Hey All. Newbie here.
How do you charge on residential first cleans versus recurring cleans? Say you have a home with windows that haven’t been cleaned in 5 years. I am assuming you would charge a lot more for the first clean than for follow up cleans (especially if you do the dentist close and have that home on a six month rotation).
Many thanks for any help!
Sometimes there is no difference. The windows may be a bit more dirty and I don’t charge any extra figuring I’ll make it up in the long run. Other times the windows are just fucking nasty and need a higher price on initial clean. Then I let the customer know that the price will be less going onward.
If you send us the details our product experts would be happy to help: https://windowcleaner.com/pages/what-would-you-charge
Ok, thanks! That’s very helpful.
Oh wow! That’s fantastic. Thanks for the link!
If they are neglected and I have to blade the glass I will charge more…usually based on the time I think it will take and my hourly rate.
Matthew has a good policy. For me, I assume that most of the customer’s windows will require scrubbing with a walnut pad and will have a little bit of sap, fungus, maybe even a few paint drips, so I bake it into the price. Where I live, after six months a window will still look mostly clean but there will almost certainly be at least one spot that requires extra attention for one reason or another. At that point (for me at least, I’m slow) it usually takes me almost the same amount of time as the initial clean, even though the windows were dirtier prior to the initial cleaning. So, I find that I usually undercharge slightly for the initial clean but it’s about right for subsequent cleanings. Personally, I feel that going into a job having priced it with the idea that there may be some extra attention required by windows here and there makes it easier to slow down and do an amazing job, rather than rush because I charged too little and feel that I’m not breaking even. I think most homeowners paying hundreds of dollars to have their windows cleaned would rather pay just a little bit more to hire a window cleaner who will slow down and make sure everything looks amazing. But every market is going to be different.
