[WGB]

Hi all
Ill be putting my prices up next march april by 30-40%, yes i know its quite a bit. So my £9-£10 3 bed semi will become £12 or £15 depending on frequency. Was just wondering had any one eles any experience with a big price rise?

[hank jr]

Hi all
Ill be putting my prices up next march april by 30-40%, yes i know its quite a bit. So my £9-£10 3 bed semi will become £12 or £15 depending on frequency. Was just wondering had any one eles any experience with a big price rise?

I will be putting mine up in March too. Haven't had an increase in years.

I was thinking between £2 -£3 extra per house.

I do know a few greedy window cleaners who put there prices up too much and lost half of there round!

I don't know about you but I'd hate to have to go crawling back with lower prices after putting them up.

[dazmond]

Hi all
Ill be putting my prices up next march april by 30-40%, yes i know its quite a bit. So my £9-£10 3 bed semi will become £12 or £15 depending on frequency. Was just wondering had any one eles any experience with a big price rise?

ive put some prices up a fiver before now and will be doing again at the same time as you but these are £40+ longer frequency jobs....ive never had a refusal/cancellation....

most of my smaller,cheaper 4 weekly jobs will be going up a quid....personally if your putting them up £3-£5 i think youll be losing quite a few...theres no way i would do it mate!

[deeege]

I’ve just put 10 jobs up by £3 or £4. It’s a round I bought about 10 years ago and the first price increase these customers have had 😬. Prices have gone from £10-£12 upto £13-£16. No cancellations yet and I’d be surprised if I got any tbh.

[nathankaye]

It depends upon the duration since your last price increase.
A while back now, either last year or year b4 (cant recall as so much has happened since then and ive lost track of time) I hiked all my lower priced jobs up.  I spent years getting better priced work and had the mentality that collectively I was happy with the income from all the work.  Then i realised there was huge differences of my old prices to that of my later jobs and so I had no choice really. 
Yet this long period of time meant I conditioned them to the lower prices.  Some went up more than 50 % in some places.
Yet because of the increase and the great prices I have in expanding areas, it meant that I could afford to loose X amount of customers.
In the end, I only lost a handful if that.

Therefore, if they appreciate your work n regular service and they know a price increase should have been on the cards for a while. They will stay with you.

[WGB]

I put my prices up about 3 years ago but was lower priced jobs on my round and 2 years before i did the same, some of my work got it both times, but this time i will be putting over 800 jobs up on the one go. 2 thrids are every 5 weeks and the rest are every 10 weeks, if i lost 20-30% of my work could deal with that as wouldn't be that hard to rebuild.

[david mark]

I put my prices up every 2 years by £1 going well till new window cleaners starting up and charging much lower prices take my customers

[Stoots]

Good luck with it.

I just put up most of mine by a quid and lost 4-5.

That's a big hike, depends how many you can afford to lose.

If probably do it in batches. Try 50 to start with and see how many cancel.

[NWH]

Welcome to the dole que lol.

[Pete Thompson]

Personally I would just go for it,  but with an important detail...

Don't just put a note in saying "The price will now be £14, Thanks, WINDOW CLEANER"

With such a large increase, you really have to give them more information to get them on-side.  Give people a reasonable explanation and they will support you.

In my experience, people are willing to pay way more than is generally thought.  I have wacked prices up because I hated doing the job and they still happily paid.  (EG price rise from £12 to £24).

Once I made a typo when texting a customer with a price, I put £29 instead of £19.  I only realised my mistake when the payment came from her for £29. 

I quoted one house on the end of a row for £40, the customer said "yes, that's fine". When I came to actually do the house, I had made a mistake, I had included next door as well (I thought it was all one house) but I continued to do that small house for £40 for years until I moved out of the area.

Was this a rip-off? NO! I offered to do the job at a price, and the customer accepted.  I then went on to perform the service to a high standard absolutely regularly as promised.  No-one was ripped off.

So the moral of the story is... charge a good price.  People are willing to pay for good service.

An underpriced customer is no use to you.  It is simply taking up time that could be spent doing a well priced customer.

[nathankaye]

As above, and you can afford to take your time and work less.  The added advantage is that you get to enjoy your job.

[Arnold Palmer]

Even if you lost 30-40% of your work, you'll be no worse off, just more time on your hands.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do.

[dazmond]

i ve picked up jobs before now because their last window cleaner tried to hike the price up £3 or £4,normally this is because they dont clean many jobs in the area so have to factor in travel time to their next job....if you have the vast majority of work in an area you dont have to be as expensive to make your hourly rate.....

[Dave Willis]

Odd thing is ..... Nathan still can’t get a full round and talks more than he works.

Sensible pricing and do a good job simples!
No advertising no canvassing no worries.

[Forum Admin]

It's certainly a good idea to put prices up, with  10% inflation since 2014 you would be 10% worse off if no increases in this period for an example. If you increase prices sensibly and relatively it certainly pays and is worthwhile and remember losing customers isn't always losing overall. Just for an example you may lose 20% in profits from lost customers but gain 20%  in profits from the rise giving you 20% more time, so you're working less hours for the same amount giving you more time for profit growths.......

[nathankaye]

Odd thing is ..... Nathan still can’t get a full round and talks more than he works.

Sensible pricing and do a good job simples!
No advertising no canvassing no worries.

😂😂😁

Hhhmmmm  maybe its true, maybe it isnt!   I knock off at half 3 each day or b4 if family needs come first.   I now work monday to friday, where in the past I would finish some weeks by end of wednesday or thursday and have a long wknd off.
Now I just get a full week off at the end of a month. I can either fill this with pressure washing or soft washing jobs or simply enjoy a week off. 
My rounds are as full as I need them to be and i can enjoy little breaks between jobs because im not chasing my tail with too many jobs and from sounds of it on here, not many jobs at lower prices to need to fill my waking life with work.

Yep, I think I have it quite nice. The only downside is making silly mistakes with oil and the van 

(Added edit.....   all the hard work is done the night before.  So my customers get a text and unlock the gates before i come. As they had a text, i dont need to faff about posting notes or invoices and since the vast majority pay via direct debit, im not wasting any time collecting.  So its simply a case of banging them out and enjoying breaks that i give myself. Ohhh and some nice coffees in between as well    )

[nathankaye]

Cheers, n hope all have a good day at work 😁

[Forum Admin]

Fair play to you Nathan you can't beat a festive Costa! It's certainly about balance and making sure you're not balls to the wall all the time; a simple Costa stop can make all the difference to a day keeping you happy.

[swanson]

I thought you was moving to Scotland.

[nathankaye]

I thought you was moving to Scotland.

Weve hit quite a number of brick walls on those plans and so bringing about changes in other areas instead.  Though we will continue to visit scotland on every opportunity to do so.
Some friends last month managed to use a camper van and went touring the very highlands of scotlands. Something im very keen to do, away from the peak tourism times.