I really liked Jeanette Matte description of pricing, you go girl! When I read pricing in the 50 cents per square foot with protection, I was reminded of a conversation with Howard Partridge a few years ago (He and I started out with Host dry extraction carpet cleaning over 20 years ago) about his claim of charging 55 cents a sq. ft. to clean. He said that they measure all rooms and deduct the area under beds, dressers, etc. I measure all rooms wall to wall, with or w/o furniture and was charging 25 to 30 cents a sq. ft. I was actually getting the same as Howard, just figuring it differently. Today we ask alot of questions before we give a price, Do you want any furniture moved? Do you have pets? What type of carpet is it? How long has it been since the last cleaning? etc. We give estimates for residential on the phone, and Exact prices when we get there to clean (no two trips) I can't remember when I did not get the job after arriving, even if it was double the phone estimate. We move furniture about 5% of the time now (and we charge for it) We do not break out furniture seperately, it is included in the price after we find out what they want moved. We have even moved grand pianos and pool tables and made plenty doing it. I am not in this business to work hard for free.

I agree Ray. I charge .25ct sq ft and I measure out every
room. There are so many homeowners that want things for nothing. When I am measuring the bedroooms I always hear you can just go around the beds and furniture. Customers want me to subtract the footage under beds and furniture. If I did this a bedroom would cost me money to clean it.

I took my ad out of the phone books. The only calls you get are price shoppers. Good people who want a great cleaning at a fair price is the customer I want. I charge .37ct for cleaning and protection. I charge 25-30 ct. for resi cimex (encap) jobs the samller the job the higher the price. I have a 550 sq ft encap job Monday this is a .30 ct job. I look at it this way, I would rather clean two homes a week at $500.00 a job than 5 homes a week at $200 a job.

Ralph

Where are you guys located? I'm wodering if the market is the same as mine. I may be charging too low,