Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Ian101 on December 23, 2014, 06:12:41 pm
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5 years back when I first started I read on this forum about having a minimum price and using £1 a window to calculate prices. TBH its this info that prob helped me the most and possibly would have jacked in within a few months without it due to messing up pricing / earnings.
However nowadays I rarely even count windows these days and just look at it and come up with a price also last 4 months or so when pricing I go in high (least I think I do ?) and have attitude of not worried if it comes my way or not.
EG Priced up a big £1.5 million house yesterday afternoon which has to be done trad as frames are too old and leaky for wfp (my suggestion not the customer) and still happy to use ladders occasionally ... anyway doing email quote last night and was about to send it when thought do I really need this job ?? so added another £50 to the price with attitude if it comes off then fine if not never mind.
Who still works off so much per window ?
Is £1 a window still valid ?
Down south is it more like £2 a window ?
How do you price and do you still get most jobs you quote for ?
Do you find certain types of house / areas have a maximum ceiling price ?
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People were pricing £1 a window 10-15 years ago so for me this formula is outdated.
For me there is no right or wrong way when it comes to pricing ,every job is different.
The only thing I stick by is If you get every job you price your to cheap.
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i just go off gut , usually works out fine , but been doing this for a while now
Ive had my fair share of underpriced work , evry now and again im slightly under but others are over by alot so it averages out , and i aim to be compact so that helps too
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The £1 a window seemed to be the aim when I started five years ago, not sure that was really in effect 15 years ago, anyway £1 is a bit of a barrier, it's a nice round figure, easy to calculate and a house with 8 windows is not overly expensive to the customer.
What I tend to do now is view the property and location of windows while still using the number of windows as a reference point. Then price accordingly, with refining cleaning techniques, getting more customers in an area and staff it now takes less time to clean a house than it did 2 to 3 years ago.
So, a simple access semi will work out at the magic £ while a similar house with access issues for a reach over an extension would be more, all prices + 30 to 50% if wanting 8 wky rather than 4 wky.
We now have tracking on the vans and the van has to hit an average hourly rate inc travelling times.
This has been very revealing in the argument of 1 man 1 van or 2 men 1 van - now all the guys go out singly !
So in short, it's not just an x amount for a window...! I get around 70% of everything I go and quote, usually get 0% if forced to give price over phone or leave a quote through the door
Darran
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I always add a bit on for luck lol
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I always add a bit on for luck lol
Do you clean out the back of a transit tipper with galvanised sides ;D
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5 years back when I first started I read on this forum about having a minimum price and using £1 a window to calculate prices. TBH its this info that prob helped me the most and possibly would have jacked in within a few months without it due to messing up pricing / earnings.
However nowadays I rarely even count windows these days and just look at it and come up with a price also last 4 months or so when pricing I go in high (least I think I do ?) and have attitude of not worried if it comes my way or not.
EG Priced up a big £1.5 million house yesterday afternoon which has to be done trad as frames are too old and leaky for wfp (my suggestion not the customer) and still happy to use ladders occasionally ... anyway doing email quote last night and was about to send it when thought do I really need this job ?? so added another £50 to the price with attitude if it comes off then fine if not never mind.
Who still works off so much per window ?
Is £1 a window still valid ?
Down south is it more like £2 a window ?
How do you price and do you still get most jobs you quote for ?
Do you find certain types of house / areas have a maximum ceiling price ?
I find it odd that you have trouble pricing how much to charge to clean a houses windows, but know how much the actual house is worth.
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5 years back when I first started I read on this forum about having a minimum price and using £1 a window to calculate prices. TBH its this info that prob helped me the most and possibly would have jacked in within a few months without it due to messing up pricing / earnings.
However nowadays I rarely even count windows these days and just look at it and come up with a price also last 4 months or so when pricing I go in high (least I think I do ?) and have attitude of not worried if it comes my way or not.
