Guys, I had a first yesterday and wanted to celebrate it with you. I got low balled yesterday for two gutter whitening jobs! I tend to charge between 2-3 bucks a foot for most jobs. The company uses simple green and these gutters were quite black. I’m pretty sure they are going to loose money on it because even with gutter zap/f-13 it takes a little scrubbin’. The customer asked me to match their prices, but I declined. I did get low balled on a couple of other services this past month, but this was a first.
Our business is actually doing well but it seems like many others are struggling and are dropping prices down to costs that I can’t see how they can operate for long. A couple of my competitors I’ve just discovered went out of business. I hate that for them.
I’ve discovered over the past years that if you can connect with the customers well you will probably get the job even if it is higher than your competitors. Customers tell me this often and sometimes even ask me to lower the price some or match the competitors price. Sometimes I’ll lower it but I always ask them for the competitors estimate sheet first to make sure they ain’t bluffin’.
Lowballing doesn’t do anybody any good if you can’t profit.
One house I was asked to match the job which came out to $1.50. I had quoted in the $2.75-$3.00 range for the whole house. It was appx 7500 square foot home with 3 sides of 32 to 38 foot range. Appx 500ft of gutters. (Lake home) Also it was a one of those homes that had gutters on its 5 dormers(cape cod style) and more going back towards the roof. Dormers can take a long time to do. I can do homes for 1.50 but not with gutters that high and # of dormers.
The other house had mostly 26 foot gutters and a few 32 foot gutters and was appx 5000 sqft. It did have dormers as well which are hard to access. I quoted $1.75 a foot. My opponent averaged out to approximately .75 cts a foot. Had approximately 300 feet of gutters.
We’ve done lot of gutter polishing and from personal experience we wouldn’t make a profit doing at those prices. We have been able to charge a lot less on many homes knowing that the access was extremely easy and it could be done lightning fast.
I do sometimes can match but not if the difference is great as a dollar.
Yes, it can be tricky in pricing gutter polishing on homes. The angles and access sometimes determines the cost just as much as how dirty they are.
I kind of understand if they were using gutter zap or f-13 and charging a little less but not simple green.
