Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Cleaner Windows on April 01, 2014, 09:07:35 am
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So. ... How much do you charge for carpet cleaning per room/house?
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So... how long is a piece of string??
seriously.... there are so many variables, that no one could really give you a generic price...
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Ok, fair enough. .. so how would you tend to apply your pricing to different jobs. Can you give any examples. I'm struggling a bit with what I should charge vs time etc. ..
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Do you know much do your business needs to earn per hour?
What system do you have to do the work?
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Do you know much do your business needs to earn per hour?
What system do you have to do the work?
I have a steampro 150psi mate. Don't have a rotary as yet ... Don't know how much I need to earn per hour, not been doing carpets long, I've had training and got few cleans under my belt with good results but some jobs were under priced and some over priced (if that's possible lol)
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You need to do the maths on what you need to earn.
No point pricing carpets at £x per room when you actually need £x+5 to make a living.
Price = (Labour + Materials) x Profit
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Call competition in your area, find what they use and from this point make your prices.
Find out also how fast you are. 45-50 should be your minimum hr rate.
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Ignore what your competitors charge. Aim £50 per hr min domestic jobs £100 per hr commercials.
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Ignore what your competitors charge. Aim £50 per hr min domestic jobs £100 per hr commercials.
Ignore them having steempro? Hmmmm
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No - ignore what they charge ;)
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Daves right. Forget what other people are charging and set your prices to give you the income and lifestyle you require.
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after few phone calls he will go down to what professionals in the area are charging, just after few calls from customers saying it is expensive
unless there is already good customer database with customers willing to pay it.
do not go low as the lowest ones, get the same as others pro and you will get a lot of jobs, try with your customers first, if they go for high prices keep it. Charging resonable prices you are easy doing 250-400 (thats only two full houses or even one with upholstery) for 8h, some here will say thats nothing, most of them will keep their mount shout not to say what they charge. Your area your research.
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Call chemdry and charge the same..... Simple :)
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Set a per sq ft or per sq metre price, you'll end up charging more than a per room price, and it's like it's not your fault. On a quote (always visit to quote) I mention our per sq ft price fairly early on, then it's just an accident of mathematics (and their fault for having a big place!) when the quote comes out at what it does - you can always discount from that anyway.
If I was starting out again with a porty I'd probably pitch it around 45p per sq ft / £5 per sq m. We're now achieving higher than this, but we run a TM, and have been around a while.
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I rang my competitors a long time ago and charged a few quid less than what they were charging! Did I get any more work ? No of course I diddn't but it took a few years of being in business from being one of the cheepies to the cleaner I am today ! I aint the most expensive but certainly not the cheapest and certainly charge a fair bit more than some of the well established truck mount owners in my area
stuart
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So. ... How much do you charge for carpet cleaning per room/house?
So how much are you charging at the moment?
Simon
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Just see who has the cheapest prices on their website and go a bit below that.
Undercut them all and you'll be a winner.
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;D ;D
Spot on there, Craig.
Simon
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The minimum you charge is a calculation of how much your business & personel expenses are, the maximum you charge is based on a number of things, mainly how big a figure you dare say, (I'm very daring :D :D )
also the more calls you get the more confident you are to quote a higher price, if the phone is not ringing and need every job that calls you will be more inclined to try and win the job by lowering the price, if you couldn't care less if you get the job or not then you will give a big price.
The best way to get high prices is too have great marketing that produces a steady stream of quality potential customers
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i'll do it for a bacon sarni....with a bit of daadies sause of course
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Has to be HP ;D
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http://dry-fresh.co.uk/Pricing.php
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Jason you prices only a bit lower then mine but for shl definitelly too small. I charge for it 70e and no problem wit that with customers. Off course if only hsl done, for more then 2 areas prices are coming down per area.
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Max - how much?? :o
I need to up my prices. I dont reckon i`ve changed them for the last 5 years!!
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I charge the same as Jason , I've found if you creep up on them you need to start selling yourself and system or doing home visits . Measuring up testing selling protector etc and I just can't be bothered .
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I think what Davep said is about right. Even a new carpet cleaner should be aiming for £50 an hour once up to speed. its more about confidence than anything.
