In the beginning it is hard to imagine that people will pay what a job is worth, especially if you are of the mindset yourself that it isn’t worth it. That in and of itself makes it so easy to undervalue the service that you offer, how on earth will your customer find real value in it? (Hence your pricing of $2.95 for one window with tracks and screens.)
Do some homework and investigate what it would actually take a real and successful business to do those 20 windows. (Even if you simply call two or three window companies and say - “I have 20 double hung windows with dirty tracks and screens, how much would that cost?” Unless you end up calling your “mirror self” I can just about guarantee it will open your eyes to real world pricing.
Next - time yourself on the next job. Keep it simple, write down on a piece of paper the time that you pull up to the property and shut off your vehicle to the time that you are done and start your vehicle to leave. Now, divide that time by $59.00 - if it were an hour you would have made 98¢ per minute; if 2 hours it would have been 49¢ per minute, ($29.50 hr). Now imagine that same job by $1.40 per minute. (Hint: $84 per hour).
Now ask yourself why you are working for a living? To rent a studio apartment and store your few tools in the corner? Or, to perhaps own a home with a reliable car and something to show after years of repetitive stress on the body from manual labor? Charge for the job, don’t let the job charge you.hobby vs business.pdf (21.2 KB)
you have pretty much described price fixing and it is illegal in most developed countries.
ease of entry is low - no expensive equipment or degrees (like doctors, lawyers, manufacturing and fabrication etc)
lowballers are lacking in business and marketing acumen, whether ignorance or denial
the more marketing and business skills under the belt, the more one sees there actually is a market for the lowballer, but they aren’t taking anyone’s real customers in the end, since those customers aren’t a good match for a properly run business marketed well
and one can’t market well unless the business is run properly and sustainably
a real round robin
Garry, Thank you for taking your time to comment yesterday. I thought about what you said as I worked today.
Bruce, you are exactly right. There is a great market for the window cleaner charging less.
Like I originally said I don’t want your customers and you don’t want my customers.
Garry, I did take your advice and timed my 4 jobs today. I think I made $42 per hour before any expenses. I am happy making that much per hour but I am going to raise my prices $10. I know critics will tell me I’m still low balling but I don’t care. Making $50 per hour is good for me.
Also, as I was finishing for the day a guy drove up to me and told me his father lives a few doors down and asked if could clean his windows. I told him I could first thing tomorrow morning. I told him $69. He thought for a second and said ok. He handed me $70 have me the address and told me his father is in the hospital so no one should be home. Before he left I asked him if I could ask him a quextion. I asked him if I told him the cleaning would be $159 would be still use me. He said probably not.
Thank you again for your time.
Ron
All excellent advice here!I think you will do fine ron.Just get what you feel you are worth.whatever you feel comfortable with.i have done this for 18 years and it can be rewarding.
You didn’t mention how many windows?
As far as your response goes it could have been a 2 story home, 35+ windows, 2 sets of sliders, tracks filled with dirt and leaves, haven’t been cleaned in years, screens require a lot of scrubbing, landscaping hinders easy access to the windows.
See, THAT kind of job should cost at least $385 exterior only. That is the point I am trying to make. That same job I just described, with your pricing of $2.95 per window/track/screen, would be $115.05.
I don’t intend to insult you - I do, however, understand if that is all that you want or expect out of your service, then a professional window cleaner will outlast you as a hobbyist and you will move on to something else.
+∞. Could not have said it better myself.
Well of course not, not after he heard you would do it for $70 
But in all seriousness, you can’t base your idea of fair pricing off of chance encounters and anecdotes like this one. Chances are, you were putting off a “lowballer vibe” in some way, and that guy only stopped to talk to you because he detected that you might do it for a very low price.
If you put off a vibe of a professional company, even if you choose to work only part time, you will naturally attract customers who expect to pay more.
Thank you everyone.
Every comment I appreciate.
Let’s end this thread for awhile while I digest the information for professional advice. Let’s pick it up again in a month. I want to see if I view things any differently.
Again, thanx everyone. Priceless advice.
LOL Mate its @Springfield thread about low ballers.
You came in as the voice of the “low baller”.
What I see the major issue with low ballers is they set a perception amongst those customers they do service that this is what it is supposed to cost to have their windows professionally cleaned, as word of mouth is one of the best form of advertising Mrs. Jones who you cleaned her windows talks about her $70 window clean while Mrs. Smith whos windows I cleaned talks about her $260 window clean, Mrs. Jones thinks she is happy until she see’s Mrs. Smiths windows( or what appears to be no glass 
)
birds of a feather . . . .
which makes me think of my observations of low price hunters pretty much falls into 3 groups:
the irritating kind who are essentially auctioning off their job to the lowest bidder (this type can be at any price point or house type strata since its a personality type, motivation may be different but same M.O.)
the people on a low income looking for a rate that fits their budget, which is usually going to be only newbies, or sideliners, or those happy with this market and working for this price point for whatever reason etc
the psychopath batting you around like a cat with a toy for as long as you’ll take it
Yeah, I’ve had a couple of those over the years. Best thing you can do is try and detect the warning signs before ever working with them. Sometimes it looks a little like this:
Some things that jumped out at me in the message above:
- the “compliment sandwich”; buffering the criticism by opening and closing with statements about his “gratefulness” over my timely response and availability.
