im about to start, everything is on paper except one thing…price.
I dont know how to price my service. Im thinking about testing a full window cleaning of my house, see how much time it take, x40$/hour and then find how much time I spent on each window(size etc). What about this idea ?
Plus, should I buy an insurance now or wait till I get a few clients ?
And I know there are some kind of window you can take off completly, when you wash them , do you take them out and clean them or do you just squeegee them right away ?
Thanks and sorry for my grammar…im french, unfortunatly
That’s a good way of finding how long it will take. Best to test your own home before quoting price. Keep in mind that as you get experience, you will be doing them much faster and therefore possibly making less money. There are a number of threads here that discuss price. Read as much as you can.
Definately get insurance right away. Accidents happen and they are more likely to happen while you are inexperienced and still learning. If your ladder falls on a customers Mercedes, you will wish you had insurance.
The only windows I remove are upper story windows that I don’t want to do from a ladder or the roof outside. I simply remove part of the window (lift it out of the track) and clean it from inside the house. Then with a short extension, clean the other panel while it’s still in place. You can of course use a water fed pole if you have one. I do not yet.
Congrats on starting your business. I agree you should have insurance from the beginning. If you do not have prior experience with window cleaning it’s going to take you longer than someone who has a lot of experience. So pricing by time kind of goes out the window. I would say after 6 months I was able to really crank things out. And that was after I got all my equipment right. Talk to friends and family, have them pay you but, give them discount. This will allow you to understand the process and the time involved a little more. 100% would suggest investing in a water fed pole when you can get one.
WElcome!
Why do you choose $40 an hour? Why not 80 or 125. Remember its your company now. You pay the bills. Insurance, gas, websites, advertisement etc. 40 bucks an hour is great money when your working for someone else but not so good if it your company. Good luck.
Simply i kind of did the same thing. What he is saying is when he gets better at cleaning windows and faster the price will go up. I went from 45 an hour to 60 an hour on my resi jobs that I got when i first started. Not only that people expect a lot if your charging a lot. When your first starting something like that can put a lot of pressure on you to perform. When your new you dont know all the tricks of the trade and people will be able to tell that you are new on the job.
I don’t know. It just seems really low to me. $40 or even $60. I fell into that 60 an hour for a while but quickly found out that I was leaving a **** load of money on the table.
I’m not saying that you are wrong for charging what you charge but I just wonder if some of you guys did what I did at 1st and that was think 60 an hour was good because you heard someone else say it was.
We raised our prices to 125.00 an hour and most of the time we make more than that and No one even really noticed. Even some of my customers said it was about time.
I think it’s really important to not charge a low price just because you’re new. Matter of fact I think the new guy needs to charge more. The new guy still has to make a name and get his name out there and in order to do that you have to do a lot more marketing then the guy that has be in the biz for 10 years. I mean new guys have to get website built, SEO for the website, Postcards, Biz cards equipment, ETC.
Yeah you’re going to be slow when you first start out so that makes even more since to charge more because you getting less jobs done in a day.
To be honest I think we start out charging less because lack confidence in our self. Being new I think we are scared to ask for what we want because we are scared of the word NO or simply because we don’t know any better. Yeah, 40 an hour seems like a hell of a lot more then when we was working for that one company making $15.00 and hr. But there is a problem, we are the owners of the business and we write the check for the Paper, pens, gas, Kevin’s forum, marketing, business phones, insurance, shirts, broken equipment, helpers, Etc. So now 40 an hours seems a lot less to me.
At the end of the day we can make all the money in the world but one thing we will never get back is TIME. So charge more and work less. And don’t be scared to ask for what you want.
WOW! That is the most I have ever written on this forum. Lol.
Well im actually up to about 75-80 (window cleaning) 100-125 for power washing an hour now. And your 100% right about the time thing and Kevin is right on with what he teaches. Im just saying that with friends and family it might be ok to do something like that if it’s your first time putting a squeegee to a window. Because that is what taught me how to bid and clean windows. I wasnt scared of hearing no… i just wanted the experience, but was not about to give it out for free.
The funny thing is I wish all my competition would follow Kevin’s advice and double or even triple their prices. We would all be better off. I think most new start ups think that they have to be low in order to get business. The problem is once you find out how much it takes to run a company you will soon realize you need to raise your prices. It can be hard for companies to raise prices, but if you do it from the beginning you will be better off.
Concentrate your efforts on effective marketing and appearance. It goes a long way towards what you should be charging. One thing I have never done is lower prices, even in a bad economy while everyone else lowered their prices, we raised them. Why? I believe lowering prices is a sign of weakness, and could be a sign to potential customers that you are hurting and need the work.
Stay professional, do quality work and charge what you are worth, don’t run with the pack and be just another window cleaner with low prices. Show your competition what they really should be charging.
I think you guys are mis understanding what I was saying. Im not saying go cheap for your target customers, but to get some time putting squeegee to glass is important. Marketing alone will not carry you. There has to be follow through on the promises. One of the first people I cleaned windows for does e-mail marketing and I actually did his windows in exchange for that service. Low and behold that is what truly launched me. That lead led to the third in command at the largest real estate company here… then I was on my way. By that time I had confidence in my skill and ability to bid a job.
Trust me I’m not a cheap-o and have been turned down plenty because I got beat on price. I did what I had to do in the beginning to get that experience though. Once I started advertising and going out into the “real market” I felt much more confident.
Price also depends on your location for example I have guys washing store fronts that have 8 windows for total 10 dollars and pressure wash for 45-125 per house. I say feel out your location is going to pay go up or down price then.
