[cleanimperial]

PRICE INCREASE:

Hi

We have been with a client for 3 years in march. We have not
Increased our prices we charge £9.50 per hour 15 hours per week. We have notified them that we are increaseing our prices.

We where thinking about £250.00 an hr. what do you think

[Jan K]

don't you mean £2.50?

if so then you will need to justify why you have increased your prices by 25% - 

[cleanimperial]

I WAS JOKEING. I whish I could charge that.

I WAS THINKING about 50 75p. Do I need to justify  a price rise considering I haven’t increased in three years.    ?

[Jan K]

nah you dont HAVE to justify it, but it just shows you are giving a reason which most customers appreciate, and you are less likely to have any get a sad on and cancel

[Ian Rochester]

All we say is due to increased fuel and insurance costs, along with increasing in minimum wage, we need to increase our hourly rate to £xx.xx with effect from.

Providing you don't suddenly go from £9.50 to £15.00 without good reason then most will happily accept the increase.

You could also give them an incentive to increase their hours by discounting for contracts over a certain number of weekly hours. ie up to 10 hours is full rate, 10 - 25 hours discount by 4% over 25 hours discount by 6%.  Businesses will increase their hours to get into the next level and they percieve that they are saving money and getting better value.

[J. Deans]

Good thinking Lionheart.

But don't you think £9.50 p/h is way too low in the first place?
There can't be much profit in that!
Our wages, tax, NI and employers contributions come to more than that for each cleaner. That's before all the other business and running expences!

Might as well work for someone else and get a wage - a lot less hassle.

Our minimum charge is £15 p/h regardless of the number of hours.
Out of that we will make 30% profit (taxable of course)

I believe in increasing prices annually - so long as it is justified and reasonable.

[Jan K]

tbh it is relative what you can charge per hour, if I charged £15.00 per hour i can guarantee i would have no domestic customers whatsoever

[pdl]

nor would we!!!!

[J. Deans]

Ooops! 

Wasn't thinking! We are new-build cleaners.
Generally, we price per job and work out that price by estimating the time in person hours x £15 p/h

Then again, on another thread (maybe on another forum - can't remember) we showed how we can earn £120 p/h on communal area cleaning!
(err... not counting travelling time - before anyone mentions it)

[Ian Rochester]

I recently priced a largish contract at £9.50/hr and was beaten by a large national company who I was told went in at "significantly less" than me.

A lot of cleaners use part time staff, keep their earnings below £95/week so no NI is payable, promise the client 10 hours /day but after a short honeymoon period, only actually deliver 7 hrs/day.

There are ways and means to still make an acceptable profit at under £9.50

[pdl]

J Deans where are you located in the country, we do the same type of work and charge out the same way at £14.50 - £15 per hour.

[J. Deans]

Hi pdl,

We are based in Northampton, but we cover around a 50 mile radius (give or take)
That means we are in a fair amount of the surrounding counties of:
Hearts, Beds, and Bucks, Cambs, Oxford, Warwicks, Leics and Lincs, as well as all of Northants.
Our main contracts are in Milton Keynes - massive amount of building going on there!

We did a fair amount of research and calculator work to come up with this price.
We find it makes us a nice little profit and we still remain competetive.
Glad to see we are both on the right track pdl!

Where do you operate?

[J. Deans]

By the way:

Addmitedly, we know little of domestic cleaning, but I wonder if our pricing system would be of more benefit to that industry than pricing at an hourly rate.

Consider:

You survey a property and estimate a cleaning time of 3 hours once a week.
"Ok missus" you say. "We can do that for you every week for just £45.00"
"Great!" she say's. "When can you start?"

Or you say "Yep, no problem missus, take us 3 hours at £15 an hour"
"£15 an hour" she say's, "that's a bit steep isn't it!"

Do you see what I mean?
Just an idea...

[nat1]

Hi,

I at the moment just do domestic clean's, i'm based in manchester & although I do a few "posh areas", I can not see any of my clients willing to pay £45 per clean for 3hrs.  I am increasing my charges but was thinking more like £20-25 for 2.5-3hrs cleaning.  My present clients are charged on an hourly rate but I am changing this from hourly to per job.  Has anyone got advice on prices for cleaning 2bed apartments for letting agents?.

Cheers Nat.