I know there are a lot of varibles here...do you pre vac...edge... do spots for additional charge! what sq. ft. gives a price break! Right now I use Truck mounts..what do you use?
Thank you

When I used to clean residential carpet I was in your ballpark with rates running between .25 - .30 per sq ft.

Commercial has a wider window of variables, size, frequency, accessability, a whole host of conditions. Our absolute bottom rate is .07 per sq ft on the gravy jobs and we slide all the way up to high residential rates on less ideal accounts.

Residential works great for many cleaners, however I really love commercial. Here's the reason why we no longer clean residential...

http://www.cleanfax.com/ENewsArticle.asp?ArticleID=350




Rick Gelinas
encapman

hey rick, sorry to barge in on this topic with another tangent, but, i need your expert advice! please tell me the best type of brushes to use on residential types of carpeting(cimex 19") I really love the performance of this machine and have made more money with it than hwe. I think that brushes would do better than pads on res & rugs.also
how do you encap stairs? I am currently using a drill,with
a dirt devil srubdevil attachment, which holds either a brush or the center cut out from the larger floor machine pads. any input will be greatly appreciated. dale devries-
carpetcare

Phil, the only real way to answer this question honestly is to compare different size jobs as Rick just did.

We never used to do much residential, only commercial. We were used to a minimum of .10/foot for commercial jobs that were from maybe 1500 sf to about 3-4,000 sf. Then we learned to use encap tools and we now can go a little bit lower on some of the larger jobs. But on the smaller jobs, we've actually gone up in price. Here's why:

Drive time: 30 min, 2 men. 1 hr total. (Regardless of how big job is or how fast your equipment is.)

Set up time: 22.5 min, 2 men. 45 min total. (Regardless of how big job is or how fast your equipment is.)

Do the job: 30 min, 2 men, 1 hr total for 1000' job with fast equipment. 45 min, 2 men, 1.5 hr total for same job but 50% slower equipment.

Pack up and do little spots that are laughing at you and your fancy equipment, mocking your manhood. Kill them all.
22.5 min, 2 men. 45 min total. (Regardless of how big job is or how fast your equipment is.)

Drive back to next job: 30 min, 2 men. 1 hr total. (Regardless of how big job is or how fast your equipment is.)

Job time total with old fashioned ugly inefficient equipment: 5 hours

Job time total with Cimex and good looking technicians really, really trying hard: 4.5 hours

On small jobs, the actual 'performance time' compared to the total time is small. Even if you gain 50% in speed, the total time difference melts into nothing. Most of the job is taken up with the logistics of getting there and setting up and knocking down. The traffic on the local roads may have a greater effect than the equipment you use, to put it at the extreme. Of course, the newer equipment is better at results, and I'm not saying that doesn't matter.

But if all you do is small jobs, you won't really see the full impact of the increase in productivity a Cimex can offer. My favorite is to get it going on a big place, where it can really melt through the square feets.

Like the German autobahn, if you wanna see your Porsche hit 220, you gotta go somewhere you can open it up and floor it!

For residential, we are now going from .30 to .33 and for small commercial, no better rate till at least 1500'. Sliding scale with rate going down from .33 gradually to .15 when we're around 5-10,000' or so. 20,000' and over can be affected more by other factors than size. For example,

Location?
How often done?
contract or one time basis?
"Marquis name" company that will look good on my reference list?
Referral from a source I need to keep happy?
Part of a larger package of work?
Dense furniture or lightly populated?
Carpet quality? Does it clean well?
Is the customer realistic or obsessive?
Are we really booked or are we 'hungry' now?
Do I actually like the client? Do they treat our staff with respect? Note to clients: You can get a better rate just by being nice to me. Sneaky clients could actually be nice to me on purpose just to save money.
Late hours? Or easy to fit schedule?
Do I have employees for this account? Or are we tight now?



More than you wanted?

Per the last Cleanfax survey the nationwide average for residential HWE is .29 per Square Foot.

I was charging only .20 cents per SF for HWE and .10 per SF for protector, until this last week. I went to .26 for HWE cleaning and .13 for protector.

I will most likely go to .28 and .14 in about 4-6 months. I really do not do much commercial work but Clay did an awesome post on it- Nice work Clay.

Enjoy,

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Thanks's to all that answered...Clay you especially, all the info I can get is appreciated! You nust be in a big market area! what do you pay eployees....hr. or percentage?

Phil

I guess we are in a big market area - we're in Boston. But things are more expensive here. For guys to live indoors, not counting buying their own place, it can cost $1200-1500/month for an apartment for a couple, not in a ritzy part of town, either. So you can't pay low money.

I pay hourly. Can't figure paying percentages. Seems to be more complicated.