[clinton]

Might be a bit longer than mike there again i chat a lot and betwen 65 and 70 pounds..

[jasonl]

90 mins/ £80 here

[Colin Day]

If I tried asking £200 for a medium sized L/Room, I'd soon be out of business down here in Cornwall. I know for a fact I'm not the cheapest down my way, and not the most expensive either.....

Maybe I shouldn't be in business judging by some posts on here as I'm quite happy making a "honest" living and charge all my customers the same, whether they have a Range Rover Sport on the drive or a Robin Reliant

[cleanability]

Yeah I'm with you Colin. Maybe I'm not as ruthless as I should be but I just couldnt take £100 for less than an hours work doing a job that isnt even a skilled trade 


Chris

[Steve Weatherley]

Down here in Kent I would charge around £70 to £80 and it would take me between 1 and 1.5 hours. However there are 2 local guys who flood the market with leaflets offering half price cleaning and their leaflets advertise around the £30 figure for this type of job. In my mind this seems far too cheap but I have no knowledge of how good the quality of their work is or what tactics of up-selling they might adopt when they arrive at the job. There is also a guy who I suspect may have done fastTrack as he quotes about double my prices.

This puts me somewhere in the middle I guess.

[mark pritchard]

I know alot of fasttrack guys and the prices they charge,  this price is for clean and protect and free call out if you spill any thing on your carpet in the next 14 days and free bottle of spotter.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

The skill of the trade is getting the right money irrelivant of what you charge, don't forget you aren't just a carpet cleaner you are a business man/woman! I have been told on numerous occassions that "I have my own business and I must be loaded" if I were just a carpet cleaner in a semi skilled trade being paid on a semi skilled wage then I would go and work for someone or get a different job, Alan Sugar is a businessman but do you think he has a trade?(I don't know if he knows how to clean carpets)

It'd take me approximately 1 hour from drive in to drive out.

Shaun

[richy27]

Right this is an interesting one

IMO fair play if you can get that level of payment for your work. from a business point of view as said by others even if he gets 50 % less work than you he is still coming out well on top.

where imo this sort of price structure becomes bad news for the industry is if the customer is left unhappy and does not feel they have recieved a £200 service. as they are unlikly to use a cc again as we are not an essential part of maintaining there home ( they can hire   )

the same could be said for cheap.

IMO i would rather charge an in-between figure and get repeat business and recom which at hose prices i would thinks is less likely.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Actually reading the above posts you do have to disect what you are getting for £200.

Free spotter
Free call out
Protector?

Other things may be that he does extras that you don't ie do you

Turbo dry
Wipe skirting boards

Shaun

[Neil Grainger]

I love the 2 compaines that are really one from Reading.

He is the best sales person i could wish for is the man from Reading, He wanted £172 for a 13X16 carpets in Wokingham, every Job I quote against him i am sure that I get.  £550 for a small 3 bedroom Terrace, i nearly fell over.

I use alot of fast track but dont leaflet anymore, it just attracts the wrong sort of customers these days down in Thames Valley.

[Steve Weatherley]

Shaun
I always read your cmments with interest but am unsure what you mean when you say that the skill of the trade is getting the right money? You then go on to say that for £200 the customr gets additional extras.
IMO the skill of the trade is getting the right price for doing 'the right job' so that when the customer pays the fee they feel that they have received value for money. £200 for a 20x 23 room seems very expensive and I wouldn't regard it to be value for money even with the extras thrown in. Thats only my opinion though

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Thanks for the compliment.

I'm sure that you've read that we all bleat on about getting the right money for the job you do, if you go through a 10 step cleaning process surely you should charge more than if you were going to do a single step cleaning process. What about if you come across a stain and with your experience and techniques (which you have paid for the knowledge on a course) you can remove it wouldn't that offer more value to the cleaning price? in the US cleaners charge a % based on the value of a rug for cleaning if the carpet is worth £100 a metre surely cleaning it for £200 (based on saizes approx £2800 plus fitting) then it holds more credance to the price.

You can look at it in different ways I think if you a good 'selective marketeer' and also a good salesman then why not use your 'skills' to get the best price but with this you do have to offer value for money in different ways ie looking for clients with over the average price of carpeting which in turn means they will pay more for a 'more skilled' cleaner or a least someone who talks the talk.

I say good luck to anyone who can get those prices, one thing Mike picked up on is keeping those customers and I believe he is right as many customers may only use once and then may go on to use a middle price cleaner afterwards but I believe that customers aren't as loyal as they used to be many customers will still collect 2 -3 quotes even if they have used you before or just go elsewhere just because any leaflet has dropped on the mat or is infront of them but that's life.

Sorry I don't usually type that much in one go but it deserved a fuller answer as I got a compliment.

Shaun

[Steve Weatherley]

That's got me thinking all the more. Something to sleep on. Goodnight

[Fibre Fresh Devon]

Not going to add anything, just to say this is a VERY good post with lots of HELPFUL varying opinions.

[Derek_Walker]

I think pricing is all about what you want your business to achieve. If you want it grow with the intentions of maybe selling in the future as a viable business opportunity, then you will need to raise your prices high to enable the business to more or less run itself, with staff and managers, even if you are not there. If however you are looking to work the business yourself as a job, with lower overheads etc, then a middle of the road price structure will probably do it. You need to look at your overheads to see if you are actually making any money based on your pricing structure. It is probably not as much as you think after you take off all the expenses, income tax, NI, purchase of equipment, wear and tear, insurances, vehicle expenses, advertising etc. Just because someone is charging more it does not mean they are making more.

[Hilton]

Make way for Krusty the Clown 

25.5 sq yds he's charging £7.85 a sq yd , has he factored in the cleaning, fuel travelling etc etc  ?  The fact that he then went down to £3.92 a sq yd shows that this is probably more like where he's at and I bet yes he does get most of his quotes.

You did it for £1.96 a sq yd    which means in reality you probably charged it out after operating costs at around £1.40- £1.60 a sq yd depending on your travelling distance and time.

 I know where I would rather be at, but then I'm a clown  :

[A+CleaningService]

No one has talked about the time and the fuel factor it takes to quote a job in the first place.  Specially when you have to drive 20 miles to quote for a job. That is maybe another 30 minutes or an hour+, with fuel costs on top. 
If you put that into your hourly cleaning rates. You get the real price and time for the job.

I think with the fasttrack system, they send a brochure and an appointment letter first. Then turn up smartly dressed, with a laptop and printer, measure the room, then print off some info and the price.  The price with and without their special offers and about the maintenance plan.
All to wow the customer.
All very professional.
I think that's how it goes, your have to quote me if I am wrong.

I done a job about a month ago, that was first quoted by a fasttracker, an old couple, they where so worried about the price the fasttracker quoted them, trying to work out how they could afford it, on their pension.  They had the idea in their heads that all carpet cleaners charge that kind of money. They saw my leaflet by off chance. I quoted them about half of what the fast tracker did. 

[JandS]

Wouldn't drive 20 miles to quote for a job
unless it was a large job that could absorb the cost.
95% of quotes done over the phone.
Saves time and money and can usually call it
right.
The odd under quote is balanced out by the odd over
quote.

John

[clinton]

I did a lounge carpet this morning and  a fastracker quoted 100 plus vat 

Got the job at alot less price and for an average size lounge it was expensive the client said,there again what the feck do i know iv only been at it 20 years

[garyfindlay]

This thread has been done before, kind of.


http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=98390.0