Square foot or by the room?

[josie67]

Hi,

We were wondering what everyone prefers in regards to rates. Do you charge by square foot or by the room? And what do you charge? We will be doing residential.

Thanks and have a nice day.

[chevygirl57]

I would charge by the hour. If you try by room or square foot and compare it to what you could make at $20+ an hour, you could be losing out.

[Kevin]

This is always a good topic of conversation. Chevygirl how long do you think it will take you to clean a 1200 sq. ft furnished home? What is your production rate?


We do square feet and let me tell you why. Lots of phone estimates... I know, I know here comes the I like to meet the customer in person and walk through and look at the house, and blah, blah..... I say great if you have the time.We still do also. All those identical calls coming in
"We have a 1200 sq. ft home with this and that.."

If you do enough of them you can give them a basic price over the phone. If they balk... then say, but thats a rough estimate let me come to your house to give you a full estimate.. Regardless you have to go to their home. Why pay the gas money and labor time twice? And here comes the final answer, go for the experience if its just you.

[Pages Personal Cleaning]

Chevygirl
I think 20.00 an hour is too low. I would figure it at least at 25.00 per hour. Also, when estimating don't forget to add on for the initial cleaning.
Patti

[debi5257]

I charge by the square foot. After the initial cleaning, and if the customer is on a regualr schedule whether weekly or bi-weekly the cleaning never takes as long, and I think that you end up making more by pricing by square foot. I have one customer that I do weekly and her house is 2000 sq. ft., and I get $100 per cleaning. The job only takes me 2.5 to 3 hrs so I am making out a lot better than if I charged her by the hour.

[kimmierue]

Well, I know you're all gonna frown at this post...hehe...but I charge neither by the square foot or by the hour (except when doing Initial Cleans $25/per hour after 4 Hours).

Now, I'm sure when business starts booming I might need to come up with a more structured method. But for right now I just go into a house, my starting price is $85 and that is for a home where I know when I get used to it, it will only take me roughly 3 hours. I tell them that I leave when I'm done, not in a set amount of time. However my profit never comes out to be lower than $25 an hour, and in a lot of cases it ends up being higher. I just kinda take a look around, assess the situation and give it a price. It has worked for me so far. This way I don't have to bother with the square footage. And in my opinion charging only by the hour can be hard because then people only want you there for a couple hours and then they start breaking your fee up into half -hour increments and stuff.

[tracey48429]

Boy pricing sure is confusing!!! I have no idea how I want to charge!

[dredays40]

You charge how much you want to make

[Grizzly]

The bottom line is this, YOU CHARGE BY WHAT YOU FEEL YOU ARE WORTH AND WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR. There seems to be a great deal or concern by how you figure your charge, by the hour, by the square foot. HOW YOU EXPRESS YOU CHARGE DOES NOT REALLY MATTER. IF YOU FEEL THAT YOU NEED $100.00 FOR A JOB TO BE PROFITABLE THAT IS WHAT YOU CHARGE. If it needs to be quoted in price per sq. ft. then work it back. Once you are more experienced like Kevin, you know that in a worst case scenario a certain charge for a certain square footage will still make you money. However, until you have that experience you DO need to calculate your costs, your time etc. plus your profit for each job.
Then work it back to a price per square foot or whatever. Pricing by the hour, is NEVER quoted to a client because it is a truism that they will be there with their stop watch. We quote prices like many other trades, "for a job of that size and what you are asking a "TENTATIVE PRICE " would be this, we can firm up the price after a site visit and a determination of exactly what you want. For commercial or industrial , I will not give a price without a site visit. don't waste my time if you are shopping around for price, we do quality work and that costs more than a lowball price. Lowball pricing leads to significant complaints and many headaches. There I have ranted on enough. ;D

Bill

[logan5127]

Great advice Bill.

[Pages Personal Cleaning]

Very good Bill
I am a firm believer in the saying, "you get what you pay for"
Patti

[Roman Cleaning Services]

debi5257 said:

I charge by the square foot. After the initial cleaning, and if the customer is on a regualr schedule whether weekly or bi-weekly the cleaning never takes as long, and I think that you end up making more by pricing by square foot. I have one customer that I do weekly and her house is 2000 sq. ft., and I get $100 per cleaning. The job only takes me 2.5 to 3 hrs so I am making out a lot better than if I charged her by the hour.

Do use the .05, .07, .09 pricing?

[russo]

i agree within reason.

[josie67]

There is a lot of good information here. I will review it all. Thanks everyone.

Josie

[gailm]

Good money just waiting to be made with your initla cleanings.

I know a lot of cleaning companies charge by the sf. But this doesn't take into consideration that one house in a development will be sparsly furnished and another will be bursting at the seams (with clutter and children!).

How much money do you want to make? If you charge the same for the sf, in this scenario you make the same but work more hours on one of the houses.