£7 per hour cleaning?

[Amazin]

I'm trying to start a domestic cleaning business so I doing some research as too how much I should charge. I'm thinking £10 per hour then I saw this:

http://www.homeclean.co.uk/

seriously, how are they going to make any money? unless its limited time only.

 

[DesignerNick]

Cheap Labour?

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

You Pay the Cleaner Only £7p/h

Reading beyond the headlines...

Homeclean acts as an introduction agency between clients and cleaners. On payment of an annual fee of £189 + VAT the agency will contract to introduce domestic cleaners to the client to clean one property only.

Karl Limpert

 

[S-Marketing]

Dont compete with monkeys mate. Charge less than 10 - 12 quid an hour and you may as well just cut out the middle man and chuck a load of cash in the bin, and get a job in Tesco.

 

[ADS-MARKETING]

Yes, if you get enough business at a higher rate and your customer are happy, go for it.

You pay for what you get.

 

[IndiCafe]

We pay £10 per hour directly to our polish lady for domestic cleaning in London, including some ironing. I wouldn't hire anyone cheaper as I know we'd get poor quality and unreliability despite what the website says. Nobody does a good job for peanuts.

 

[rie76]

hi , regarding the cost of your services will surely depend on the area your aiming at for possable clients , try researching your local competators 1st that will / are covering the area your aiming at for clients , u will b surprised at their hourly rate !

 

[thetime22]

If you go on gumtree you can get 100's of people to clean for 7 an hour. However hiring someone you can trust is another question. People would pay more for a trusted, reputable service.

 

[I Love Spreadsheets]

I would rather hire from a trust worthy company at £10-£12 an hour than employee someone at £7 an hour.

At the end of the day you are hiring people to come in to your home, maybe even if you are not there. With the company you highlighted I would be asking myself, as a company that charges for introducing cleaners etc how much liability to they take when things go wrong? What happens if they introduce a thief in to your home?

 

[virtuallysorted]

I pay my cleaner £10/hour in Glasgow, so how they could charge £7/hour in London and get people to work for them, I have no idea.

We used to have a much cheaper firm of cleaners who came in. They were supposed to do 3 x hours @ £7/hour. But they actually had a team of 3 cleaners so they'd only do an hour, their cashflow was based on squeezing as many houses in per day. And they weren't particularly thorough either.

 

[techresolve]

read between the lines headline are there to attarct people.. im sure there is some kind of catch to this. or may say from only £7 per hour ..

 

[markmax]

Hi,

I think its totally depends on your business area.If there is warm market for it than you can charge more than $7.

 

[Amazin]

Dont compete with monkeys mate. Charge less than 10 - 12 quid an hour and you may as well just cut out the middle man and chuck a load of cash in the bin, and get a job in Tesco.

exactly, thats I thought when I saw that. Didn't realise it was an agency though. Now it makes sense. The problem is that it shard to even get a job in Tesco.

I pay my cleaner £10/hour in Glasgow, so how they could charge £7/hour in London and get people to work for them, I have no idea.

If thats the case, I'm thinking of charging £12 per hour, I think thats reasonable and I know I will do a good job. I'm not going anywhere unless the customer is satisified!

 

[tomp1986]

hi

my girlfriend has being running her cleaning comapny 2 years and charges £10 per hour and has work coming out of her ears turning people away weekly

and she works about 50 hours a week

so dont be go any lowing its not attractive

keep it up the customers will come

 

[S-Marketing]

Then she shouldn't be charging £10 an hour.

hi

my girlfriend has being running her cleaning comapny 2 years and charges £10 per hour and has work coming out of her ears turning people away weekly

and she works about 50 hours a week

so dont be go any lowing its not attractive

keep it up the customers will come

 

[saxondale]

Then she shouldn't be charging £10 an hour.

no, thats the market value, any higher and she won`t have work in surplus.


she should be charging £10.00 an hour but employing someone to do the work she cannot do.

 

[S-Marketing]

Thats a good point.

I personally think she could probably go up a couple of quid and lose the cheap skates off the bottom. I have used this technique many times with trade and service businesses. Over promote the business, put the prices up, and skim all the best customers who will take the raise off the top. This technique only loses you the ones with no loyalty to your business, and usually the ones who are more trouble.

You could well be right though, its impossible to tell without more detail about the womans business, area and competition.

no, thats the market value, any higher and she won`t have work in surplus.


she should be charging £10.00 an hour but employing someone to do the work she cannot do.

 

[saxondale]

Thats a good point.

I personally think she could probably go up a couple of quid and lose the cheap skates off the bottom. I have used this technique many times with trade and service businesses. Over promote the business, put the prices up, and skim all the best customers who will take the raise off the top. This technique only loses you the ones with no loyalty to your business, and usually the ones who are more trouble.

You could well be right though, its impossible to tell without more detail about the womans business, area and competition.

I`ve never subscribed to the fewer customers spending more theory.


By the time you`ve proved yourself wrong your in deep money trouble, any sales a sale in my book.

 

[S-Marketing]

I'm not suggesting less customers mate. Just getting more money from the same amount of customers.

Trouble with thinking that any sale is a sale, is you can easily end up being very busy, but being skint.

Ah, the advantage I have, is i'm never wrong

I`ve never subscribed to the fewer customers spending more theory.


By the time you`ve proved yourself wrong your in deep money trouble, any sales a sale in my book.

 

[David Earle]

Beware of cleaners nicking your cillit bang and taking it to other houses!

