[Mike Halliday]

The biggest mistake we make is project our own economic & financial prospective onto our clients, what is a lot of money to us may be a drop in the ocean to our customers.

When we say......." no one will pay £144 for a HSL" what we are really saying is......."we would not pay £144 fora HSL" we assume the customer has the same financial values as us.

A kitchen fitter who charges £200 a day believes that's all his customers will pay, it has nothing to do with the amount of work he does

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

I'm always sceptical about prices claimed to be made by people on this board because I know a lot of carpet cleaners of all different ages and experience from all over the UK and non of them make the money claimed by some on here!

Some of you can spout nonsense about "mindset" believe in yourself" and "real worth" but meanwhile in the real world you would never get that price in a million years in my area (not over the phone anyway). Even Sir Alan Sugar would not be able to sell a h/s/l clean for nearly £150 round my way.

I live not to far from Wyane and people would hang up, laugh or call the trading standards if I quoted that price. I can see parts of the south east paying that price maybe but I would genuinely feel I have robbed someone if I charged that in this area!

There are some nice areas around here that I have targeted and get some decent prices but i have noticed prices have gone down a lot over the last 5 years around here. Wayne is correct about having a full house done for that price. Even Servicemaster and Chem Dry who used to be the most expensive will do a full house for quite a bit less than that and i am pretty shocked at how cheap some chem dry guys are doing work for now, they must be really struggling to get quality work in like they used to.

[Carpet Dawg]

I'm always sceptical about prices claimed to be made by people on this board because I know a lot of carpet cleaners of all different ages and experience from all over the UK and non of them make the money claimed by some on here!

Some of you can spout nonsense about "mindset" believe in yourself" and "real worth" but meanwhile in the real world you would never get that price in a million years in my area (not over the phone anyway). Even Sir Alan Sugar would not be able to sell a h/s/l clean for nearly £150 round my way.

That was directed at me then?  lol as I say stick to your cheap price then fella no skin off my nose. I agree believe what you want to believe.

[JandS]

Carpet Dawg....there comes a point with prices where the customer thinks ....sod that I'll do it myself or.....it's not that bad I'll just give it a good vac.....too high a price can, as Wayne says, have an adverse effect.
Think like a customer not like a carpet cleaner.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

When you say stick to your cheap prices I'm not sure what you mean as you do not know my prices 

My prices are above average for my area. I know this because I check regularly so maybe I'm expensive for my area   

I just find some of the prices quoted on here amusing sometimes. Their is decent prices and their is bull sheite prices and I definitely get a whiff of bull many times on here!

Every business is different. I have 4 carpet cleaning operators to keep going but if I was a one man band I'd probably put my prices up to get less but better priced work.

Pricing competitively can work to our advantage. I had an old lady call us about 2 years ago who asked for a quote. I quoted £100 for just over an hours work. The reason she called me was because she was charged £350 from another carpet cleaner last time! She could not afford this so called other companies and realised this was way above average.
I'd call it daylight robbery, some of you guy's will probably call it "achieving your potential".

Anyway, she uses us 4 times a year and we have a customer for life and 3 of her neighbours now use us regularly. So we get about 2k a year from these 4 customers because the last carpet cleaner over charged!

If you get really high prices then good for you but it does not make other carpet cleaners cheap and there's more than one way to skin a cat.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Fathoming it out we all mean hall/stairs /landing not just stairs and we are talking about average semi detached, Mike you are very quick have you got a helper?

[Carpet Dawg]

Carpet Dawg....there comes a point with prices where the customer thinks ....sod that I'll do it myself or.....it's not that bad I'll just give it a good vac.....too high a price can, as Wayne says, have an adverse effect.
Think like a customer not like a carpet cleaner.

This is exactly the problem. Your thinking like a carpet cleaner where as you SHOULD be thinking like a customer.

It won't have an adverse effect if the customer agrees to the price once you have explained to the TARGETED customer how you will be cleaning their furnishings and shown them what separates you from the splash and dashers. If they still think its too much then fine, off you pop to Morrison's luv or facebook selling pages, or here is "Deep Cleaning Solutions" number 

And, quite frankly if they are going to do it themselves anyway then why would I care? I don't need DIYer's calling me, I want people that pay other people to do stuff for them.

[Carpet Dawg]

The only reason I chimed in was because Wayne said he would do a whole house for a lot less than £144. Sorry but unless that house only had two carpets then I think that's far too cheap.  Who gives a poo if a plasterer is willing to work all day for £200  (not bad considering he'll have virtually zero outlay part from a vehicle).  Who says you need to follow his lead??

