How to price your UK window-cleaning round in 2026

The single most common reason a UK window-cleaning round fails to make money in 2026 isn't bad work or lazy operators. It's pricing. The cleaner who quotes £18 for a three-bed semi because that's what they paid when they were a customer in 2018 is working at half the hourly rate they need to sustain the business. The same operator quoting £35 for the same property would net £45,000 a year on the same workload, sustainably.

This guide is the pricing framework working UK operators actually use in 2026. It's the same model the Squeegify pricing engine implements: a base call-out fee, a per-window rate, a floor multiplier, and per-feature extras. The numbers below are the calibration points; the model is what makes the numbers reproducible across thousands of quotes.

I run a small round in the East of England and built this framework after watching too many new operators undercharge themselves into burnout.

The five-component pricing framework

Every defensible UK window-cleaning quote in 2026 breaks down into five components. Tracking them separately means you can adjust one without dragging the others.

1. Base call-out fee. Covers the cleaner's time arriving, parking, setting up the pole and tank, packing up, driving to the next job. Independent of property size. Sets the floor for the smallest job · without it, a single-window flat would be unprofitable. In 2026 the range is £8 to £15 for a residential round; commercial work is £12 to £22.

2. Per-window rate. Multiplies by the customer's confirmed window count. Standard ground-and-first-floor work in 2026 is £2.20 to £3.20 per window. London and the South East run £2.80 to £4.20. The North and Scottish central belt £2.00 to £2.80.

3. Floor multiplier. Applies to windows above the first floor. Standard residential is 1.25 to 1.4 times the base per-window rate (so a second-storey window at a £2.50 base rate becomes £3.13 to £3.50). Anything genuinely above 9 metres needs a longer pole · price those windows at £4.20 to £5.50 each as a fixed second-storey rate rather than a multiplier.

4. Frequency adjustment. Monthly recurring gets a discount of 15 to 18% off the one-off-equivalent price (because the round-density discount of regular bookings makes the cleaner's per-visit time cost lower and the windows are easier to clean each time). Bi-monthly: 10 to 12%. Quarterly: 5 to 8%. One-off cleans run at the full base rate plus a 30 to 60% premium because they include the cleaner's risk that the customer won't convert.

5. Extras. Per-feature line items that catch the specific things that take genuine extra time. The defensible 2026 ranges for residential UK: - Conservatory wall glass: £12 to £25 per visit - Conservatory roof glass: £18 to £45 per visit (many operators decline this entirely · the fall risk is the reason) - Bay window (per bay): £5 to £10 - French doors with full glass: £4 to £8 - Large patio glass / bifold doors: £6 to £14 - Skylights / Velux (per unit, ground-level reach): £4 to £8 - Fascia and soffit wash (annual one-off): £45 to £120 depending on house size - Solar panel clean (per visit done on): £30 to £55 - Inside cleans (per visit done on): adds 50-70% to the visit cost

A worked example

A typical UK three-bed semi-detached with 14 windows across two floors, a single-storey rear conservatory, and a bay window on the front. Operator's base rates: £10 base call-out, £2.50 per-window standard, 1.3 floor multiplier, £15 conservatory, £6 bay.

One-off pricing: - Base call-out: £10 - 14 windows × £2.50 = £35 - Floor uplift (assume 6 of the 14 are upper-floor): 6 × £2.50 × 0.3 = £4.50 - Conservatory: £15 - Bay window: £6 - One-off total: £70.50

Monthly recurring (15% discount applied to the one-off subtotal): - One-off subtotal: £70.50 - Monthly discount: -£10.58 - Monthly recurring price: £59.92 rounded to £60

This is approximately the live UK market for this property type in 2026.

Bi-monthly (8% discount): - £70.50 × 0.92 = £64.86 per visit, 6 visits/year = £389 annually

Quarterly (5% discount): - £70.50 × 0.95 = £66.98 per visit, 4 visits/year = £268 annually

The six pricing mistakes I see most often on new rounds

1. Charging by gut feel rather than the framework. The operator who "just looks at the house and quotes a number" varies by ±£15 between identical properties depending on whether they're tired, hungry, or in a hurry. Customers compare notes; inconsistent pricing erodes trust. Pick a framework and stick to it.