 

[BizGurl]

Have you worked out your costings properly? You appear to be just plucking numbers out of thin air, just following what everyone else is charging. Its useful to use other peoples prices for a guide, but you'll need to think about things like your business insurance, fuel (which just keeps going up), vehicle business insurance & repairs, tax, NI, not to mention your cleaning 'consumables'. I'm sure you'll want to pay yourself and make a profit too, and £7 and hour just won't cut it. £10-12 an hour is cutting it fine...most of the cleaners I'm aware off, who are actually making a decent living or who plan to grow are charging around £15-17phr. My cousin was looking into starting a cleaning comapny last year, and while doing a bit of market research with her, we noted that a lot of people are actually willing to pay quite a bit more for a job well done and someone trustworthy and reliable, so don't undercut yourself and market yourself as cheap. Work out your true costings and show you're good at your job. jmo

 

[tomp1986]

£15-£17 p/h where is this hollywood

and at £10 p/h put the hours in and you can make not a bad living

and its 80% cash

 

[TheDude]

We had a flyer come through the door today for a local cleaner ... £10 - 12 / hour (Ipswich)

 

[BizGurl]

£15-£17 p/h where is this hollywood

and at £10 p/h put the hours in and you can make not a bad living

and its 80% cash

There really is nothing Hollywood about forking out £15-17phr for a couple hours a week if you want a damn good top notch service.

Besides, if that price range was really that bad, how come some of these franchise companies have managed to 'make it' (In fact, from a lot of 'testimonials/complaints' I recall, a lot of these high priced cleaners aren't even that thorough but still 'rolling in it' so to speak :|, so imagine if you're charging those rates but are good?).

 

[Rhodes100]

Every other post these days seem to come from someone who thinks its an easy option to start a cleaning business and make money.

Firstly dont confuse cleaning companies with cleaning agencies. This one in London is an agency, they provide labour only, although having said that £7 a hour is really a low hourly rate in London, some of these people will not even speak English so you will not be able to communicate what you want from them.

A cleaning company will have a van and cleaning materials, so you need to be sure about what you want to do.

Domestic cleaning is a highly competitive market, you are in competition with the single lady cleaner who just wants 5 customers a week offering cleaning at £7 a hour, franchised cleaning agencies live Maid2Clean who market agressively at prices around £10 an hour and cleaning company franchises like Molly Maids at £15 a hour and of course the customer themselves.

Its not an easy option at all if you want to earn a significant income but an easy one if you simply want a £140 a week income.

 

[Amazin]

hi, my girlfriend has being running her cleaning comapny 2 years and charges £10 per hour and has work coming out of her ears turning people away weeklyand she works about 50 hours a week

If I was her, I would've hire a part time cleaner so I can spend more time on sales and marketing.

I have never received any leaflets from cleaning companies myself then again maybe its because I live in Leytonstone

A cleaning company will have a van and cleaning materials, so you need to be sure about what you want to do.

Thanks Rhodes100 for the useful info. Unfortunately I don't have van or even a driving license.

 

[IndiCafe]

My cleaner travels to her customers by local transport, which in London is the fastest way. She doesn't need equipment or cleaning materials as we supply those. Her only costs are a travelcard. She gets £30 for 3 hours from us, and if she worked 8 hours a day - say 3 customers - plus travel time - 5 days a week, thats about £18k per year after holidays... if she's fully utilised. Hard work though, and word-of-mouth is important as people don't want to give their house keys to someone without a recommendation.

 

[DancingWithPoodles]

your biggest problem is not the pricing point but that you are a male and customers will not trust you

 

[BizGurl]

your biggest problem is not the pricing point but that you are a male and customers will not trust you

Don't be so silly and sexist...he'll be fine if he offers to do it in't nude...

 

[DancingWithPoodles]

people always refer to me as sexy but never sexist. I am not sexist if I was I was still going to be a virgin.

I will not let some 25 year old guy clean my house while I am working and my girlfriend is in the house

Don't be so silly and sexist...he'll be fine if he offers to do it in't nude...

 

[BizGurl]

people always refer to me as sexy but never sexist. I am not sexist if I was I was still going to be a virgin.

I will not let some 25 year old guy clean my house while I am working and my girlfriend is in the house

Working on your colouring in? Do mam and dad know you sneak your girly friends into the house after school?
What do you do together anyway? Watch Ben10 or make pretend chocolate with playdough? As for this statement: I am not sexist if I was I was still going to be a virgin. Crikey, kids are at it younger and younger these days aren't they?!

 

[jdpackaging]

I don't know

 

[Gill]

Returning to the question..... pricing is important but as it has been mentioned there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration. Insurance can be expensive but is absolutely necessary, think how you will promote your services, know what you will include/not do. References will be required.

Our local cleaning company charges £17 per hour with a minimum of 2 hour hire.

Our local ironing lady charges £12 per hour and is almost always busy.

With regards to 'a sale is a sale' I disagree - this isn't easy - cleaning is physically demanding, you will have to provide a good, efficient and thorough service - but then you should be fairly rewarded for that, I wouldn't consider £7 per hour a fair reward.

Good luck with it - do your research!

Gill

 

[Amazin]

Don't be so silly and sexist...he'll be fine if he offers to do it in't nude...

hmmmm, why not, I can rob some olive oil all over my body too. are you aware that in Japan you can have your sushi served on a naked woman's body for a ridculous price?

your biggest problem is not the pricing point but that you are a male and customers will not trust you

It makes me wondering what business you're running with that attitude. Even if there's some truth in that, I would never want to put that thought in my head. If you read Duncan bannatyne's "change your life now", there was a young male entrepreneur mentioned in there that started a cleaning business and was making very good money and he was black.

£7 is just not enough, it only show that you don't believe in youself. I think £12 or £13 is a good price in london. £15-17 is bit too much.

Btw, how's "Airwave Clean" for a company's name?