[Marnie Lavery]

Hi everyone,

Can anyone offer advice on the hourly charge for domestic cleaning.  I am setting up my own business in Somerset but thought I'd advertise in a few local shops before my website is launched.  I have had one call so far and was told my £12 per hour was too much so I dropped it to £10 per hour and now I'm kicking myself.

My totally inexperienced thoughts on this are that as I intend to run this as a business I will have insurance which some cash in hand cleaners may not have.  If I charge everyone £10 per hour, after expenses such as insurance, travel expenses, products its not worth doing. 

Any thoughts or advice for this newbie would be totally appreciated 

Thanks

Marnie

[Katy Radcliffe]

One potential customer said your price was too hard so you dropped it??

I don't know where you are. Apparently, rates are low in London. Up here in Oldham - not known for being a prosperous area - £12 is common and I get £15.

You might want to consider charging per job once you have a good idea how long things will take. I charge £30 for the vast majority of my regular cleans and it takes me less than 2 hours to do most of them.

[Marnie Lavery]

Thanks for the reply Katy, a charge per job may be the way forward once I know how long jobs will take. 
 I also read somewhere that someone charged £10 per hour and then increased their charge after a while.

The lady that called had the same cleaner for 35 years apparently so maybe she didn't give her a pay rise.  She paid her £6.50 per hour.  Tight or what?  She was probably not the best person to have as a potential first customer 

[Katy Radcliffe]

Are you a solo cleaner? If so, there is a finite amount of time available for you to sell. You don't have to be all things to all people.

Call around and check local rates. Set your rates to the high end of the scale. Then, do all in your power to make sure your service is actually better than the others. Present yourself well, be confident, and take what you do seriously. There are a lot of people out there desperate for a good cleaner they can trust. Clean well, be trustworthy, and show up/do what you say you will do. Dependability and trustworthiness are probably the biggest factors in what makes a cleaner worth more money. Being able to clean well, while important, is honestly less important than the first two.

Don't be afraid to demand more money. Sure, some people will say you want too much, but you don't need to appeal to everybody. Just the people who will value what you do.

Look at it this way: you can clean 10 hours for £15 an hour, or 15 hours for £10 an hour. I clean maybe 15-20 hours a week and I bring home about £300 gross from that. I started my business in January and my schedule is more than half full. I will be turning away work in a fairly short time. I think most independent cleaners are booked up by the end of their first year.

[Marnie Lavery]

Hi Katy, yes it will be just me but if it gets busy I may take on other people but at this rate it's highly unlikely.  That lady hasn't called back.  I just need somewhere to start, my first customer and then who knows?

I have put adverts up in local shops of 5 nearby villages.

You sound like you are doing really well, that is fantastic to hear.  Throw some of your excess customers my way would you? If only eh?

[Laura Grundy]

Hi girlies :-)
I started off cleaning in 2004 for £5.40 p/h with a view to settingup alone.
(Greater Manchester).
As my confidence grew the margin grew massively and my base rate is now £12 p/h, with the exception of a couple of my favourite regulars which I stll do at £10 p/h.
I have found that by offering a professional, reliable and quality service (as Katie rightly says, many folk are desperate to find a cleaner who can actually clean to a high standard) you will let recommendations and repeat customers.
Don't lose faith in yourself if you don't get the amount of responses you'd hoped for... perhaps revise your advert keywording, spelling, avoiding cliches like ''honest, reliable and trustworthy'' a good cleaing company should supply these credentials as standard.
Check out local competitors and draw up an average of what you think you can realistically ask for per hour.
Good luck :-)