Hey guys so I’m in the process of starting my window cleaning business, and while I will be looking for resident work I plan on starting with store front and route work as I feel it’s easier to get your foot in the door. I question is on pricing I have been reading a lot on the form but the prices are all over the place. .50cents per pane up to $4per pane. I live in CT what would be a good starting price. I would be a LLC and have a GL insurance policy. I want to start off right I don’t want to get jobs because I’m too low but I don’t want to scare people away because I’m too high. I thought of having a per hour price and scaling it down as needed ( for example it I have a $60 per hour price and it take it 15 minutes I would charge $15 etc ) but being a noob I’m not sure exactly how long each job will take me.
Storefront price is dictated by so many factors it’s hard to even say.
Best advice I can give is start at about $1 per pane, per side, and go bid as many jobs as you can. Make sure everything in your presentation is flawless: grooming, speech, clothing, etc. If you are getting plenty of work at that price, try raising it a bit to see what the market will bear.
Shopping centers will generally pay less because it’s a buyer’s market; they are obvious targets and every fly-by-night cleaning-windows-for-beer-money schmoe will have attempted to grab a piece of the action there already. Isolated stores and larger buildings are generally less sought after, and therefore are easier to nail down and command a higher price.
It’s fair game to ask what people are paying for window cleaning, if they are having it done at all, but the answer they give may or may not be honest. The last thing you want is to get into a price war. In a race to the bottom, nobody wins.
I know some guys that do hourly, but being new in the industry you don’t know how long it is going to take you. Samuel is right, $1 Per pane per side is average for store front. It is better to price higher, you can always lower it to get the job. But it is near impossible to ask for more money. You also want to have a minimum charge per service. For commercial and for residential.
For residential I would say around $8 to $1.50 per pane per side.
I have worked for so many different companies in this industry, I would say that’s a good estimated price average
