Interested in how the vets on here price their house washing? What factors do you take into account, such as vinyl vs. stucco vs. brick etc.? Order of difficulty/chemicals needed? Size by LF or Sq Ft? Do you prefer flat rates? Thanks in advance for any info provided.
1 Like
I prefer the WAG method. The Wild ■■■ Guess. But really, make your pricing easy. Your most basic house washes are cookie cutter vinyl houses. Make a price for ranches and make a price for 2 stories. Don’t over complicate it. Once you get a feel for washing and how long it takes you, you’ll be able to bid larger custom homes more easily. Learning to bid appropriately is hard and takes time
1 Like
Your normal house washes include organic stains. Anything bleach will clean. Any more than that is an upcharge( rust, calcium etc)
1 Like
Figure out how to wash a house. Then figure up how long different ones take then charge what you need be profitable and pay yourself a salary. It should be figured and based on averages.
I price some by the neighborhood. I price some specifically . Fences -linear feet. Concrete- sq feet. Residential and commercial concrete rates differ. Some jobs require special chems. Others don’t. Just price accordingly.
If you choose to not do flat rates and realize you’re not getting any business but writing lots of quotes, you’re too expensive. If you’re getting 100% of the quotes accepted you can bump your prices moving forward.
It’s really simple but you’re not going to get a good cross section of your market until you’ve been washing professionally for a while.
On weird jobs, I come up with a ball park figure then add like 25% to factor in unknowns. If you don’t get the job it’s no skin off your back. You didn’t have to deal with a weird job. I make most of my money on just straight up residential house washes. Others make their money other ways. Every market is different.
Where are you located?
4 Likes
my best advice is to go out and bid it in person. take a few minutes to look around the house. do the obvious things like checking where the spigot is, testing the flow of it, checking for any damage or anything that might cause problems, then figure out how much $$ itll take to make you happy to do it. In person bids also help close the lead, puts more pressure on them and if you’re a likable person, they’ll have even more reason to hire you.
2 Likes
All of course makes sense, I live in northeast Georgia, near @Racer, I’m about to rock the PW world in this area by using some flat rate and customer booked services, must admit after viewing a few websites like @TexasPressureWashing, I want to bring some transparency to pricing in this area. Guess I’m a little bit of a rebel 
I’ve pretty much decided my standard square foot PW prices, just wanting to be competitive in house washing in flat rate pricing.
Again, just starting out makes sense, but I read on one post where the guy uses Q-public to quote basically off house sizes on that website instead of wasting time and gas, being a one man operation starting out. The intangibles are a concern though with that method and I’m starting out trying a flat tier pricing system along with a quoting option.
yeah i could easily see why the busier guys don’t like in person bids. if you’ve only got 2-3 jobs or so a week though i find it easiest to close leads in person. always makes for great reviews if the customer likes me before i even turn the machine on.
1 Like
for me i tell customers my one story washes start at $300, and 2 story starts at $400. then i’ll look up the address but if i can’t get a good look online, i’ll just offer to come by the next day or something to give a quote. basically i’m looking for anything that will cause issues IE rust stains, oxidation, etc. i go in person and explain our cleaning process and why we charge what we charge. i’ve never given an in person bid without getting the job, off my memory at least.
I wish I could get 300 around me for single story house.
2 Likes
$300-400 is high around me. I do a ranch in about 45 minutes, pull up to get paid. I have flat rates based on size. Small ranch, big ranch, standard 2-story and large 2-story. 95% of houses I do is just algae and the difference between average and really bad is only 20 minutes more at most. I’ve found with the standard rate I do really good on some, and decent on the others. If overall I’m averaging $140-150 per hour, I’m happy.
1 Like
Number of stories, material type and rough size of house/building. 80% is set pricing to keep the machine rolling. Quirky jobs I’m not interested. Couple of rust stains here and there is on the house. I like to work to live not live to work.
3 Likes
multiple their houses square footage by whatever your company wants. We charge $.15 per square foot.
