[Jimmywidge]

I`m new to the business of carpet cleaning and though getting work find that customers in general dont want to pay anything much for having their carpets cleaned.
I live in Southeast England and wondered weather £60.00 minimum charge is too steep for people to pay.

For example Dinning room and Hall way = £60.00 minimum charge apply.
Any advise would be helpful.

Tar

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Jimmy

I have moved this to the main section so you get more response.

I am 60 minimum with exceptions, had one today old customers. pensioners, so said 50 but for all others it 60.

Cheers

Doug

[Mike Osbourne]

£50 for me.

I'd rather do something for free if it's going to take 10 minutes and the Client has a BIG house. 

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Mine the same as Doug's but more often than not I end up at £50 for the smaller stuff, you do have to get something for the call outs but again some things are done for free (but not many!)

Shaun

[colin thomas]

i'm around £45 - £50 but if it is a really small job, ie a tiny rug as i got asked to clean today, i picked it up and will clean it on my drive at my leisure for a drink! might lead to more work from them later on,
 

colin

[robert meldrum]

Sure way to start an argument !!

My attitude is a bit different from a few others as I could never endorse someone with little or no experience charging top end prices.

All of the gents above are experienced and have gone through extensive training over a number of years so are in a position to regard themselves as professionals and will have a proven track record.

Not saying you should work for peanuts and you can find loads of training around the country which will at least give you some credibility.

At the early stages you will take a lot longer to complete jobs so might get a false impression as to potential earnings.

So.................if the pro's are charging less than your proposed minimum and you have no, or little experience  what do you think your standard of work is worth ?

The example you mention should take less than an hour
 

[jlo]

Hi Robert,

When you say less than an hour for hallway & dining room, what cleaning processes does that involve start to finish?

Regards

Jason

[Simon Gerrard]

The answer to your question is really quite basic. All businesses should have a business plan and within that plan should be a breakdown of all of your expenses, advertising, materials, wages etc etc. From that you should have worked out a breakeven point, a point at which all of your expenses / costs are covered but haven't made a profit. If you know your breakeven point (and you must) you  should be able to calculate how much sales in a week you require in order to breakeven. You add to that say 25% profit which will give you your target sales point per week, now just divide that by the number of hours per week you work and you have your hourly rate that should form the basis of what you charge your customers. You can adjust that figure upwards if its lower than your competitors or if you decide that you want more per hour.
The point is you won't find the answer to your question on a forum because it's a question about your business, not other people's.

Simon

[Jim_77]

(although I think this is a wind-up I'll carry on )

I think the statement......

customers in general dont want to pay anything much for having their carpets cleaned.

.....is complete rubbish!  Absolute balls (sorry to be so blunt, but I can't believe nobody else has picked up on this!!)

It's many peoples' stumbling block, I reckon.

If you get fixated on low price cheapo bargain hunting, you'll just end up frustrated by the type of customers who try to get everything as cheaply as possible.  There are PLENTY of people in the world who expect to pay a decent amount of money for  something which is OF VALUE to them.  I think many people go into the world of being self-employed thinking this way because that's their own mindset; making a purchase based on price first and sacrificing quality.  

because....

I`m new to the business of carpet cleaning

... no, you're not worth the same as Doug, Shaun, Robert etc...  But make it your point to aim at being the best and you'll soon start to feel worth higher prices because the better you get, the more value you give to your customers.

I did a job today, classic case.  The customer had previously paid about £30 for this job, from a local splash it 'n scarper, presumably untrained and with no real work ethic.  He happily paid me £100 for the same work (which took me twice as long as the other guy by the way) and he was over the moon.

I'm sure every other cleaner who charges decent prices for a decent job will have many examples of the same.

Think cheap, end up poor

[Jim_77]

The point is you won't find the answer to your question on a forum because it's a question about your business, not other people's.

That's a bloody good answer that is

[Mike Osbourne]

As well as knowing your profit point, knowing how much a customer, on the average, is worth to you over time means you know how much you can LOSE to get them.

[robert meldrum]

Jason

I'm sure you know every job is different however, I'm assuming a modern property of moderate proportions with carpets in average condition. So the carpets would be presprayed but only on the areas which clearly required it.

Setting up takes about 5 minutes wanding such a small area would only take about 40 minutes.

No I don't waste time vaccuuming when there's no gain to the client or me
No I don't aggitate unless it's necessary then it's a nylon bristle yard brush or Truvox rotary
No I don't rake the pile afterwards
No I don't use blowers on carpets unless exceptional circumstances dictate I should.

Purist ................absolutely not, never done anything by the book in my life, but although my minimum charge is only £44 I will earn a lot more per hour as my productivety is probably double that of many half my age and when I arrive on the job I am always polite and well mannered but don't waste time drinking tea or discussing the weather

My results have given me repeats and referrals for many years so much so that I stopped advertising about six years ago.

[nevil]

(although I think this is a wind-up I'll carry on )

I think the statement......

customers in general dont want to pay anything much for having their carpets cleaned.

.....is complete rubbish!  Absolute balls (sorry to be so blunt, but I can't believe nobody else has picked up on this!!)

It's many peoples' stumbling block, I reckon.