- subtle condescension; “do you have a crew, are would you it be just one?” (Funny side thought: he had pretty much perfect grammar for the rest of the email)
- trying to control the exchange by requiring “justification” for the pricing
- equating my value with only the time involved in the job, and nothing else
But what I find especially telling is what’s lacking from his email, which is any indication that he falls into one of Bruce’s other two categories:
- price shopper would say they will be getting other quotes, is that the best price you can give me, yada yada
- low budget individual would say something to the effect that it’s out of their price range, any way we could reduce the price, etc.
Perhaps this individual is not a true psychopath, but they clearly have control issues, and are somebody to avoid working with. I chose to just not respond to the email.
But here’s my takeaway for this thread in regard to lowballing: the lower your prices, the more psychopaths and controlling individuals you will encounter. They have a nose for people who do not value themselves or their work, and they will take advantage of it, by manipulating you into doing even more work for your low prices. The higher your prices are, the less you will encounter unsavory people like that.
See the whole low balling in order to get something-anything for payment is self defeating.
In this picture is a garage apartment a lady booked for next week. There is a total of a mix of 19 awning style and double hung with paint and debris on each one. A regular clean would be $146, but I bid it as a CCU because of so much scraping and solvent to use, so it is $365. It will be a lot of work and the ladder will be my friend. 20 windows for $59.00 is just ludicrous.
very well thought out response Alex 
so accurate all the way around, sounds like we’ve both ran into a few of these lol
this week, had a wife call “this is the second time i’m calling, we’ve received your info before, can you please return my call, I don’t want to leave my address until I talk to you a little more”
ok, maybe just a single woman, doesn’t want to leave her address
hmmm, no phone number, nothing on record - perhaps in past she called from a cell phone but not good reception so no voicemail, happens enough
I call back, get husband, I explained above, he spent so much time trying to triangulate me proving that I purposely did not return his earlier call, I’m turned off and done
then the cross examining on the offer, I repeat the verbiage on the offer, more triangulation garbage
then telling me how many windows he has, “I’m standing right here in my house and this is the number of windows I have, how much??”
well if I could come out I could give you exact specifics for your home “no, no one needs to come out, I’m telling you how many windows I have, how much am I looking at??”
oh ball park around this for no program and around this if you wanted service
"oh, wow, so whats that, that’s only a little but off if regular service, that’s high. . . honey, he says . . . murmer in background . . . more questions.
I’m done
in the end probably already had a cleaner and just looking to see if he could dramatically reduce his rate
but with that MO, not the person I ever want to look for, that’s for sure, I’ve closed 4 figure jobs in one pleasant sentence without the compliment sandwhiches and subtle condescension, ugh, uh . . . BUH-BYE!!
Makes you love even more when those that simply say “When can you do it?”
Or when you are on an estimate and you tell them the price … they say “That’s it! I thought it would be more than that.”
That’s awesome. I love it !!! I’m sending that to everyone I know, which should take 2 seconds 
One of my things I say when they complain about price. I’m definitely not the cheapest guy around If you look hard enough you can always find cheaper
You guys are right! I have been pricing way too low. I will definitely charge much more. I appreciate all the comments and the time spent responding to my uneducated comments and thoughts.
I went out today and tried my hand at plaza and store fronts. I liked it. I think it suits me better as a newbie.
I did a little research and charged competively. I talked to 28 stores (mostly people that could not make a decision) and got 4 recurring jobs and turned down 2 stores.
I have a question. As I increase these types of jobs I would like to start at 6am, especially at outside only jobs. Do any of you do this? Would I just sent them a text (maybe with pic) that lets them know I was there, then sent them a statement at the end of the mobth? The problem I see is that I won’t be able to clean inside of doors. Is that an ussue?
How do you do it?
For me, I generally stack my exterior only store fronts in the early A.M.
The day before each route, I send my customers a “Confirmation” email that I will be cleaning their property the follow day as scheduled. After I am through with the days work, I send out my invoices for the properties that were not open and that I could not collect immediately on.
After a few months, they start to get trained in the routine of it all. Works well for my needs.
First of all let me say you are a smart man to be on this forum. I’ve been cleaning windows part-time for 6 years and I have not taken much time to access this resource. If you are happy with the money, realizing that 30% of it is taxes, good for you. One thing I did early on was to give people a $10 discount if they got a competitive bid. I only asked this of people who I was getting along with very well. That was helpful for me to determine the market. I have a lot of growth yet to do. And I’m hoping that this group of guys will help with that… Good luck to you Soon!
