I would be lying if I said I never moved my truck for less than $350. My first wash was March 2020, worst time I could have possibly started this business outside of the Dust Bowl. Not a lot of people wanted to shake hands and meet, but a few were accepting of free washes.
My second year, weekends only, I’m not towing the trailer unless I have at least $350 scheduled for the day.
I don’t have an official minimum. Unofficially I would say $50. But you have to be smart about it when scheduling. Smaller jobs can turn a mediocre day into a profitable day if done right. Nickels make dollars. You don’t make money sitting at home.
I go as low as $60-$80 for one side of a house. My situation is different than most though. I’m part time and have 10’s of thousands of houses within 10 minutes of my house. 95% of my jobs are only a 5-7 minute drive away and I don’t have all the large equipment most do to haul around. One side, from roll-up to paid takes 10-15 minutes. Most of the neighborhoods around here have HOAs that send out notices for algae, and it’s usually only noticeable on the north side, so people want only that side done. Many of the larger companies don’t bother with only doing these small, one side jobs, so that’s where I fill the gap. Break it down per hour, doing one side doesn’t pay nearly as well, but usually it leads to doing the whole house and also gets me more positive feedback and neighbors seeing the results. That $60 simple job can easily turn into a couple hundred for the whole house, maybe adding doing the driveway, and doing a couple neighbors houses too.
We did the same. Fortunately we spun off a “maid service” early in the company’s lifetime, so we refer inside windows to them, and wash the house.
We don’t include windows ever (other than “your windows will get washed with the house, like your windshield gets washed by the carwash…”), but offer it as an add-on or in our premium package. We do WFP on the DI only, and our pre-service email requires screens to be removed by the client (or we offer to spend the “extra time” and just do a pure water rinse of the screened portions at no add’l charge).
I’d reiterate what I said before, if your minimum is about half your average ticket, that should keep you from dragging down your average ticket…
Oh, and if you’re incorporating any sort of trip charges, they should tack on to the minimum for that area (unless you can book a full day in the same area).
I had a $175 minimum for anything, but on my website i offer a 15% discount for first time customers, so this weekend I have a driveway for $145. So i guess that is my new minimum.
Can I ask why it didn’t pan out? Was it just not worth your time or did the pure water rinse didn’t do much?
I just had a rudimentary setup, the portable 12v sprayer and a fiver of DI water from my waterfed tank. My wife would walk around behind me after rinsing but we would run out of water pretty fast.
The results weren’t up to my standards either and I just didn’t want to risk my reputation as a ‘hands on’ window cleaner. Even the expensive waterfed pole and brush I bought doesn’t come near a good nose-to-glass wash.
If we didn’t have all these window screens I would entertain the idea of using the DI brush as an upcharge.
Ro/di cart was the best thing for us 8 years ago….not saying you can using it for every job but majority of them. A lot depends on your brush and tools you use, of course method too, but they come out amazing in way less time.
What do you do with silicone, artillery fungus, bird bombs etc? How are screens dealt with?
I still can’t get my DI Xero to work right, there are always dirt runners coming down from the top frame no matter how much I rinse.
Bronze wool for fungus, boars hair brush takes care of the bird messes and most everything else. Silicone would be a up charge to a construction clean, same with paint. I don’t do many of those, if I do, I do nose to glass for sure. Screens we just take off unless we do outside only, than the customer has to remove them…I have a IPC cart, xero 40’ pole, tucker boar brush with bronze wool attachment. Works awesome, did 1000 French Panes outside only in around 3 1/2 hrs. Close to 2,000.00 charge. Water fed is great.
Lol oh man, our customers wouldn’t figure out how to remove screens. Most of our clientele is over retirement age…way over.
I tried the bronze pad on artillery but doesn’t touch it.🤷🏼 Even my Triumph scraper has to go over it a few times.
As far as removing screens, outside only is the economy version for window cleaning, stripped down, just outside cleaning only. No window sills cleaned, no screens removed…we don’t get a lot of those, we try not to do outside only. Most realize after your done that inside need to be done, so…but yeah most older customers wouldn’t take screens off. Fungus usually not an issue unless real bad, have had to use blade on some low windows close to the mulch, but majority just here and there fungus, pre wet a couple of units go back with bronze or steel wool, gone. Did some today matter of fact…I used 0000 steel wool today. I like steel wool better but rust quickly. Water fed is awesome though, have my reels, cart in truck and just hookup water line and go. Time saver.
A minimum is a must have in my opinion. Makes pricing a breeze on small jobs.
You have the full blown RO/DI setup then, nice.
Plus ∞.
I like outside only’s after pw’ing. Leaves a real nice shine to the glass, vs. the spotting I usually get after a house wash. Easy extra $150-$300 for 20-60 minutes of work.
Back to the original topic: the reason my minimum is so high, is due to opportunity cost. After a while, your business will grow to the point where you get some really great days of production (like, $2k or more in 6-7 hours), and you will realize that those are the jobs you want to focus on bringing in more of.
Then it’s a matter of, “What do I do with these little filler jobs I used to love? $75-$150 just doesn’t make sense anymore if I want more $1500-2500 days.”
That’s when you raise your minimums. It prevents you from missing out on scheduling more lucrative work, and/or forces you to focus on bringing in the larger fish, since your closing rate on tiny filler jobs will no doubt drop off.
I’m not there yet, can’t afford to turn down $150 PW customers. I run across $600 jobs once a month or so. Too many mega companies around here with the 18’ trailers and F350’s that can zip out a driveway in 30 seconds.
Another thing to consider: if your prices are too low now, you will have quite a challenge adjusting them later if you wait too long.
Better raise minimums now.
Remember I do 75% window cleaning. Can’t do hardcore minimums yet.
Just in case this helps, we raised our minimums for window cleaning as well as for washing this year and we’re still overbooked. Do it, you need to keep up with inflation at the very least.
