S.F. or Per Room?

Do you charge per S.F. or flat rate per room?

What about Furn? By the foot or per piece?

Personally, I charge per s.f. and by the foot on furn.

The first three rooms 139.00 up to 700 sq ft and per squre foot after that furniture is per piece

Used to charge by the room last year but switching to SF this year and wouldn't go back.
Same with upholstery, used to charge per piece but now per foot, and I charge extra for white and off white fabric as well as natural fibers.

By charging by the square foot you get paid what your worth. Per room is a crap shoot. Upper end customers expect to pay by the square foot. They are suspicious of by the room pricing. Furniture is per lf as well.

I think my first three room pricing 700 sf ft max might be on the high side

19.8 cents is cheap Mo. I would cut the square foot back

^I agree, waaaaay too cheap.....I don't care what market it's in, it's too low.

I charged more (.22 s.f over 20 years ago, And if I did that today, I'd be paying them to clean their carpets.

The 2012 BlueBook has the price of .35-.41 a s.f. for your region, Mo....and that's almost 3 year old pricing. Prescott is in region 6 of 9. With region 1 being highest priced and 9 being lowest.

what region is Iowa in ?

what city?

Three rooms for 139.00 is 46.33 per room.

Mo wrote:Three rooms for 139.00 is 46.33 per room.

That's actually higher than what I charge for a three room special. But, I don't give that much footage either. 600 ft max. Open areas only. 3 rooms for 99 on a special.

I used to go by sqft, but it makes it very difficult to give a rough estimate that way as people never seem to know how large their rooms are. They can at least tell me how many rooms and if they are small, medium, and large.

That led me to using number of rooms and breaking them down into those 3 sizes. It was efficient, but wasn't always accurrate enough to ensure that you were getting paid for your efforts.

That gave me the idea to charge by the amount of time that it should take the average cleaner...much like the pricing standards your mechanic uses. If I can beat the pace, I make a larger profit and it keeps me motivated at the same time.

Same rules apply to furniture...based on time.

we charge by the room because our area has so many cookie cutters and most all rooms are similar.

anything over a standard bedroom size is considered 2 areas, if they get 4 rooms done we will include a standard hallway no charge and steps are 2.50 ea

we have a different business model though that does not include much furniture moving in the standard pricing structure. They can clear as much as they want to clear and well clean it but it has to be ready to go when we get there.

We still end up doing wall to wall sq ft priced jobs but we charge for it $$, I tell the customer straight up its an expensive job.

Honestly I like the tickets on those jobs but I hate doing them, set the price high enough so if they do go for it then its really worth it.

ACpower1 wrote:we charge by the room because our area has so many cookie cutters and most all rooms are similar.    

anything over a standard bedroom size is considered 2 areas,     if they get 4 rooms done we will include a standard hallway no charge and steps are 2.50 ea

we have a different business model though that does not include much furniture moving in the standard pricing structure.      They can clear as much as they want to clear and well clean it but it has to be ready to go when we get there.    

We still end up doing wall to wall sq ft priced jobs but we charge for it $$,   I tell the customer straight up its an expensive job.    

Honestly I like the tickets on those jobs but I hate doing them,   set the price high enough so if they do go for it then its really worth it.  

AC on stairs I started at $4.00 then went to 2.00 then to 3.00 thinking of going back to 4.00. I think the worse my knee gets the higher thst price is going to go

To me the big "if" factor is furniture moving. When charging by sf, do you charge wall to wall sf or just cleanable area? If charging wall to wall, the customer will want you to move everything ?

If charging cleanable area sf
and if they move everything they make your job easier, but get punished with a higher charge for their trouble.

The big "if" to me with either pricing structure is how to deal with furniture.

I like to give an open area price, they get rewarded with more cleaning for their money if they go to the trouble moving stuff.

But some will flip out paying (what they perceive to be) a full room price on a small bed room with just traffic lanes on either side of a bed.

SF pricing solves that problem.

MY question to the SF prices, do you charge cleanable area, or wall to wall no matter what?

I charge SF wall to wall whether there is furniture or not. If the customer asks I explain that due to edge cleaning around the furniture it takes longer to clean than an empty room. The ones I hate are when the customer offers to move the furniture around while you're cleaning. Getting in the way or making me come back into a room a second time.
What does Kelly Blue Book say about Honolulu?

If there is a large bed taking up most of the room we discount that room or combine it with another small space to account for an "area"

I have a company doing blogs and social media posting for us, one blog topic is about having high clearance under beds to create a healthier sleeping environment.. high clearance means they can easily vacuum underneath and we can easily clean underneath in situations where moving the bed would be almost impossible because of the room size.

Rainbow, Do you include basic furniture moving in your price, or to you charge separate for it?

Some good point being made, I like it.

I only charge by S.F. and only measure and charge for what I'm cleaning...........so It varies. If they want most furn moved (that I move), then I will measure wall to wall or close to it. If I'm doing traffic areas only then I short the measurements, but it's always in my favor.

I've always like per S.F. pricing because I always get paid for what I'm doing.......It doesn't work well for those who like to make money by doing volume tho. I'd rather do less (as job or two a day) and make the same amount as them, if not more. So I don't give prices on the phone,
I let the bottom feeder cleaners do that.........someone has to eat the right!!

There's an ass for every seat, and they need to be filled.

Furniture moving is a time and profit killer. Its

I don't move anything heavy in the first three rooms and I charge by the square foot of any additional areas of carpet cleaned.

To me, moving furn is part of the job. And that includes sofas, chairs, tables stuff like that......I don't move heavy stuff or electronics.

Davey Cracker wrote:To me, moving furn is part of the job.  And that includes sofas, chairs, tables stuff like that......I don't move heavy stuff or electronics.

I agree fully, it is part of the job. It also must be part of the bill.

When your mechanic charges to replace the water pump, it also charges to remove / replace all the junk to gain access to it, right? To me, it there is no difference for carpet cleaning. Moving items to gain access takes time and needs to be part of the bill.

Charging by time for residentials just like on commercials just makes sense to me. Even in the Bluebook, you will find a sqft charge and hourly rates.....I like the hourly method as I am pretty good at estimating my time usages after these years.

Furniture moving is only part of the job if you include it in your price. Many people like to pay a lower rate for going around furniture, or they elect to move most stuff off the carpet them selfs.

So why not give them the option?

Andy Mc wrote:Furniture moving is only part of the job if you include it in your price.  Many people like to pay a lower rate for going around furniture, or they elect to move most stuff off the carpet them selfs.

So why not give them the option?

I see your point, yes, they do get the option in negotians.

I cleaned a farm house lately that had the same sofa in the same place for 30 years. They had no plans on breaking tradition and saw no reason to start cleaning beneath the sofa now. Always their option.....but my initial quote included moving charges.

Actually, it was a real nice looking sofa....and VERY heavy, so I'm glad they decided what they did.

you guys might be surprised how much you can charge and have the customers prep the areas.

makes for a business model that doesnt include you being on every job,   which means if you get sick or hurt your still making money.

also you can run one guy per van instead of 2, this saves unbelievable amounts of money

perfect example is me right now,   Im a little sick but still making a lot of money today