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So how do you work out the £50 min an hour, is that what you would expect from start to finish as in including travelling time, Chems, fuel, maintenance etc? Or is that £50 p/h once you reach the customers house? Just curious....
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the per hr thing is wrong you might only get 3 jobs a week at £50 so you earn £150
joe blogs earns £30 per hr but does 10 = £300
id rather do 3, but id rather have £300
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If I was starting out again with a porty I'd probably pitch it around 45p per sq ft / £5 per sq m. We're now achieving higher than this, but we run a TM, and have been around a while.
So is your £5 per sq m including or plus vat.
Simon
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the per hr thing is wrong you might only get 3 jobs a week at £50 so you earn £150
joe blogs earns £30 per hr but does 10 = £300
id rather do 3, but id rather have £300
If your getting 3 jobs a week there's something else wrong - not pricing.
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the per hr thing is wrong you might only get 3 jobs a week at £50 so you earn £150
joe blogs earns £30 per hr but does 10 = £300
id rather do 3, but id rather have £300
Personally I think its easier to get £50 an hour for 6 hours than 30 for 10. And the £50 is from day one, later they could earn more. But I agree the £/hr thing is a bit unhelpful in the overall picture of growing a business and making a good profit.
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Jason you prices only a bit lower then mine but for shl definitelly too small. I charge for it 70e and no problem wit that with customers. Off course if only hsl done, for more then 2 areas prices are coming down per area.
I bought a TM and a 60 plate low mileage Cclass mercedes last week , shame Im too cheap.
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@ Jason , do you charge £55 for a lounge / diner no matter what size it is or how long it will take ?
cheers
Paul.
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Yes within reason , it makes little difference to me if it takes an hour or 90 mins , the time is in travel.
I do some common areas in flats , which are 3 flights of stairs , 4 halls.landings at £180 a time there may be 6 blocks like that on a site which take 2 of us 6 hours to clean , swings and roundabouts , menu pricing works for me . The time spent faffing , measuring , deciding on soiling levels, differentiating between 30/35m2 to clean , etc etc , factors such as distance to job , steps up to front door , furniture etc have a far bigger impact on the profitability than just size , I dont think any of us would dream of charging extra for there being steps up to a front door , or the customer being 4 miles across town , that is a 30 minute crawl through town.
We are in a customer SERVICE industry , and I make excellent profits by smilingly SERVING customers , carrying out a SERVICE , yes sometimes it is irritating and a pain to do this or that. but more often it is a simple easy way to earn a good living with very low start up costs.
SWSWSWN!!
Some Will Some Wont So What..... Next!!
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If I was starting out again with a porty I'd probably pitch it around 45p per sq ft / £5 per sq m. We're now achieving higher than this, but we run a TM, and have been around a while.
So is your £5 per sq m including or plus vat.
Simon
I deliberately left that open. We are VAT registered, and when we went over the barrier we upped prices by 20%, but we were due a price rise anyway. I am talking about fully inclusive prices, but the (domestic) customer doesn't care whether you pay VAT or not, and the price achievable for a given service doesn't change - the market price is the market price.
Of course, anyone starting out, and doing mainly domestics, would be foolish to register for VAT, so in the context of the question it is implied that no VAT would be payable out of the 45p / £5.
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If you can sell at £5 a metre why not?
The trouble is that many cleaners can't it's not a matter of under valuing your service it's more personal and if you get 4 enquiries and don't get 3 of them then it can knock your confidence.
Shaun
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And your bank balance :o
The trouble is £100 to clean a 20sqm living room is too much for many people to consider paying and so can lose you sales until you pitch your prices at a level that people in your locality will pay, excluding price shoppers, obviously.
Simon
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I agree with Jason whose prices are very similar to our own.
Personally I dont see how per hour works - I do so many one room or stairs and landings in less than an hour and that includes setting up and breaking down that the customers will question the time factor. Where as a per room cost has never been challenged - if the job is well done customer is happy = recommendations!
Per room price works for me and I work hard at geographically grouping my work so cutting travel costs - it gives me fully booked diary 2 weeks in advance which is the maximum most people will wait.
