Hi everyone,
2 Quick questions, as I am reading a lot of people do $1 per pane for stores. Is this $1 for in and out or just out.
Second question, lets say its $2 total, if the store has 10 windows, $20 worth is that $20 plus tax or $20 on the button?
Sorry if this seems like a stupid question!
Can’t speak for others, but for me it’d be for one side only if it’s $1/pane. I’d tell them $20+tax.
Each State seems to be different. Here in Florida Sales & Use Tax is applied to commercial and storefront, no tax charged to residential.
Depends on the size of the window but $1 per window per side would be rock bottom as far as I’m concerned. If you are polling and bug sweeping with a cobweb brush then personally I would want more than $1.
I am in Ontario,Canada and we have 13% sales tax. However being a sole proprietorship I am taxed at my personal income bracket once the tax man comes around So i think doing + Tax will be good.
$1 pane/side has been floating around a lonnnnnnnnnng time, like decades, that’s a very inflation unadjusted rate for sure, easily calculated, but stuck in a major time warp
for perspective, $1 pane in/out was the late 70’s from peoples anecdotes and even some of the early AWC articles that I remember
I don’t even charge $1/pane /side for french panes. Who ever is charging that little might want to factor their drive time to, and from that job, loading and unloading time, chit chat time with customer, the time it takes to invoice, and other tasks not directly related to that specific job but factor into running the business, washing towels, driving to the bank to deposit the check if they collect on site, the time it takes to order new supplies cleaning out the truck etc.
Good grief. Good thing I stick with residential.
I admit I don’t do many storefronts because I don’t want to chase the lowest bidder. I charge $2 per side, some smaller windows I might drop to $1 but if your target is $100 per hour how much should you get for 15 minutes?
$1/minute is how I figure storefront pricing, give or take.
I was thinking store front to be a little more stable ? sure it may be lower pay but how many houses do you need every week to have steady pay.
Depends on your average ticket per home, if you make 10-15k/month for 6-8 months you may be fine without building route work as a one man show
That would be a dream! My worry would be, eventually you will run out of houses do you not think? With houses only doing once or twice a year typically thats alot of houses to have 8-10 months worth of work.
So many are involved factors for store front stability. You would need to review your work region and see how commercial performs in terms of their financials. Some metro areas, they perform well and can afford to clean their glass regularly, or they see the bigger picture of what clean glass does for their image. Other areas, on the other hand, may have lower margins and vary on their frequency for requesting/wanting clean windows.
That being said, this COVID situation has hit some shops really hard and they decide to forego clean windows at this time. We live in a rural area and most of the shops are independant and didn’t receive much in the way of monetary assistance (for one reason or another). This resulted in low commercial performance on our end, there just was not the demand as usual.
Homes on the other hand… well, many second home owners are wanting their places cleaned before they visit, or sell their homes. This has helped our residential side demand to increase.
A dream? You mean reality, there are plenty of one man shows working 8ish months a year and getting good numbers…
Storefront is a beast all it’s own, you can get a house and make $500+ before lunch.
You need the right target market, solid customer avatar, service minimums, google reviews, CRM, follow up strategies, and you can most definitely work 8 months for what some work a year slaving away for someone else
I would recommend setting a minimum price for storefronts. Personally I have a minimum of $20 per store. Honestly, it not worth my time to unload, unless I get $20. Even businesses with just 2 or 3 panes willing to pay $20 bucks, if there are not, trust me you don’t want them as a customer.
I agree with the 20 dollar minimum. Unless you have EXTREME volume (the entire plaza, and maybe 30 stores within 5-10 mile radius)…you are chasing pennies to make dollars. Now I have seen what quantity commercial CAN do, but if it is priced low, you are just selling yourself short. Also, you have to be very, very fast if you are charging 1 dollar a pane…(.then down the road when you are landing 200-500 dollar residential/commercial, you will not get to the lower priced stuff…period. Not because you don’t want the work, you just can’t AFFORD to send someone there!)
I do not like commercial work (I am a residential guy at heart) …but you can build up a nice route for a few thousand a month…and you can go on many days where doing a residential home would be out of the question (Windy days, on/off rain days, Holidays, sundays… etc)
What I learned is to get a jump start, 4-5am start for route work. If your prices are “low”, you are only cleaning outsides as nobody is open (other than maybe some IHOPS, Dennys, etc)…slip the outsides and get a huge amount done before the sun rises and traffic hits. Insides of the doors takes time, leads to chit-chatting (which is fine, but after talking to 10-15 different people in different stores, an hour has gone by at least) and less money. If you are not going to charge a minimum, outsides only…beat the traffic, beat the SUN (nothing worse than cleaning in the rising sun which bakes your back for 5 hours)
Again I will say, there is no “right” or “wrong” as you decide your own business. These are just things I have seen while working for other companies and cleaning windows for 15 years. You can have a very good route and charge 1 dollar a pane (again, this only works in MASS QUANTITY…20-30 jobs in 5 to MAYBE 10 mile radius at most) OR you can have a very good route and have a minimum that you KNOW you will always make. Sure, you might only get 10-30 percent of the jobs…but they will be GEMS. Commercial work is funny, I have had people quit over 5-10 dollars. Those are not people you want to build a business off of…they did you a favor!
