[nat1]

Hi all, could I possibly pick your brains, I do domestic cleans at present but have been asked by 1 of my domestics if I would be interested in cleaning the offices where she works, there is 9 offices within the building not really big, 1 kitchen & 2 toilets & a staircase it's all carpeted apart from the kitchen area.  The cleaner at present does nothing and it will need a deep clean to start with, he/she does 2.5hrs at present but this is obviously not enough I was thinking 4hrs a week, the question is I do not know what to charge I price per job for my domestics & was going to do the same for this, could anyone help with this please & give me an idea what to charge for the deep clean as well as the weekly. i've been warned he is tight so im not holding my breath he will go with what I quote, I will probaly be doing it with my partner.  Many thanks  everyone in advance. Natalie.

[wilclean]

Hi Natalie

              I normally charge between £8.50 to £10.00 per hour for office cleaning and charge £15 per month for cleaning supplies but all this will depend on where abouts you live as the futher south you get the more you charge. Have a look on the old threads on here and you'll see what I mean.


Paul

[nat1]

Cheers Paul I live in South Manchester, £8.50 sounds quite low to me, there again i'd be lucky to get anymore as i said the boss of the offices is rather tight.Natalie

[Fox]

Go and have a look at this job before you put any price in. See how dirty it is to start, deep cleaning can mean many different things to different people, will you need to rotary scrub the hard floors, are you thinking of carpet cleaning, are you looking at the high level cleaning, will you be washing down walls, etc

You said the current cleaner gets 2.5hrs but does nothing so how can you ascertain that it needs more hours.  This amountof office cleaning per week is nothing and to make it worth your while you should be looking at charging about 45 to 58 per week.  If he is tight fine, he gets left with a dirty building but don't sell yourself short for such a tiny job.

Fox 

[Alan Rowley]

We do an office in Derby. 9 offices, 2 kitchens, 2 toilets plus a couple of corridors. We do two hours on Wednesday and two hours on Friday for which I get £240.

Be aware though that a lot of businesses will be slow at paying. I have just received payment from November's invoice for one of our office cleans. So in effect, you could be working the first month or so without any payment.

Hope that helps - ALAN.

[*Chris Browne]

We do an office in Derby. 9 offices, 2 kitchens, 2 toilets plus a couple of corridors. We do two hours on Wednesday and two hours on Friday for which I get £240.

Be aware though that a lot of businesses will be slow at paying. I have just received payment from November's invoice for one of our office cleans. So in effect, you could be working the first month or so without any payment.

Hope that helps - ALAN.

Or even 2 months plus, if you do not get your agreements in place, also £8.50 does sound extremely low, will you be doing the clean yourself?

Chris

[nat1]

Hi Chris, yes I will be doing the clean myself im also not sure how to set out an agreement for commercial contracts with this being my first, could you possibly give me any advice on this? much appreciated Natalie.

[wilclean]

Hi All


  I know £8.50 is a bit on the low side but like I said it depends on which part of england you live in. In darlington where I live the price for hourly cleans start at £8.50 and go upto £9.50 and if I'm realy realy lucky sometimes £10 and this is for office cleaning. I've noticed futher south you go the more money they charge and most firms pay this amount - if I was to charge the same amount I would never get any business hence my prices starting at £8.50. I agree that you should check the job out first to see how dirty it is also try and boost the hours up as 2.5hrs dosent seem that much - you will have to make the manager understand that the hours will have to go up so a proper clean can be done.

Paul

[*Chris Browne]

I think £8.50 is fine if you are doing the job yourself, but not if you are employing.

Chris

[*Chris Browne]

Nat, your email is hidden.

Chris

[garyj]

I think £8.50 is fine if you are doing the job yourself, but not if you are employing.

Chris

Don't see why that would make any difference, at some point as the business hopefully grows you won't be able to afford to staff it at that rate. Think of your overheads,  you HAVE to factor those in otherwise you'll end up going bust and working for a pittance on the way. £8.50 an hour is a ridiculous amount to charge for such a small contract, I've had contracts of over 50 hours a day that pay more than a pound an hour more than that.

If you're happy working for £8.50 an hour then paying insurance, vehicle costs, fuel etc ( the list is huge ) then it's not a business it's a hobby.

[wilclean]

yes BUT where I come from you cant get more than £10 an hour. When I first started out I tried to charge £12ph but got no response as all the firms were saying that was much too high so I had to drop my hourly price to try and get jobs. If I was living down south I would have no problems getting that price but here is different.


