Cleaning rates domestic v office/commercial

[DM36]

Hello, I'm finally off the ground with my cleaning business and have so far secured a good chunk of house cleaning contracts. I'm now looking to go into office and later commercial cleaning(with appropriate training etc) my question is on service rates. Should I be charging the same rate for office cleaning as I do house cleaning? If anyone in similar business can help please maybe by not stating exactly what they charge but at least stating the variance in their rates or if you charge the same. I have flyers ready to hand out in offices however just need help on pricing. Hope I'm making sense

 

[AllUpHere]

When cleaning residential properties it is easy to differentiate your offering and charge more than the competition. With commercial work this is much more difficult.

For your residential work, charge what you like. For commercial work you need to assess what the competition is charging, and find a way to be competitive.

 

[DM36]

What would be best payment option. In advance or arrears? For commercial....

 

[Office Cleaning]

Good to hear you are doing well.

Regarding payment, all companies pay in arrears, this is a whole topic in and of itself, it creates enormous cash flow problems particularly when starting. Expect payment 30 - 90 days after work is completed, and that is assuming you have an efficient invoicing system set up and are chasing constantly for money (this is essential, no way around it unless you want to fork up your profit to invoice factoring companies).

Regarding rates, basically cut throat, how low can you go is the question. Ive been doing this for nearly 25 years and everyone pays lip service to quality / LLW / blah blah but when it comes to it they always choose the lowest price.

I suspect the rates are going to be a lot less than your domestic rates if you want to compete. Get some quotes from around your area from competitors and see if you think it is viable. Remember you may make far more profit in domestic, I’m not trying to put you off, but its got much tighter over the last decade.

Good luck

 

[DM36]

Thank you for your response @Office Cleaning it has been very very helpful and honest. I'll consider all your points and definitely increase my domestic cleaning as there's high demand for that too where I live. I'll call a few local cleaning companies to get quotes and then take it from there.

 

[dmckellar]

i run an industrial cleaning company.

We are based in Glasgow, my partner is high up in a gas company and she managed to get accounts to let her see the cost of their office cleaning.

As soon as we saw it we quickly put to bed ever being competitive. We can get around £30 an hour in industrial markets if we are doing well and everything is covered. Office cleaning they were charging £8.20 an hour before running costs, the only thing the cleaning co. never paid for was bin bags.

Bleach, APC, cloths, MF's were all included in the cost of the cleaning quote.

 

[DM36]

very helpful info thanks. I'm also wondering if I should put in place a minimum number of hours per office size as I went to see a potential office clean today and they want 2offices- one with reception and 4 desks, a toilet and kitchen cleaned within an hour! I argued it was too much to do in the time frame and they said to bring 2 cleaners but I told them that the rate would go higher as I would be expected to pay them both.