EG Priced up a big £1.5 million house yesterday afternoon which has to be done trad as frames are too old and leaky for wfp (my suggestion not the customer) and still happy to use ladders occasionally ... anyway doing email quote last night and was about to send it when thought do I really need this job ?? so added another £50 to the price with attitude if it comes off then fine if not never mind.
Who still works off so much per window ?
Is £1 a window still valid ?
Down south is it more like £2 a window ?
How do you price and do you still get most jobs you quote for ?
Do you find certain types of house / areas have a maximum ceiling price ?
So how much was your price before you decided to bump another £50 on top? And at what frequency is the clean?
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I price on time, I gauge how long the job will take and take things like access, travel time, if its by compact work or not and then price from there. Simple and works for me
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I find it odd that you have trouble pricing how much to charge to clean a houses windows, but know how much the actual house is worth.
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nowt odd about it ... any large properties I will google earth them before I go to quote and an old advert from rightmove came up in search results with price on ....
no trouble with pricing ... didn't mention anything to do with trouble pricing in my post ??? ... just bunged another £50 on top of my normal pricing
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I price on time too. X amount per hour glass time,
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So how much was your price before you decided to bump another £50 on top? And at what frequency is the clean?
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offered various prices with various frequencies, monthly, bi and tri with different prices and a higher price for the first clean ... actual amount not really important from a topic point of view.
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I always price the job based on a few different things, number of windows, length of time to clean, frequency, access, location/area, competition, do I want it?
We have gone in cheap on some big commercial work and still not got it and also gone in expensive on work we were not really bothered about and got it.
Many of the window cleaners around here (Northumberland/Newcastle) are still doing windows for peanuts, they do a good job but are just not really making a viable living for themselves. There are certain towns and areas around us where we don't even bother pricing as I know we will be at least double or treble what others are pricing work for.
Just won a contract for a weekly clean of a shopping arcade which I know 4 other companies were also looking at, priced that one on length of time to clean (2 guys 4 hours)
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I just price on the time I think it will take me to clean the property, I only offer 6 weekly and don't
charge extra for first cleans.
If I find that I have under priced a job ( more of a new start problem ) then I clean away for the first year and
up it to the right price the following year.
Don't do one offs unless they are within my round, I then charge extra depending on the state of the frames
and will only clean them if I have time to fit them in.
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I just price on the time I think it will take me to clean the property, I only offer 6 weekly.
So if you price a property and it turns out to be £100 because of its size, the customer declines that at 6 weekly but says they think they'd like a 3 monthly frequency, you decline the work?
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Some areas round here you are doing well to get £1 a window!!!!!
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I also never charge more or less depending on the size or value of the house, i have set figures i want to hit per hour and thats it, the only way I will make more is if I manse to clean it quicker which usually happens after a few cleans. I have before today dropped my price on some houses as Ive ended up cleaning them a lot quicker than I initially thought, I find this type of honesty to pay dividends as they stay loyal and then recommend me on so I end up with more work. I don't canvass or advertise, all my work is through word of mouth or by people seeing me
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I just price on the time I think it will take me to clean the property, I only offer 6 weekly and don't
charge extra for first cleans.
If I find that I have under priced a job ( more of a new start problem ) then I clean away for the first year and
up it to the right price the following year.
Don't do one offs unless they are within my round, I then charge extra depending on the state of the frames
and will only clean them if I have time to fit them in.
Hi SeanK, you say you don't charge extra for first cleans, is this on the basis that the first clean customer has verbally
agreed to a 6 weekly clean, because many shiners have been caught out with this one, and it can end up being a oneoff.
Lal
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I still go with roughly £1 a window, works well for me.
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It still baffles me on how much people think we should charge. Did one yesterday. Bungalow with an odd dormer on top. Easy job and frames were spotless. 2 women about 60. I don't usually but I did on this occasion. I asked how much she wanted to pay. She went white, looked cross and said "well it depends" I went through the, it cleans frames etc spool. "yes I know all this" lol. £9 love, is that ok. The as over the moon and said she would pay £10. I say £10 to others and they say I used to pay £3 lmfao. Goes to show.
