For your trade / Pricing guide
Most new window cleaners price by the window and get burned, because "a window" can mean one big sheet of glass or a colonial grid with twelve little lites. The fix that experienced operators land on is pricing by the pane. Here's the whole method, with sample numbers you can swap for your own.
A pane is one piece of glass. A picture window is one pane. A double-hung is two. A six-lite grid is six. Counting panes makes a colonial house price honestly and a modern house price fairly, with the same rate.
One rate for outside only, and a separate flat rate per pane for inside and out. Resist the urge to make inside-and-out a multiplier of your outside rate. Multipliers create weird numbers like $10.01. A clean flat rate is easier to say out loud and easier to defend.
Divided-light and French panes are small, but there are a lot of them and the edging work adds up. Count them separately at their own lower per-pane rate rather than lumping them with standard panes. Some operators charge a quarter to a half of their standard rate per lite.
Skylights carry their own rate because of the ladder work. Stories scale your labor, so many operators add a percentage per story above the first. If a second story costs you 25 percent more time, it should cost the customer more too.
Set a minimum job price and never quote below it. A six-pane condo still costs you the drive, the setup and the insurance. The minimum is what keeps small jobs from quietly costing you money.
Sample walk-through with round sample numbers, not market advice. Say your rates are $5 per pane outside, $9 inside and out, $1.50 per French lite, $12 per skylight, with an $89 minimum. A two-story house with 24 standard panes inside and out, 10 French lites and 1 skylight prices at 24 x $9 plus 10 x $1.50 plus $12, which is $243. Add your second-story factor if you use one. Above the minimum, so the minimum doesn't bite.
The dollar figures above are sample numbers to show the method, not market-rate advice. Your market, your costs and your time set your real rates.
Everything on this page is exactly how the GleamBid quote widget prices jobs, with your numbers in place of the samples. Your customers answer the questions, your rates do the math, and finished quotes book themselves onto your calendar.
The website, the quote assistant, self-serve booking and the CRM. No setup fee, cancel anytime. The same instant-quote and self-booking setup runs $229 a month elsewhere, without the website.
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