Your time on this earth is limited, why trade your valuable time for less when you can get more by just asking for more?

And if your doing things properly a stair case only job should take longer than an hour IMO.

 

[wayne zabel]

Obviously we are all in different positions in our lives/attitudes/expectations/circumstances

I came into CC late in my working life and have different needs than maybe younger guys/gals do.

If I can get £130 to clean a semi in 3 hours that's is good for me.And clean properly too.

Two of them in a day and you are laughing - personally one would do me and a £50 job in the afternoon.

I do think though that some of the prices stated on here are nonsense.Would any of the CCers on here actually pay £144 for a  HSL?

As an aside if I were to get 5 or 6 calls a day and only wanted to convert two I would consider asking for higher prices - as it is even after 6 years trading I sometimes don't get any calls and 2 or 3 is average.

[Mike Halliday]

Would any of the CCers on here actually pay £144 for a  HSL?

This is the exact problem I mentioned earlier in the thread , what we would pay for carpet cleaning is totally irrelevant we are not our customers just because we would not spend £144 on a HSL does not mean a customer wouldn't.

I personally wouldn't spend  £300 on a set of alloy wheels for my car  this doesn't mean alloy wheels are over priced its just to me they are not worth that amount of money

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Why is it okay to say another carpet cleaner is too cheap on here but when they are accused of being too expensive all hell breaks loose 

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with higher prices, for certain areas I get prices when I think this is too good to be true. There is nothing wrong with cheaper pricing either if your model works, their is no price fits all category, it's what works for you.

It's just that I think a lot things are massively exaggerated on here 

I'm talking about domestic work here, I know commercial work can be different and I have commercial work with the biggest facilities company in the country where I have earned well over a thousand pounds a day for myself after paying the workers and I was getting about 4 jobs a month with this company so you can make big money. Sadly this work is coming to an end.

As far as domestic work is concerned, the area you live with in makes a massive difference. I target 6 local towns and there is only one of these towns where customers will pay above the national average. Believe me i have tested and tested some more and the other towns have a natural price ceiling.

So it's okay sitting in you're ivory tower in a posh part of Edinburgh or London looking down at the carpet cleaners in less priveliged areas saying they should charge more but in the real world not every customer has that much disposable income. If you spend some time out of the inner sanctum of you're ostentatious bubble you may realise this 

Anyway, for example, let's say you live in an affluent area of Edinburgh (Yes there is a decent area in Scotland). You may charge more than other areas but you pay out a lot more because the cost of living is far higher but you don't see others on here trying to degrade you and laugh at the fact that you have to pay silly house prices or pay through the nose for council tax!!!

Wayne makes a very good point about individual circumstances. This is the biggest driver in pricing structure as far as I'm concerned. The way I work is I like to keep work coming in. The more customers I have on the database the better for me so I charge value for money prices 
I have a massive customer database now that I would not have if I charged really high prices and having the database helps me weed out the problem customers over time. I target the database with a text, usually when we get a few weeks of sun in June or July and the response is unreal. It's a massive part of my business model and works for me so that's why I charge middle of the road prices. I must admit though that I charge quite a bit more to customers if they live in a better area or live in a barn conversion or larger house which is probably morally wrong!

[Jonathan Evans]

So what is middle of the road pricing?
£4 a sqmt or £6 a sqmt?
Also what is a middle of the road min charge?
£50 £80 £100.......

I know someone local to me who would charge that and more and they are stacked out running several TM'S.

Even after all this time I struggle with getting the price right. I hate it when people say "oh thought it would be more than that"

Not sure there is a right or wrong answer to be honest. But Mike is right you shouldn't have a custy mindset when quoting imo.

[Neil Jones]

Some people do talk a lot of poop on here whilst waving their willy in their hand.

[Raymondo]

The most I have charged for a HSL is 296.00 and that a few years a go but it was a big place.

There is a place for everyone when it comes to charging we went to Harrogate last week and did a bit of shopping in Marks & Spencer's that place is expensive small pack of mince £10.00 would not shop there normally but they do sell excellent good quality food none of the cheap rubbish that other supermarkets sell if I could afford it I would shop there every week.

There were packed out people were very happy to pay a higher price those same people would never shop at one of the cheap stores.

Its the same with carpets cleaners some customers would not have someone clean there carpets if they were cheap.

We can loose business by being too cheap just as much as being too expensive.