[The Great One]

Hi

Quoted £90 for a 2 seater sofa, plus 2 wing back chairs and one footstool.

Got someone else to do it at £35 and earned £55 for quoting.

Regards

Martin

[brights cleaning]

£42.00 for each full armchair and done the footstool for Free!

[carpetguy]

Chances are, as you're well aware, the chairs only have a value of around £90 and to clean them will take less than an hour,

Beats me how anyone can condemn franchisee's charges, with their colossal overheads, when an individual, without massive overheads has the gall to charge some of the prices being quoted.

Always the same when prices are discussed, but I find it ironic, in the extreme, that most of the operators who charge high prices, are followers of an American and the reality, is American charges for carpet cleaning, are generally about HALF the the UK charges.

At the moment operators in the States are charging as little as $99.00 for four rooms, or even more, that's only about £45.

Another interesting post I read recently concern a gent' who " made a million "from carpet cleaning, at low / moderate charges

Martin

£55 FOR GIVING A QUOTE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[calmore]

Chances are, as you're well aware, the chairs only have a value of around £90 and to clean them will take less than an hour,

Beats me how anyone can condemn franchisee's charges, with their colossal overheads, when an individual, without massive overheads has the gall to charge some of the prices being quoted.

It may take "just an hour" per chair as you say. However, on top of this you have to pay for the chemicals, equipment, vehicle, advertising etc..etc.

You also have to pay for the time taken, loading the van, driving to the site, setting up the equipment, breaking the equipment down etc..etc.

In addition, you have to pay for the time taken in quoting, paperwork, insurance, training etc..etc. It soon adds up.

How much would your garage charge you for an hour's labour? What about your local plumber? Why should a carpet cleaner charge less that these guys?

[Len Gribble]

Matt J

Sorry that’s per bottom,    a small reduction on a two-seat come three. Time is money and money is time (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/05/29/time.money/) please remember this bloke is a sexist, so be it! Must train wife in the art of cc more profit for me.  :


Rob

Few years ago once had CD come round for a quote, needed to know what I was up against, so I now advise the potential customer to get other quote if they don’t book, now have a problem CD my recommendation don’t seem to do CC any more,    have considered SM but they seem to be lame ducks,  can you recommend a cc franchise who are up to it price wise?

Martin is now learning if you have a dog why bark yourself, on many occasions I’m probably the dog, but very well feed.

Have you ever been to the states (not holiday trip) totally a different mindset and cost of living! TN is the poorest State one thing for sure my sister is not.


Calmore

You have a point, but most custard’s don’t see it that way! (Still in the upstairs-downstairs way of thinking)

Book now and the price is valid for three months that’s my motto 

Len   

[carpetguy]

An hour for the job Calmore, even in my earliest days , over twenty years ago, I would never have taken an hour to clean a single chair !

If I did, I would have realised I was clearly in the wrong business.

How can you seriously compare the cost of running a garage, with a sole trader c/c'r
the electricity bill alone for a garage would probably be more than the average c/c's overhead and you really hit it on the head when you compare a garage's hourly rate with a c/c.

With all their massive overheads, garages still make a profit from an hourly rate of around £35 to £45.

Why do you think this is ?

Are they better at controlling costs
Or do they work a longer day ?
Is their productivety better, per man ?

If you worked a five day week, of 8 hours...............not going at it, hammer and tongs, just working sreadily, efficiently, productively. What would you earn ?

OK, you wont actually be working for 8 hours, but even you only get paid for six hours per day at those rip off garage rates, you will still earn an awfull lot more than a mechanic, or whatever you did before, about £1000 a week, but some jobs will give much more , so you might average, nearer £1500 per week.

Less your overhead, of course, but that should only amount to around a couple of pounds per job.

Now consider for a moment, what your counterpart accross the pond charges and you might be surprised at the rates I obtained today from America.

Low rates ...................$19 or £9.50 per room, cheapest $19.95 for 2 rooms
High rates....................$70 or £35 per room

That includes t/m operators !

Obviously, there will be a small percentage of operators who get a bit more.

The above will be rubbished by some, but it's true and might make some of you realise, if you are working for peanuts, as some would have you believe, you're in good company

Len
Never been to the States Len the above is off a forum I've vsited for the past 5 or 6 years and I was a bit surprised myself, to discover what some of the long term posters charge.

Incidentally..........I posted on here a few days ago a topic which got buried pretty quickly. It asked ..........How long to clean an area of 800 sq ft
                    The answer was four and a half minutes

[The Great One]

Hi

I priced the suite as if I would clean it, as my system is Dry it doesn't do suites  I asked a guy who does do them and he quoted me £35 the lot, leaving me the rest

(Suite sweet as )

Regards

Martin 

[stuart_clark]

Hi guys i live in a very price sensitive area !! in other words they have the money but most are all tight B*****DS and wont pay a realistic price ,so i travel the field to get the prices i think that I am worth, i charge a bare minimum of £150.00 for a quality cleaning of a three piece suite up to six cusion seating plus footstool, I leave the upholstery very nearly dry and the whole process takes 3-4 hours

regards Stu  Clark

[mark_roberts]

It would be an education for maybe all of us if an accountant came on here and gave us a formula for working out your true costs of doing business never mind your wages and profit.

A lot of stuff posted here is rubbish and i cant believe we are even comparing pricing to the other side of the world.

Pricing is down to the individual but unfortunatley a lot arnt charging as a business should ie. to cover costs, provide a good income, maintain a profit for development and provide the owner with a long term financial future (retirement).

To answer the inital question for what its worth I would have charged £85 it would have taken around 1 hour 20mins and thats £60 per hour my min target hourly rate.

Mark