Obviously different locales demand different pricing per window. Chris, in the Window Cleaner’s Marketing Blueprint, says he was charging up to $39 per double hung in his area during busy seasons.
Other owner/ops based in smaller areas surely must charge less.
In my area, very rural (NW Ohio) It doesn’t seem like the population could sustain a very high pricing model that seems common in the industry. Thus, I, operating entirely in this area, seem to be left with a few options:
Price high, and be left with much less work overall.
Price lower and convert a higher % into customers, making less $$ per hour but more overall.
Price high and offer more services in hopes of hitting every niche.
What other people charge is irrelevant. You should know how much a year you desire to make. You should know what your costs are. You just need to come up with the numbers. Break it down to weekly. How much a week gross, do you need to make minimally to get what you need?
Now, break down how many jobs a week you reasonably can expect to do. So, lets say you can reasonably expect to 1-2 houses a day, for 5 days. How many windows are average for you? That should give you the formula how much a window you need to charge.
This formula is only going to work for someone who is somewhat established though. New to the business people, are going to have to take an educated guess, because they won’t know how much work they might reasonably expect to have. Upselling power washing, gutters, or high reach dusting is just icing on the cake.
Perhaps resi customers are not such price shoppers as storefront customers. They should have more appreciation for quality service provided by somebody that they are comfortable having in their home.
For the time being you may not reach that for whatever reasons - not experienced enough, not selling your services correctly, price structure isn’t established yet, market in your are just can’t do it, etc.
Start out like this…time yourself. Don’t get too anal about it, just time yourself from when you pull up to the job site to when you crank the motor over to leave the job site. That will be your time, divide your take by your time and that will tell you if your pricing is getting you to $100 per hour or however much.
Now, you can figure $1.67 per minute times 60 minutes equals out to $100.20 per hour.
Perhaps for now you can only swing $70 per hour; $1.17 per minute times 60 minutes equals out to $70.20 per hour.
At any rate, you are trying to build a viable business that pays you well for your labor. No one is in this to just get by. We all want the American Dream.
Figure out your pricing and if it comes up short, figure out what you need to do to enhance your services to make that $100 ph happen.
