What to charge for window cleaning
Price it by the pane, and sort the panes by what they take. A pane you reach from the ground, a pane off a ladder and a small pane in a door are not the same minutes. Count each kind, multiply by your own minutes for one, add the set-up and the trip, and a price above that, divided by the panes, is your price for a pane.
By TailGateBid. .
Count panes, not windows
A pane is one piece of glass. A window with an upper and a lower sash has two. A sliding door with two panels has two big ones. A door with a grid of small squares has as many as you wipe one at a time.
That is why a price by the window, or by the house, is a guess at the glass. Two houses with twenty windows each can be forty panes or a hundred and twenty. If you quote by the window, count the panes anyway and hold your figure up against the sum here.
Count the way the glass cleans, count the same way every time, and say on the quote how you counted.
Sort them by what they take
- By how you reach them: from the ground, from a ladder, from inside the room.
- By their size: a picture window and a small square in a door are both one pane, and not the same minutes.
- By the sides you clean. A pane cleaned inside and out is still one pane, with more minutes. Keep "outside only" and "in and out" as two kinds if you sell both.
- The minutes for each kind are yours. We found no source worth naming for how long a pane takes. Time one kind on one job, divide the minutes by the panes, and that row is filled in for good.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the panes
Count the panes by kind, because they do not all take the same time: ground floor, off a ladder, the small ones in a door. Give each kind its row. The boxes add the panes up, work out the hours and put both in the calculator below. A new row opens when the last one is filled.
One piece of glass is one pane. Count it once, and say below whether your minutes cover both sides.
Your own figure, for the sides you clean: outside only, or in and out.
Setting up, moving furniture, screens, tracks and sills, carrying ladders. A quarter of an hour is 0.25.
Type how many panes of the first kind. The count shows here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each pane.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
One house, three kinds of pane
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a house has 24 panes you reach from the ground at 5 minutes each, 12 on the second storey at 8 minutes, and 8 small ones in a door at 3: 44 panes and 240 minutes, 4 hours on the glass. Say setting up, the screens and the sills take 45 minutes more: 4.75 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $270.99. Say soap and rubber come to $5 and the trip costs you $45. The job costs you $320.99. Charge $459 and you keep $138.01, which is $30 of every $100. That is $10.44 a pane.
The same house at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $357 | $36.01 | $10 |
| $402 | $81.01 | $20 |
| $459 | $138.01 | $30 |
| $535 | $214.01 | $40 |
| $642 | $321.01 | $50 |
Upstairs is a different pane
- A pane off a ladder costs you the ladder's time as well as the glass. OSHA's card on portable ladders asks for three points of contact while climbing, two hands and a foot or two feet and a hand, so the bucket and the tools go up some other way than in your hands.
- The card says not to stand on the three top rungs of a straight or extension ladder, and not to use the top step or rung of a ladder as a step unless it was designed for that. A ladder has to be taller than the window it reaches, and the tall one takes longer to carry, set and move.
- It also says a ladder set where other activity can knock it, a doorway or a walk, must be secured or have a barricade keeping traffic away. On a storefront or a busy porch that is minutes before the first pane.
- The card is a list of safety tips, not the rules themselves. If people work for you on ladders, ask OSHA or your state's program what applies to you.
Glass that is not just dirty
- Paint, stickers, mortar and stucco on new glass are not a pane like the others. A glass maker's own bulletin recommends that metal blades never be used to remove materials from glass, and says any use of one is at the risk of the owner or the window cleaner, and that its warranties do not cover scratching: Cardinal IG Company, a glass maker: Technical Service Bulletin IG12, Glass Cleaning Recommendations (01/26).
- So a clean after construction has no minutes you can count on, and the risk in it is yours. Price it as a job of its own, by the hour, and put in writing what you will use on the glass and what you will not.
- Coatings. The same bulletin says to check for coatings the glass maker applied to the outside, and to review that maker's cleaning procedures, before you start. That is a question for the customer before you quote.
- It also says not to clean tinted or coated glass in direct sunlight, and to clean one small window first and check that no damage follows. Both shape the order of your day, and the order of your day is hours.
What gets missed
- Screens, tracks and sills. They are not panes and they are not free. Put their time in the hours off the glass, or sell each as an extra with its own price.
- The inside. It is blinds, furniture and a floor to keep dry before any glass is touched.
- The trip. Six panes on a storefront carry the whole drive: what a trip costs you shows what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- The ladder you already brought. If the gutters are next on the customer's list, the same trip can carry both, and the gutters have their own sum: what to charge for gutter cleaning.
On a quote
A line on a TailGateBid quote has a quantity and a price for each, so the panes can be one line: how many, and what one costs. Screens and tracks can be extras your customer ticks. How quotes work.
If windows are an extra on a clean and not a job of their own, they still take the minutes this page counts: what to charge for house cleaning. And the hour under all of it is what an hour costs you.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Gutter cleaningFeet of gutter at two heights, each at your own pace, with the downspouts and the trip, worked into a price for a foot.
- House cleaningA regular visit sized from a home you already clean, worked into a price for each 1,000 square feet.
- Pressure washingEach surface at its own pace, with cleaners, fuel and the trip, worked into a price for a square foot.
Put the panes on a TailGateBid quote with the screens and the tracks as extras your customer can tick.
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