costs.
Domestic customers, I charge £3 a Sqm.
Commercial £1.50 to £2.00 a Sqm.
I have no minimum charge as I want the work and who knows what they will want done next time they use you or who they recommend you to.
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Paolo's spot on, in an earlier post of mine I stated that minimum price is a nonsense (in my opinion), I once cleaned two very small rugs for £16, probably after everything made less than £5 profit, however the client got back in touch with me to quote for an office at her place of work, £550.00, this in turn lead to the contract for all the companies offices, over 10k per annum.
I welcome the small jobs just as equally as the big ones, if theres space in the diary fill it, we're now taking bookings well into April so it works for us, but as they say 'one mans food is another mans poison'.
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Paolo's spot on, in an earlier post of mine I stated that minimum price is a nonsense (in my opinion), I once cleaned two very small rugs for £16, probably after everything made less than £5 profit, however the client got back in touch with me to quote for an office at her place of work, £550.00, this in turn lead to the contract for all the companies offices, over 10k per annum.
That's great and I'm glad it happened for you....but it doesn't happen every time and is much in the minority
I welcome the small jobs just as equally as the big ones, if theres space in the diary fill it, we're now taking bookings well into April so it works for us, but as they say 'one mans food is another mans poison'.
You say that in your opinion minimum price is nonsense.... so on your website you advertise prices from............surely that is your minimum price then?
We welcome all jobs, but the smaller ones we schedule in to suit us so that we can keep profit levels up :)
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Minimum price is a total nonsence, do a good job, work every day and build your business, i'd rather take a £20 job (and still make a profit) than that job go to a competitor, phonew rings, secure the job, business leads to business.
How can you run a succesful business doing a job for £20 ??? it takes me 30 minutes to set up and put away let alone actually do the job, and you want to do a good job as well !
To me that means vacuuming, spot and stain removal, prespray, agitate with my Envirodri and extract possibly move furniture, pay for wear and tear on equipment,chemicals, marketing, insurance, diesel etc etc all for £20, i understand about building up customers but those customers will always expect to pay theses minimum prices, sorry but i would rather have one customer pay me £200 than two pay me £100 even if that meant less customers.
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Minimum price is a total nonsence, do a good job, work every day and build your business, i'd rather take a £20 job (and still make a profit) than that job go to a competitor, phonew rings, secure the job, business leads to business.
How can you run a succesful business doing a job for £20 ??? it takes me 30 minutes to set up and put away let alone actually do the job, and you want to do a good job as well !
To me that means vacuuming, spot and stain removal, prespray, agitate with my Envirodri and extract possibly move furniture, pay for wear and tear on equipment,chemicals, marketing, insurance, diesel etc etc all for £20, i understand about building up customers but those customers will always expect to pay theses minimum prices, sorry but i would rather have one customer pay me £200 than two pay me £100 even if that meant less customers.
James,
I think you're missing the point I am trying to make.
If the customer only has a job that is £30, I am not going to say no because I have a minimum charge in place. My price would allow for all my Xs and I still make a profit. I am not discounting or doing it cheap for them.
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I did a job for £20, last year a customer had urinated on a carpet while sleepwalking :-[
he insisted that he did not have the money to have the whole room cleaned. but wanted the smell gone, i suggested prochem urine neutraliser which you just leave on the carpet i went in sprayed it and was out again in 15 minutes, i did not see that as a problem.
But if i unload my machine and set up even if its a flight of stairs then i charge a min amount
of £50 i do not see that as unreasonable.
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How did you access his website Helen.
When I click on the link in his profile it
brings up his profile again.
John
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pricing is all about building value, if you quote low you have nowhere to go, build value quote high offer a discount at the last minute (but only if you have to) then the customer thinks they're getting a bargain.
People buy bargains. which would you prefer? £2 worth of carpet cleaning or £3.50 worth of cleaning for £2
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How did you access his website Helen.
When I click on the link in his profile it
brings up his profile again.
John
There is a space in Simon's website address on his profile page, which stops the link going through, I just typed in a dream clean yorkshire on a google search.
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It's also about knowing your worth what you charge,I feel confident in my results now,and always pre qualify customer if I know there will be issues,and yes I do knock a bit off,for the big ones
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Pricing is about finding more people that say 'yes,' than say 'no!'
Simon
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OK my minimum price is its FREE!!!
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That's one way of making sure you're always busy. ;D ;D ;D
Simon