[Ian Fletcher]

hows it goin lads,i was just wondering,how much price,diffrence,is around the country

3 bed house round my area is around £6.00 o r £7.00

what about yours

[Duke]

about the same I guess...unless there's a conservatory on the back, or difficult access problems....then it can go up to £12 or more...depending..

[Ian_Giles]

Chepstow area:

I reckon about the same, but I try to charge around the £8.00 mark.
It can also depend which part of town you are in

Ian

[Roy Harding]

If its a house start from £15 every 4 weeks up, £18 up for 8wkly

Bungalows start at a tenner up

Picked up 4 new ones today same place as last week £48 ever 4 weeks

[www.mrgutters.co.uk]

i charge £10 for 3 windows at front 3 at back plus doors .. if they are bays £12 or leads £12 goergian £15  greater london .. i charge too little though?

[pjulk]

I charge between £9 and £10 for a 3 bed semi

[rosskesava]

3 bedrooms with no conservatory with easy quick access is between £15 and £20.

If access is difficult then we add usually £3 or £4 and it's a standard £5 for the conservatory.

For leaded stuff all around the house it's £5 extra.

We get two saying 'no thanks' to every one saying 'yes' but we're not short of work so what the heck.

We are a bit on the expensive side but there again, we are thorough and do a very good job.

This is in and around the Brighton area on the South coast.

There's a lot of wealthy people here who are prepared to pay for quality. 

[Ian_Giles]

Wow, some pretty hefty prices out there
I just wouldn't have the front to charge £15.00 for a semi (small semi) That works out at well over a £1.00 per minute for the time taken to clean the house.
If I have to travel then that is different.
I know Roy Harding does a lot of very rural accounts, and the areas we both do overlap (or at least they used to years ago) These areas are well moneyed, so you can charge good money.
Also in some parts of our local town, new development has made it possible to charge good money in some areas.
In some of the older parts of town (the cheap seats ) Not a snowballs of charging £15.00, you are down below a tenner, 3 or 4 houses close together and you are still up around a possible £30.00 an hour, so even the cheap seats are paying good wonga!

Ian

[rosskesava]

I don't want to sound snobby or anything like it but there is a shortage of w/c's around here and we stopped doing cheaper properties last year because all we could charge was a minimum price but at the time - that's what we thought we were worth and any job was money.

My advise would be to go for rich areas. Some are the biggest tight wads going but some are really prepared to pay for a personnal and exclusive service.

Our best private job is one where we just turn up on the day that the owner asks us to (he leaves a message on our answer phone) and he pays £95 for work that takes just under an hour. He requires a 'report' which for that money, I'm more than happy to do and he has a few odd quirks about his requirements, such as if the flowers in the roof garden need watering could we do it please, etc, but that's ok with us.

We still do loads of other places though but bit by bit, they're all at good prices. It also does sometimes take a bit of courage to just go for it and try getting work in the wealthy places. You have to listen to a lot of waffle and stuck up pompous sh*t too.

And you have to be the part - that is important. By that I mean you are the best and not 'just a window cleaner'. You are 'THE WINDOW CLEANER' if that makes sense.

[windows_chepstow]

I work in Ian_Gile's area and he'd be right when he says  £8 is the max what you'd get for a 3 bed semi.

However, I quoted for a posh 3 bedroomed semi this morning and received a load of verbal abuse from the Northern Irish customer.  Whilst looking round his house, I said I'd spent several years in Northern Ireland, as a soldier, and my first wife was Irish.

When I said £10.00, he asked, 'how often?'

'Every calander month', I replied.

'Every month!  You F****** C***, you've spent too long in Ireland, you B*******'.

I was really taken aback, but saw he was laughing.  He coughed up then and there and we cleaned his windows. 

Later, while during another house he walked past and I asked him what he thought of the job.

'F******* spot on', he said, so I guess we've got him in the bag!

[Duke]

Yeah..it's strange though really...I mean, If they signed up for 'Sky' for example...the price would be the same no matter where you are....so how come we....supplying a 'Service' , should have to accept regional variations as the norm is a mystery ?
I can see them doing that, or any amount of similar subscription based services !!

[rosskesava]

I was talking with a builder today and he was saying to me how he prefers working in Brighton as opposed to Worthing (about 15 miles along the coast) as he can charge more in Brighton for the same work.

Maybe it's the same in other trades with regards price differences.

[windows_chepstow]

I think Roy Harding summed it up when he said something like:  I avoid large estates.  That's the first place that a new (cheap) window cleaner targets. 

