<font color=e87400>WFSTOTT
No offense man, but you need to learn how to price your own work. Asking for pricing advice here on the forums is not the way to go. I would love to tell you a price that is wayyyyy to low just to have you get the job & then get burnt on it. However this would be adverse to another that may lose the job because of it.
Pricing is a sensitive subject. In order to figure out how much to charge you first need to figure out how much YOU can do. I'm guessing your a newbie since you're persistantly asking this question. How much footage & how much per hour your are going to have to charge would most likely be FAR FAR from the same as my stats.
Example: I am experienced & equipped I may be able to clean 5000 sqft an hour & you may only be able to clean 2000 sqft an hour. If we both charge the same rate per sqft then I would make 2 1/2 times as much per hour as you. Thus if you tried to use what I make per hour for this job they may laugh you off saying your way too high because you would be asking my price but for your time. As far as hourly. I don't charge that way, & NO ONE SHOULD. Use rate whenever possible. Rate being sqft, or Lft in most cases. Using the "rate" method is the ONLY way to consistantly make money in this business. Reason: Because if you start off with a "rate" that makes you money when your a newbie if you don't lower your rate then you will consistently make more money because your speed increases over time. You may start out making $100 an hour but in a couple years the same jobs & the same "rates" may yield you $200 an hour because of your increased speed. Include other variables to the speed increase, like experience, chemical refinement, better equipment etc.
Now, along with all that. YOu have to consider that your area has different demographics than perhaps my area & many or most others on this forum. With different demographics comes different prices. IT's similar to real estate in a way. I might ask on these forums wether or not $100,000 is a good price for a 3br 2ba 2 car garage house. Well, how would you know? In my area $100,000 for a house like that may be 4 times too much or it may be the bargain of a life time. It's all about the demographics. Another example might be to see what the cost of living expenses of one area to another might be. I live in florida & you do to, but my cost of living income could be 30% less if I lived in your area. I could live as well off $70K annual income there as I do off $100k here. Cost of Living. It's a big part.
I don't usually give too much in the way of pricing but I will give this as a possible base of reference if you have absolutely no clue what to charge or what a viable business should make. As a rule of thumb I would suggest to any "new" pressure cleaner to set their "rate" (based on square footage or (linear footage where applicable, houses, fences etc)) so as they will make approximates 3 - 3 1/2 times per hour as whatever the highest paid "Tradesman" are making. Highest paid tradesmen being Master Electricians, Master Masons, ASE Master Automotive Technicians at "Dealerships" etc etc, In other words the TOP paying slots of the blue collar industry. Remember this is a STARTING point for new businesses. In my area they make around $25 an hour. In your area I'd guess around $20 an hour If you are already established then your multipler would be more. My multiplier is significantly higher than 3 1/2 x's.
Reminder. That hourly price there should NOT BE USED DIRECTLY.
You need to learn how much of what you can do per hour. THis ONLY comes via experience. Find something you do or have done that is as similar as possible to what you are bidding. Adapt what it took to do another job, time, chems, equipment & use it to calculate what it will take to do the job you are bidding. <b>Again. NEVER CHARGE HOURLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unless of course there is absolutely no other way, which does happen time to time but VERY rarely. CHARGING HOURLY YOU WILL NEVER NEVER NEVER GET A RAISE!!!!!</b>
Other issues to this job that affect OUR inability to give you an accurate price are things like.
<li>How many feet are we talking? If it's 500 or 10,000 affects the price greatly. 500 ft is no big deal 10,000 is a big deal because accessibility & mobility come greatly into play. The longer it is the more you have to move your rig. You may need to tank water? These are big issues.
<li>How bad is it. Is it Black, Green, Orange. Is it all of the above. If it's black green & orange. Then you are going to be in for a haul. You'll need to pressure blast the hell out of it to get the black off then chem treat it twice, once for the green & once for the orange. Each adds chem cost & labor.
<li>Recovery issue. If you are doing curbs I'd bet anything there are going to be storm drains in their path. I know for a FACT that Florida won't look on that water going down their storm drains too kindly.
Bottom line, don't ask people here what to charge. They cannot tell you accurately. Yes there is a pricing table on the internet however it's as helpful as empty roll of Toilet paper. The prices it reflects are either inaccurate or too wide a range to be of any use to anyone. For instance on a top pressure cleaning site there is a reference to $0.08 to $0.15 per square foot for flat work. Seems like no big deal on one hand however calculate that times 100,000 square feet & see what kind of price swing you get. It's ridiculous. That 100,000 sqft gets prices at $8,000 to 15,000. A few pennies can be A HELLUVA ALOT in flatwork!
<b> AND PLEASE no one elaborate on the prices given above. I have shared them of an example of how the price guide is basically garbage. We don't need people saying well I charge this & that. Whenever ANYONE says that someone should charge this or that they may be creating a pricing issue in someone elses market. I see this happen fairly often where someone will say I'd charge .xx per square foot for that in response to someone asking for pricing help. Very often the price that is quoted is significantly off from the pricing in my area. Thus when you say a price that is low you may be unnecessarily costing me a job due to lowballing. When the price is too high you are only setting up some newbie for doom. Either way it's not good!
<i>And if anyone wants to dispute my recommendation for a starting point price structure for newbies please let me know, if others deem it inaccurate or inappropriate I will delete it. I hate putting it out there but feel that it may be helpful to keep newbies from lowballing themselves.</i></b>
Well there's a ton more too it than this, but I'm tired of typing.
GL