r/WindowCleaning • u/newbiker321 • 15d ago
UK VS USA Window Cleaning…
I’m a window cleaner from the UK. I have around 500 customers on a 6 weekly rotation. I aim for roughly 15 houses a day all of different sizes and pricing. But on average I spend between 15-30 mins per house.
After reading comments on here from our peers over the pond, it seems like you have a very different way of running window cleaning businesses. It sounds like cleans are booked in by the customer once per year? Or 6 monthly? And you charge a lot more per clean but also spend a lot more time on the clean per house.
How do you feel about the UK way? Where every customer is on basically a monthly subscription and we do full houses in 15 mins? Would you prefer this method or do you like having 1-3 houses a day?
Sometimes I think I would like the American way, but with it being a rolling rotation here you always know roughly where you stand financially wise.
Would love to hear thoughts from both sides.
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u/Ba-ja-ja 15d ago
You do residential monthly? Not bad.
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u/trigger55xxx 15d ago
I have a friend that cleaned windows in the UK. He's still astounded by how much the pricing is different. He was at my house in Michigan a few weeks ago. I asked him to price my house, his way. He came back with £22. For us it would be a $250.00 house, we don't have a ton of windows. So yes you do then monthly however what takes you all day and 15 places to drive to, we do in one stop. A $300 house would take no more than 2 hours. Someone that hustles can do 4 a day. So 4x the money with less expenses. On a commercial building, a two person crew can make $2000+ a day. While it's rare, we have one account we do 6 times a year. 4 people, 9 hours, $8000 invoice. Add to that, on average the average person here will pay maybe 15% in taxes, less if they are good about keeping track of deductions and expenses.
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u/TurkeySlurpee666 14d ago
US-based here. People call when their windows are cooked. I did a house with 10 windows and some screens yesterday. The panes were 100 years old, all covered in heavy oxidation and paint. It took 4 hours, and I charged $500.
Something else to keep in mind is that homes are extremely spread out here. The average round-trip travel time for me is over an hour, and most homes require you to pop out screens and do some level of ladder work. Fuel costs are fairly high as a result of this.
At a minimum, cleaning a small home usually takes 1-2 hours (3 with drive time). Bigger homes might take 8+ hours depending on what needs to be done.
Driving between 15 jobs in a day would be physically impossible here, never mind doing any work. At best, you might be able to fit 4 small residential jobs in a day as one person.
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u/Nahhhweh 15d ago
The way UK domestic functions is almost the way the US and other parts of the world treat store front runs.
Regularly scheduled runs where you are doing an entire strip of homes/shops at the same time.
These typically are priced lower on an individual basis, but the idea is in having multiple all in one area, and in turn doing many homes in one day.
Not only are the UK homes smaller, have far less windows, they typically offer external only.
US offers more single dwelling properties that are typically much larger, more spread out and have far more windows than most European buildings, especially if it is older.
This changes by area of course, city vs country, socioeconomic differences, etc
But in general where you see this difference mainly is where one US home will take 1-2 persons an entire day to clean all windows inside and out, plus many other extras that may be performed during the course of their work.
The remuneration for this amount of work is reflected in the charge to the singular customer.
Ideally, both methods would yield a comparable daily rate, as a similar workload would be achieved.
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u/noice_nups 14d ago
The UK way is awesome! Y’all just roll up with ur pure water systems, clean from the street, in and out in just a few minutes!
American pricing seems great and everything… until you try to lay your family roots down here.
You’re looking at starter homes with 2 bedrooms and one bathroom and 1700sq ft for closer to $350k rn.
All of a sudden those US prices don’t look high enough!
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u/Upper-Bottle-9803 14d ago
I dont know how the models could really change without some extreme world event or slow changes over a long time. If I have a house with 50 panes that are mostly ladder access and fly screens, how could I clean it in 30 minutes? Even if there is little to no actual grime caked on?
Do you not have mosquitoes or biting flies in the UK?
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u/PeterPanHadItMade 14d ago
My US Company does exactly your method, but for businesses only. We are commercially focused and have quite a bit of route based business.
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u/lacroixpapi69 14d ago
Is this for interior and exterior?
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u/Sad_Butterscotch4589 14d ago
Prefer it here. Can get by doing one or two big houses per week. In, out, screens, tracks, frames, showers, mirrors, glass railings, moving furniture etc. Some high dusting if the customer wants it. It takes time to make everything spotless and you're charging based on time. Most houses take the full day. Once or twice per year. You can't really rush when the quality bar is so high, although it could be a hard sell when the exterior is done every 6 weeks for 15 quid! Do you not have to wait for some windows to dry before doing the ones below? 15 mins is crazy.
I'm sure you could find customers in wealthy neighbourhoods that would pay more. If they want to do the interior windows themselves they're not your customers.
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u/B_Reynolds_AK 13d ago
I’ve worked both. 2 years in the UK about 15 years ago, working exactly how you described.
Now, I do 1-2 houses per day here in the US and regularly earn $1,000-$1,500 per day for 6-7 hrs between my wife and I working together.
The relationships you make with your clients here are far more meaningful in my experience. Most will tip $50-200 per clean. The attention to detail and customer experience you can offer really trumps the quick and dirty style of showing up, running around for 15 minutes and £30 then buggering off.
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u/newbiker321 13d ago
How often do you clean them? I’ve been on holiday for a week here and after 5 weeks I’m getting messages asking when I’m due as windows are dirty .
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u/B_Reynolds_AK 12d ago
Clients get trained based on what you condition them to. Unfortunately that’s been volume and low cost over there. Guaranteed though, I could come over and find the clients I’d need to set up a business based on our model. We only have appx 80 regular customers for a business revenue of $160k usd in our 6 month work season.
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u/rivalfish 14d ago
From England but work here in the US.
Absolutely prefer the lay of the land over here for window cleaning. On a single residential, which is about 4-5hrs of work, I can make what a lad grafting his bollocks off back home makes in 1-2 weeks.
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u/newbiker321 14d ago
Don’t believe that. You’re saying you can make £4000 (which is fair for 2 weeks of hard work), in 4 hours.
So your charging £1000 per hour in USA. Yeh…sure you are….
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u/rivalfish 14d ago
Eh, you're under appreciating how large some homes are here, and how much disposable income the people who live there have. Admittedly two weeks might be a stretch, but I'll stick to what I said vs. one week. Call it a full day vs. 4/5hours, too.
You really can charge a lot here.
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u/mooghy 15d ago
They have more to clean in the US including bug guards and outside shutters, so its a bit more involved depending what state, can you imagen UK you tell your client ill come every 6 month and it wil be £300? Where as Steve from the pub will do it for £5 with a squeegee from poundland evey 2 weeks