He tends to work in mainly rural areas (some not too far from me) and charges a lot more than I do in my mainly 'estate type' working environment.

Roy's basically putting into 'window cleaning talk' the old adage of 'supply and demand'.

Where there's limited supply (in rural areas), you've got increased demand and therefore can charge higher! 

In these areas, it's not like your electricity supplier where you can pick and choose.  You've got Roy, or do it yourself!

[rosskesava]

Hi Tosh

I think it must be both 'supply and demand' and how affluent the area is.

We charge what seems to me to be top prices but there's no shortage of w/c's around here. We see them every where but there again, this area is quiet affluent (effluent?) with loads of posh bits etc and it seems in those areas, there's a shortage of w/c's.

Possibly also it's a 'how you value yourself' thing too and where you are prepared to try and get work. I have no problem in knocking on the doors of the wealthy and asking if they need a window cleaner and asking for what I think we are worth.

Today, as it was raining I spent the whole afternoon in an area called Roedean which is really classy and got two more jobs, one for £60 and one for £85 for about an hour or so of work each for the 3 of us.

Dunno? Perhaps it's a combination of social factors.

Large estates can be great work if you get a lot close together and the odd rural stuff we do are at a much higher price because of their location.

Cheers

[AuRavelling79]

Don't you think that having a "full" round means that you can charge more when folk come asking you to quote? Because you don't "need" the work you can grit your teeth and put in a much higher price and it doesn't matter if they say no.

E.g. yesterday a pleasant lady came up to me at a customers and asked if I would do her windows "I can't find a window cleaner anywhere etc". (That's a "buying signal" yes?)

She lives about half a mile from my nearest customer and from her description,(Edwardian semi with georgian topped sash windows and a front garden falling away from the property right at my ladder's limit)  pre-wfpole I would've said sorry I'm full up etc.

But - with pole, and agreement that I could start at 8am monthly (cuz I won't be looking thru' bedroom windows ) I went and quoted - £20. She didn't bat an eyelid, said yes, I cleaned it today (took one hour on a first clean - I reckon 30 mins next) "luvly job" she says, see you next month!

I would have quoted £15 tops if I needed the work, so there you go!

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

my average price for a 3 bed in southampton is £8-00 - £9-00 but like others have said if i get ask to price up another property in a road i don't do i up the price by a pound or 2, once again it's about supply and demand

[rosskesava]

Hi MalcG

It's not a case of 'gritting my teeth' and 'putting in a much higher price'. That I think puts the wrong perspective on what I was trying to say. I got two jobs today at a high price where both customers were more than happy. One of those jobs involved a written detailed account of what the customer wanted and expected and his standards were really high. The other was simply to do what needs doing but to be done to a high standard.

A lot of people who can afford it are happy to pay for quality work by people who can be relied on. Some expect to pay extra for that. They expect to pay for an exclusive service and they also expect a certain attitude towards the doing of that work and we are (I constantly hope) those people.

Business in business and we are as proffesional as we can be.

We do a few places that are seriously under priced. One is an old boy who every month pays £3 plus the usual 50p tip for his bungalow. We do 3 for nothing on our commercial round. Those are charity shops in between other current jobs. I don't write that to say that we are something else, because we're not. These places take little time and it's a small bit back to something that to start with, was our main type of job.

When we give a quote the customer can refuse it. There are other window cleaners around and the customer does have a choice and even if they don't have any other window cleaner to choose from, they still are not forced to pay us what we are asking. If I think the person has a problem 'saying no' and they give me that impression, then I say 'no' for them.

My council tax here has gone through the roof, my water bill is now upto £840 for the year and so on and my oldest daughter who is now at university is costing me a small fortune and etc etc etc. The bills go up and up and up. So I go for the best money I can get but I will not rip anyone off.

A good price for quality work. I think that's fair.

Cheers

Ross

[rosskesava]

Hi MalcG again.

I've just re read your posting and think maybe I mis understood what you were writing.

If I did - sorry. It's just I am not sure but I think I did.

Roll on the day when we get WFP.

[cd5000]

here in the south west ( devon) i charge £8.00 to £12.00

[Londoner]

I live and work around the North West suburbs of London. I am constantly amazed at prices charged round here by other WCs.
I have heard from two guys recently who are charging ( and getting! ) £15 to £20 for a three bed semi.

I reckon I must be going soft because my mouth is physcally not capable of saying "twenty quid" to the owner of a three bed semi. I have tried it and it always comes out sounding like "ten quid."