My step mum pays £3.50 for a semi. She said hes a p head and its beer money for him. Cant compete with that. Time to ban ladders, then we can cream it in
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So how much was your price before you decided to bump another £50 on top? And at what frequency is the clean?
offered various prices with various frequencies, monthly, bi and tri with different prices and a higher price for the first clean ... actual amount not really important from a topic point of view.
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I think the actual amount is relevant to the topic when you 'bumped' the price by £50 from what you thought was a fair price.
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About 12 years ago I used to get my windows cleaned by two scallies who charged £1.80 every 2 weeks
One went to jail soon after and my son took over the round and trebled the prices over time and now earns decent money by just reeling his hose out from our front drive.
Moves his van twice during day, but it's not a bad earner for not much effort
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It still baffles me on how much people think we should charge. Did one yesterday. Bungalow with an odd dormer on top. Easy job and frames were spotless. 2 women about 60. I don't usually but I did on this occasion. I asked how much she wanted to pay. She went white, looked cross and said "well it depends" I went through the, it cleans frames etc spool. "yes I know all this" lol. £9 love, is that ok. The as over the moon and said she would pay £10. I say £10 to others and they say I used to pay £3 lmfao. Goes to show.
My step mum pays £3.50 for a semi. She said hes a p head and its beer money for him. Cant compete with that. Time to ban ladders, then we can cream it in
My Mum has her windows cleaned by someone who charges about a third of what I would. He's WFP with (at least) 2 vans on the road. Can't see the point myself.
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It still baffles me on how much people think we should charge. Did one yesterday. Bungalow with an odd dormer on top. Easy job and frames were spotless. 2 women about 60. I don't usually but I did on this occasion. I asked how much she wanted to pay. She went white, looked cross and said "well it depends" I went through the, it cleans frames etc spool. "yes I know all this" lol. £9 love, is that ok. The as over the moon and said she would pay £10. I say £10 to others and they say I used to pay £3 lmfao. Goes to show.
My step mum pays £3.50 for a semi. She said hes a p head and its beer money for him. Cant compete with that. Time to ban ladders, then we can cream it in
My Mum has her windows cleaned by someone who charges about a third of what I would. He's WFP with (at least) 2 vans on the road. Can't see the point myself.
I know some who charge less so that they can be very splash and dash. The customer just thinks "oh well, he is cheap" and even if it's not a great job the windows are still pretty clean and that's why they stay with them. It only works with the type of customer that is more bothered about price than they are about quality though. I'd rather price higher and have customers who are more concerned about quality than price.
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I just price on the time I think it will take me to clean the property, I only offer 6 weekly and don't
charge extra for first cleans.
If I find that I have under priced a job ( more of a new start problem ) then I clean away for the first year and
up it to the right price the following year.
Don't do one offs unless they are within my round, I then charge extra depending on the state of the frames
and will only clean them if I have time to fit them in.
Hi SeanK, you say you don't charge extra for first cleans, is this on the basis that the first clean customer has verbally
agreed to a 6 weekly clean, because many shiners have been caught out with this one, and it can end up being a oneoff.
Lal
Hi Lal, yes there is this possibility but at the end of the day how much are you really going to lose a few extra minutes of
time and effort.
I can honestly say that the majority of my customers have more than paid me back for the first clean by recommending me to
others.
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I just price on the time I think it will take me to clean the property, I only offer 6 weekly.
So if you price a property and it turns out to be £100 because of its size, the customer declines that at 6 weekly but says they think they'd like a 3 monthly frequency, you decline the work?
Yes, I used to do different frequencies but it didn't work for me.
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What's your highest price job - commercial or domestic?
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Large 2 monthly domestics