How to Determine Pressure Washing Rates
Posted on December 28, 2011 | No Comments
Louis Merz asked:
Knowing what to charge for your pressure washing services can be difficult when you’re in the startup stages of your business. Especially if you have limited experience with pressure washing and you’re not sure how difficult each job will be or how much time each job takes. There are also many variables that come into play such as competition, market demand, and whether you are doing residential or commercial work.
First you need to figure an hourly rate for your services that will suit your business, and the number of billable hours each week, month and year you need to keep your business afloat. Keep in mind, it’s not best to charge your customers an hourly rate, it’s just a number that you know you need to stay in business. Also, understand that at first you will need to invest your time and money to build your business so make sure you include those figures when determining the amount of billable hours and your hourly rate. Once you know those figures you now have something you can base your rates on instead of figuring prices on a whim. Understand, the amount of billable hours isn’t the time you spend marketing your business or driving to the job. It’s the time you spend on the job that you can charge to the customer.
For example, let’s say you’re doing an estimate for a residential home. You know it takes six hours to complete the job and your hourly rate is $50 per hour. You know that you need to charge around $350 dollars. Charge any less and you won’t meet your hourly rate. If you keep making less than your hourly rate then you’re either going to have to make up for it by working overtime and gaining more billable hours or by charging more per hour on the next jobs. If you keep missing your quota, plan on missing that next vacation or even worse not having the funds to stay in business.
As you gain pressure washing experience you will start to gain an understanding of how much time each type of job will take. You will start to understand how long it takes you do the work based on the square footage of the amount of surface area you need to pressure clean. This is important because whenever you put in a bid for commercial work or give an invoice to a residential customer you need to measure the square footage of the job and put down the price you charge per square foot.
Last of all keep in mind that your time is valuable and time equals money. The amount of time you spend marketing, fixing equipment, driving to jobs etc. is time that you are going to have to spend on top of the amount of billable hours you need to stay in business.
Create a video blog
Knowing what to charge for your pressure washing services can be difficult when you’re in the startup stages of your business. Especially if you have limited experience with pressure washing and you’re not sure how difficult each job will be or how much time each job takes. There are also many variables that come into play such as competition, market demand, and whether you are doing residential or commercial work.
First you need to figure an hourly rate for your services that will suit your business, and the number of billable hours each week, month and year you need to keep your business afloat. Keep in mind, it’s not best to charge your customers an hourly rate, it’s just a number that you know you need to stay in business. Also, understand that at first you will need to invest your time and money to build your business so make sure you include those figures when determining the amount of billable hours and your hourly rate. Once you know those figures you now have something you can base your rates on instead of figuring prices on a whim. Understand, the amount of billable hours isn’t the time you spend marketing your business or driving to the job. It’s the time you spend on the job that you can charge to the customer.
For example, let’s say you’re doing an estimate for a residential home. You know it takes six hours to complete the job and your hourly rate is $50 per hour. You know that you need to charge around $350 dollars. Charge any less and you won’t meet your hourly rate. If you keep making less than your hourly rate then you’re either going to have to make up for it by working overtime and gaining more billable hours or by charging more per hour on the next jobs. If you keep missing your quota, plan on missing that next vacation or even worse not having the funds to stay in business.
As you gain pressure washing experience you will start to gain an understanding of how much time each type of job will take. You will start to understand how long it takes you do the work based on the square footage of the amount of surface area you need to pressure clean. This is important because whenever you put in a bid for commercial work or give an invoice to a residential customer you need to measure the square footage of the job and put down the price you charge per square foot.
Last of all keep in mind that your time is valuable and time equals money. The amount of time you spend marketing, fixing equipment, driving to jobs etc. is time that you are going to have to spend on top of the amount of billable hours you need to stay in business.
Create a video blog