[trevor perry]

200 panes of glass

EXTERIOR
1 min per pane exterior WFP = 200 mins
20 min setup and tidy up

Total 220 mins

INTERIOR
40 cycles trad with personnel lift * 12 mins = 480 mins
20 min to take off trailer and get in position

Total 500 mins

Total Labour 12 hours

Staffing Costs 12 Hours * £10 = £120
Equipment Costs £150 (for personnel lift) less if you have your own one
Van & WFP System £40 (£10 per hour)

Total Costs £310

Guy is taking £90 profit.

This is how I have been advised to price up commercial work if I want to win it.

Some of the bigger companies are happy to make a very small profit. They make it up by getting the Contract Cleaning or supplying the paper towels etc.

Sad but true.

Commercial is WAY more competitive than domestic in my experience. You will almost always be competing and the lowest price usually gets it. You do get the odd stupid company that only gets the one quote. Maybe 1:20 of your quotes will be like this and usually smaller buildings.

My conclusion, if you are a guy on your own, focus on high end domestic as you will make far more per hour IMHO

this is how alot of firms price and that is why some buildings are so poorly cleaned for instance the time you give for labour is for someone who is pretty efficient and works at a resonable workrate but it doesnt allow for unforseen delays ie[ manager saying can you do those over there whilst we move this gear], also the labour cost of £10 an hour means he must be paying about £7 an hour by the time you factor in holidays and N.I.C
this is for someone who can wfp, trad clean and have a I.P.A.F licence.
 this in my opinion would also be a two man job for safety reasons i e coning areas off where cherrypicker is used.
 so the reality is they send two men and want it done in under the day the men are on low wages and dont give a monkeys so they rush the wfp and leave it spotty and try to miss as much of the insides as possible whilstspending half the time larking about.
 i ave already said in another post job could be done for £400 if they owned own cherrypicker but to hire out of this cost i think they will only cover wages if lucky.

[stevekennedy]

Yes. This is exactly what we are up against with commercial.

[stevekennedy]

Also, I do not believe that IPAF is a legal requirement. Most guys using personnel lifts do not have ipaf.

[foxy]

Pricing can be so subjective, everyone has a different idea of how it should be done and how much they should charge.
For me it has always been about working out what the average pace a window cleaner works at.

Many years ago when I first started I listened to a very experienced window cleaner, who had moved into other areas, including janitorial supplies.
One of the things he pointed out was with regards to the time it takes a window cleaner to clean an average casement window.
How long?
Well if you take an average casement window to be 3 panes of glass, one narrow opening light, another an opening window pane to the side of the narrow one and the final pane the one under the narrow opening light, about 3 or 4 ft tall and about 5ft  wide.
.........90 seconds to clean, including any required detailing.
Think thats slow?
Try it, get the stop watch out and try it for yourself (trad mind!)
It's quicker than you think, and you need to be a fairly accomplished window cleaner to do so...to a high standard mind....

Anyway....You have your average for the average window unit.

By todays standard, where window cleaning is concerned the average turnover for a sole trader window cleaner according to the tax man is around 17k per year. Lop off 5k for overheads, and vehicle depreciation and running costs should be included, plus replacing vehicle about every 5 years (hence 5k) and you are down around 12k for a realistic income....not a great deal.

Once you also allow for setting up and putting away, travelling between accounts and so on, a reasonable target to aim for is about 3 standard semi's an hour.

You are also unlikely to actually spend more than 5 hours a day actually cleaning windows.

And don't forget to allow for holidays -4 or 5 weeks a year - weather affected days - probably 20 or more, not necessarily days off but days where you can't work a full day and those days when you just can't get motivated or other things interrupt your day and you begin to realise why perhaps that the average turnover is only around 17k.

But you know now what the average is, of time taken to clean a window and a house, and of potential turnover.
You can now work out what to price per unit (window) pricing then gets easier, you count up your units, allow for access and you have a consistent method for pricing.

Now you may want to turnover 25k or 35k, but if you want to be competitive and also to remain in business for any length of time then you have to be able to price sensibly.

Charging £20 per standard semi might make you good money (at the average of 3 an hour) but you are going to be at least twice the price of the average window cleaner.
Go in at a fiver and you are going to be half the price of Mr Average...
Neither way is a good way.
You need to compete with Mr Average.

The way you make your money is not to be Mr Average yourself, you don't clean 3 an hour, you aim for 4 or 5.
You become quick AND efficient at what you do.

Charge pennies and you have to go at a hell of a pace all the time and you are never going to make a really good income, and if you are working at the limit of your ability then your standard is going to be poor, you will skip detailing, rub a dry cloth over frosted glass, not bother with sills, take risks on ladders..I know, I've done it!
Why if I just place the ladder in the middle I can get both these windows in one go....all I have to do is dangle my one leg out at 90 degrees as a counter balance!

Running around like a headless chicken and panicking about the recession gets you nowhere...just a lot poorer if you start dropping your prices, and what happens when existing customers hear that you are pricing cheaper than before? Do you drop their prices accordingly just to keep them?

All of the above of course assumes you are trad as against WFP, you are going to be faster with WFP, especially with georgian, leaded and anything over 25ft, but you have far greater setup and running costs to factor in, ergo, your pricing structure needs to be very similar to when you were trad.

Many are constrained by the area in which they live and work, but regardless of where you live, if you are cheaper than everyone else then you are way too cheap!!!!

Ian

Ian; that is one of the most realistic and honest posts i have read on cleanitup.

[foxy]

i flamin well hope IPAF is a legal requirement, it cost me £200 for a scissor lift course and pass