If you get fixated on low price cheapo bargain hunting, you'll just end up frustrated by the type of customers who try to get everything as cheaply as possible.  There are PLENTY of people in the world who expect to pay a decent amount of money for  something which is OF VALUE to them.  I think many people go into the world of being self-employed thinking this way because that's their own mindset; making a purchase based on price first and sacrificing quality.  

because....

I`m new to the business of carpet cleaning

... no, you're not worth the same as Doug, Shaun, Robert etc...  But make it your point to aim at being the best and you'll soon start to feel worth higher prices because the better you get, the more value you give to your customers.

I did a job today, classic case.  The customer had previously paid about £30 for this job, from a local splash it 'n scarper, presumably untrained and with no real work ethic.  He happily paid me £100 for the same work (which took me twice as long as the other guy by the way) and he was over the moon.

I'm sure every other cleaner who charges decent prices for a decent job will have many examples of the same.

Think cheap, end up poor

That is a cracking post. I agree completley although it has taken several years to arrive at that point of view.

The bottom line is you are running a business. The minimum charge has to be arrived at by some calculation of what your business need to move forward. And I do mean move forward, not just survive. thats stagnating.

[robert meldrum]

Mike Osbourne makes an excellent point but requires a particular mindset to appreciate and I'm not sure it would be a loss, more like an investment of your time!

[robert meldrum]

Like I said at the beginning..................

A sure way to get an argument started. There is no definitive rate for pricing c/c just as there's no definitive rate for for landscaping or laying tarmac or whatever.

In theory you charge for a product or service " what the market will stand "
In reality you charge what people are prepared to pay YOU.
                   
No matter what you charge you will need to find enough people prepared to pay you or you won't be in business for long.

At the end of the day it's a combination of Marketing and understanding the Economics of running a business

Minimum Charge ?

It's notional really and in any sensible person's mind very flexible.

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

The answer to your question is really quite basic. All businesses should have a business plan and within that plan should be a breakdown of all of your expenses, advertising, materials, wages etc etc. From that you should have worked out a breakeven point, a point at which all of your expenses / costs are covered but haven't made a profit. If you know your breakeven point (and you must) you  should be able to calculate how much sales in a week you require in order to breakeven. You add to that say 25% profit which will give you your target sales point per week, now just divide that by the number of hours per week you work and you have your hourly rate that should form the basis of what you charge your customers. You can adjust that figure upwards if its lower than your competitors or if you decide that you want more per hour.
The point is you won't find the answer to your question on a forum because it's a question about your business, not other people's.

Simon

Excellent post - I wonder how many newbies actually do this exercise. I get the impression a lot just find out how much other local cleaners charge then follow suit.

Steve

[homenclean]

nobody has mentioned the differance in pricing based on the area of the country you work in.

Somebody covering central London will have to charge more to cover overheads, where as we live in North Yorkshire where there is no congestion charge and generally the cost of living is cheaper.

It is like most things you get what you pay for to a large extent but in my experiance the customers will generally go for the mid range price.

I like a previous post deal with each job on its merits i dont always pre vac, aggitate or groom the pile but i do get a good repeat trade have a significant commercial trade.

At the end of the day it is all about providing the customer with a good standard of work at a fair price for instance the other day i cleaned a bathroom carpet for £30.00 it took about 20 minutes how could i justify £50 - £60 for that.

If you can find the right balance between cost and  service you are half way to been successfull.


John

[Simon Gerrard]

The mistake most newcomers to the business make is to set their charges according to what their competitors are charging and then make the even bigger mistake of setting their charges a little lower believing that they are being competitive and so will attract more customers. The problem is carpet cleaning isn't and never has been about price, at least not at the bottom end of prices spectrum. Granted, people do ring around to try and find a good price, but a good price is often not the cheapest price. A good price is about getting a fantastic job done at what the customer perceives as value for money.
At the point of getting quotes, the customers focus may well be on the price, believing as they do that all carpet cleaners are the same and all that divides us is the price. But when it comes to getting the job done their focus switches to quality and it is upon that that you will be judged.

Getting the minimum charge right is important, especially for those just starting out because the smaller jobs are the building blocks of your business, do a great job and they'll have you back and recommend you to their friends and family, do a bad job and they will forget about you in a blink, but only after telling everyone they know how useless you are.

The next mistake is in thinking that you're a carpet cleaner, you're not, - you're a businessman / woman and you forget that at your peril. Carpet cleaning is merely the vehicle through which we generate the sales required to keep our businesses afloat and hopefully make a healthy profit.
It is the businessman's job to make all the right business decisions, buy the right equipment, provide the necessary training, set the advertising budget and know to the nearest penny how much the carpet cleaner side of him needs to charge to get his business to the point of profitability.
Being competitive is in my view about quality, quality and even more quality, deliver quality that your competitors can't beat is how to be competitive. It's also how to stay in business for any period of time.

Simon

[sherco]

I really couldn't give a toss what other people charged in my area, i know what i want to earn and i get it so im happy. Why do i need to worry about my competitors buisness...I will let them worry about me 

[suffolkclean]

We didn't have a minimum charge until we'd been going for about 6 months which gave us the experience & lets customers see what you can do. Our minimum is now £50