Paul

[*Chris Browne]

As i say gary, if you doing it yourself then i see now problem, your not going to make a lot but if your happy with that then thats fine, we couldn't survive on that, our rates are £14.00 plus, but when you are starting out on your own its a matter of treading carefully.

Chris

[garyj]

But that is where selling yourself and your superior service comes in. Any fool can sell on price.

You say you are charging £8.50- £10.00 an hour then adding the material cost on top of £15.00. Sounds a bit hit and miss, are you saying that if you clean for me for 2 hours a day or 2 hours a week I get charged the same amount in materials  .

If you are charging £8.50 an hour then the sad fact is you'd be better off financially flipping burgers in McDonalds. If you employ people then by the time you've paid their NI and worked out the true cost of having that person, then it ain't worth the aggro, if you are working for yourself then you don't value yourself at all.

Maybe, just maybe there are a few on here that could afford to take a contract on at that price as other work is paying more and the overheads are effectively 'paid'. But they wouldn't give a damn about the contract as it's not worth anything to them.

In fact scrub that, taking holiday pay into account and someone to check it occasionally, no one would touch it.

[nat1]

Hi Chris my email is now available, thanks natalie

[J. Deans]

I agree with Gary on this one.
You must price a job by the amount YOU need to survive in business, NOT by what you think the client is prepared to pay. If they can't, or won't pay the price you need, then don't take the contract. There are others that will be prepared to pay you a fair price. Just keep looking and forget about what you 'think' the going rate is.

A couple of tips:
1. Try starting out by approaching new businesses into your area, not existing ones that already have cleaners.
2. Price by the job, not by the hour. You still estimate your price by the time you expect it to take, but there is no need to tell the client this information.
3. Draw up a list of tasks and provide this with your quote. The client then understands that this is what he is paying for, not the time it takes to do. Using that basic list, you can then negotiate items, in or out, with the client and adjust your quote accordingly.
4. £15 per 'estimated' cleaner hour would not be an unreasonable price to aim for IMO. You will NEED to achieve somewhere near this amount if you intend to (legally) employ cleaners to continue this contract in the future, when you are unable to do it yourself.

[nat1]

We do an office in Derby. 9 offices, 2 kitchens, 2 toilets plus a couple of corridors. We do two hours on Wednesday and two hours on Friday for which I get £240.

Be aware though that a lot of businesses will be slow at paying. I have just received payment from November's invoice for one of our office cleans. So in effect, you could be working the first month or so without any payment.

Hope that helps - ALAN.

Hi Alan, do  you mean £240 per wk or month?, I was thinking of going in at £50-55 per week as this is my 1st office clean this will include all materials, I will be doing the clean myself I think it would take between 3-4 hrs a week. It's very similar to your offices apart from only having 1 kitchen & it has a staircase. Thanks again Natalie.

[Alan Rowley]

Hi Nat,

Sorry I didn't make it clear in my previous post. I get £240 a month for the clean, materials included. We do the clean in a team of two. I do all the hoovering and mop the kitchen floors whilst my partner polishes and dusts and empties all the bins. Seems to work very efficiently that way.

Also do other jobs for them occasionally including polishing the plaque on the wall outside, spraying weeds on the patio and picking up litter from the car park. I agreed to do these little jobs for them and they agreed to up the price from the previous price of £230. There are a couple of staircases which never get too dirty and I hoover them every now and again.

£50-£55 per week sounds about right to me. If you need any more info, please PM me or email me. Good luck!

[nat1]

Hi Nat,

Sorry I didn't make it clear in my previous post. I get £240 a month for the clean, materials included. We do the clean in a team of two. I do all the hoovering and mop the kitchen floors whilst my partner polishes and dusts and empties all the bins. Seems to work very efficiently that way.

Also do other jobs for them occasionally including polishing the plaque on the wall outside, spraying weeds on the patio and picking up litter from the car park. I agreed to do these little jobs for them and they agreed to up the price from the previous price of £230. There are a couple of staircases which never get too dirty and I hoover them every now and again.
Thanks for that Alan, will let u know if they accept the price.
£50-£55 per week sounds about right to me. If you need any more info, please PM me or email me. Good luck!

[Scotbrite]

Hi Alan,
If i worked this out right you do 8 hrs per week for £55. That works out at £6.90 per hour. Surprised all the high price guys haven't jumped on you by now lol. I work for a company with an average rate of £9 p/h for commercial retail and they survive,
Regards,
Ron