CarpetBossPro Blog — Estimates & Quotes

Per Room or Per Square Foot: Choosing How to Price Carpet Cleaning

Every carpet cleaning company eventually has this argument with itself. Per-room pricing is simple to explain on the phone. Per-square-foot pricing is fairer to big rooms and small ones. Both work, and plenty of companies use both for different kinds of jobs. The important thing is to choose on purpose and price the same way every time.

Start With the Service List

Whichever method you pick, it lives on your service list, as described in Building Carpet Cleaning Quotes From Your Own Service List. The list is where you decide that “Carpet cleaning” is priced per room, or per square foot, or that you have one of each for different kinds of work.

CarpetBossPro lets services be priced off the property's measurements, such as square feet, linear feet or number of rooms. So the choice is not about what the software can do. It is about what makes sense for your customers and your crew.

The Case for Per-Room Pricing

Per-room pricing is how most homeowners think. They do not know the square footage of their bedrooms, but they know they have three of them. When a caller asks “how much for three bedrooms and the living room,” a per-room price lets you answer in one breath.

• Easy to quote by phone. No tape measure, no guessing at dimensions.
• Easy to read. “4 rooms at $55” is clear on an estimate.
• Easy to sell up. Adding a room or a hallway is one more line.

The weak spot is size. A small kid's bedroom and a big open great room are both “one room” unless you have a policy that says otherwise. That is why per-room pricing almost always comes with a room policy and often a minimum. Both are covered in the next two guides.

The Case for Per-Square-Foot Pricing

Per-square-foot pricing ties the price to the amount of carpet actually cleaned. Big rooms cost more, small rooms cost less, and nobody argues about whether a loft counts as a room.

• Fair for unusual layouts. Open floor plans, basements and bonus rooms price themselves.
• Natural for commercial work. Office managers and property managers often think in square feet already.
• Scales cleanly. A big job and a small job are priced on the same rule.

The weak spot is that you need the number. Homeowners rarely know their carpeted square footage, and a whole-house figure from a listing includes kitchens and bathrooms you will not touch. Per-square-foot pricing works best when you measure on a walk-through or have the measurements on file from a previous visit.

Using Both

Plenty of carpet cleaners settle on a mix that fits their work:

• Residential by the room, with a size limit per room written into the policy.
• Oversized rooms and basements by the square foot, so the great room does not get cleaned for the price of a bedroom.
• Commercial by the square foot, because that is how offices and common areas are measured.
• Whole-house packages as a flat price for customers who want one number.

Set each one up as its own service. The person quoting picks the one that fits the job, and the estimate shows the customer which method was used. A whole-house flat price has its own pros and cons, covered in Whole-House Carpet Cleaning Packages: When a Flat Price Beats Counting Rooms.

Record the Numbers on the Estimate

Whichever way you price, write down what the price was based on. CarpetBossPro's carpet job details include the square feet and number of rooms, plus checkboxes for which rooms are being cleaned: bedrooms, living room, family room, dining room, hallway, stairs, office and basement.

That record matters later. When the estimate is approved, the details carry onto the job, so the tech knows the quote assumed four rooms and 1,100 square feet. If the tech walks in and finds six rooms, there is a clear starting point for the conversation. And the next time that home books, the new job fills in from the last one, so you do not have to measure again.

Pick One and Be Consistent

The worst pricing method is the one that changes depending on who answers the phone. A customer who got a per-room quote last year and a per-square-foot quote this year will notice, and they will ask which one is the real price.

Decide how each kind of job is priced, write it into your service list, and train everyone who quotes to use it. Then let the estimate show the math. To see how per-room, per-square-foot and package pricing fit together with approval and scheduling, visit the carpet cleaning estimate software page.