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I really dont understand the whole room rate thing, not many other industries would price this way.
For us a 12 x 12 room could be £12.00 more than a 10 x 10, but to the eye they may look the same.
a few years ago i decided to go out and quote every new job and measure every square inch of carpet and im glad i did, as i still do it today.
When the customer sees you measuring and working out the prices they understand more fully your charge and why you've priced it that way, rather than plucking a figure out of the air !
I have very few people not book, and mostly we end up cleaning extra upholstery, leather, tiles etc because i'm there having a chat.
Also if they do haggle for a discount you can tell instantly if its viable or not, because of logistics, level of soiling etc.
I think if you dont go and see the customer, you could be losing a lot of profit & an opportunity to build a relatrionship.
Steve
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And your bank balance :o
The trouble is £100 to clean a 20sqm living room is too much for many people to consider paying and so can lose you sales until you pitch your prices at a level that people in your locality will pay, excluding price shoppers, obviously.
Simon
£120 including vat don't think many unless very rich are willing to pay that. Bigger areas you would be forced to heavily discount and look stupid.
What do chemdry charge these days?
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Jason you prices only a bit lower then mine but for shl definitelly too small. I charge for it 70e and no problem wit that with customers. Off course if only hsl done, for more then 2 areas prices are coming down per area.
I bought a TM and a 60 plate low mileage Cclass mercedes last week , shame Im too cheap.
Jason, I think now you can now reapply to tacca ;)
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And tmer's ;D
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Hey mossy, seen the suite you did at the last tacca day yesterday, apart from that cushion that was totally forked, its holding up nicely, got pictures of it. hat off to ya mate. especially as it was done in half a day.
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Charge what you are worth, you have trained ,you have insurance, you have to run a van, a phone ,advertising,buy chemicals, you do not get sickness and holiday pay.
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I was watching a program on TV and they said that costa coffee make 35p on a £2.30 cup of coffee after taking into consideration all running costs, the idea for them is to expand fast to decrease on going expenses bringing down coffee and cups etc with superior buying power as well as increasing the value of the company for share holders.
Carpet cleaners can't or shouldn't follow this business model you can't discount your own labour it means you would be working for less to affect the same quality.
Shaun
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Hey mossy, seen the suite you did at the last tacca day yesterday, apart from that cushion that was totally forked, its holding up nicely, got pictures of it. hat off to ya mate. especially as it was done in half a day.
That's quite supprising as it actually took about 2 hours of actual work and was not meant to last by any means as there was no cure out times to the repairs it was a demo just for show.
Hope you find something interesting to test Judy out ;D
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I was watching a program on TV and they said that costa coffee make 35p on a £2.30 cup of coffee after taking into consideration all running costs, the idea for them is to expand fast to decrease on going expenses bringing down coffee and cups etc with superior buying power as well as increasing the value of the company for share holders.
Carpet cleaners can't or shouldn't follow this business model you can't discount your own labour it means you would be working for less to affect the same quality.
Shaun
Shaun you are comparing apples with pears. Costa is a house hold name with major back up and marketing costs.
Joe blogs carpet cleaner from Sheffield is only know by a few local people.
On the other hand face book is a house hold name with mega potential for getting info out to people, hence a lot more people using it for business advertising these days. And when people see £50 for a full house day in and day out they come to think that price is the norm.Yellow pages has gone down the pan and is on its way out, google is just full of kno b heads advertising decent web sites for cleaning and most of them have not got a clue how to clean correctly.
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Facebook is a pain in ass for them £50 per house types. I have lost loads of business to those type of idiots, in and out with their puzzis. I have stopped using it now but even noticed the posher type asking why im so much more than them grrr.
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I get a few jobs from facebook all friends and friends of friends but it's no way to run a business IMO. Costa coffee is a different business type but many cleaners try and take their model of volume, volume is great if you expand quickly with profits it does quite work here but in the states it does but they have carpets cleaned far more regularly.
Shaun
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i cleaned a whole house for £50.00 once.......it was a wendy house that took 20Mins.........bring em on!