2. Forgetting the call-out fee on small jobs. A one-bed flat with 6 windows at £2.50 each is £15. The operator's drive to that property took 12 minutes. They lost money. Add the £10 base call-out and the price becomes £25 · still cheap but at least the round is sustainable.

3. Quoting one-offs at recurring prices. A customer who calls and says "I'd like a one-off clean before my mother visits" is a one-off customer; charge them 1.6 to 2.5 times the recurring monthly figure to reflect that the round-density discount doesn't apply. Operators who quote one-offs at the recurring price burn the time and never see the customer again.

4. Undercharging conservatories. Conservatory glass is fiddly, slow, and easy to damage. £15 per visit is the absolute minimum for the wall glass; £25 is more honest. Don't include it "free" with a regular clean · operators routinely lose money on every conservatory clean they quote without a separate line item.

5. Not raising prices for 18+ months. UK trade costs have risen materially since 2022 · insurance up roughly 25%, fuel up 18%, equipment replacement up 15%. The operator who hasn't raised a rate since 2022 is netting roughly 20% less in real terms per visit. Plan a 5-7% increase every 15 to 18 months · customers absorb that level without complaint; bigger jumps every five years trigger churn.

6. Quoting before seeing the property. Window count varies enormously between houses of the same external dimension · a 1970s three-bed semi with original wooden windows has 10 to 12 panes, a 2010s three-bed semi with the same footprint but knocked-through downstairs has 14 to 18. A blind quote averages and over-prices the smaller homes (turning them off) while under-pricing the larger (losing money). At minimum, ask the customer for the window count and bay/conservatory status. Better: use a quote tool with satellite imagery that does this automatically.

How to raise prices on an existing round without losing customers

This is what most operators get wrong because they're scared. The trade reality is that a 5-7% price increase loses approximately 0-2% of customers · vanishingly small once you're past the announcement.

The technique that works:

Six weeks before the new price kicks in, send every customer a short, friendly email. "Hi · I'm writing to let you know that my prices are going up 6% from [date] · the new price for your monthly clean will be £X. The increase reflects rising trade costs across insurance, fuel, and equipment. If you want to chat about it or have any questions, just reply to this email."

Don't apologise. Don't undersell the value. Don't offer a freeze-the-price-for-loyal-customers option (this destroys the round economics). The increase is normal, you've explained it, and the customer's mental model is "trades raise prices, this is fine."

The first cycle after the increase, watch your churn rate. If it spikes more than 3%, you over-priced; back off 2 percentage points on the next round. In my experience and from talking to other operators, a properly-communicated 6% increase loses approximately 1% of the round, and the increased revenue covers the lost customers many times over.

Don't raise prices on individual customers without raising the rate for the whole round. Customers compare notes; selective increases create resentment.

When to walk away from a customer

Some customers cost more to service than they pay. The signs:

- Customer asks for the price every visit, hoping you'll mark it down - Customer always pays late (more than 7 days past invoice) - Customer adds extra work on the day ("oh, can you also do the conservatory roof while you're here?") without expecting to pay more - Customer's property has a hidden access issue (vicious dog, narrow alleyway, blocked side gate) that adds 15+ minutes per visit - Customer's spouse or housemate consistently parks in front of the property, blocking your van

For each of these, raise the price 15-25% on the next quote cycle. If they accept, great · you're now being paid for the actual work. If they leave, you've reclaimed two to three hours a month for a better customer.

The rule: every customer should be net-positive at your standard hourly target. Customers who consistently aren't should either pay more or leave the round.

How software helps

The reason I built Squeegify is to make this entire pricing framework reproducible across every quote, on every operator's website, without the operator needing to remember it.

The customer types their address; the AI reads the property from satellite and street view; the engine applies your framework (your base call-out, your per-window rate, your floor multiplier, your extras) and produces the line-itemised breakdown. The customer sees the same shape of quote you'd produce by hand · they just get it in 10 seconds instead of in a callback the next morning.

The operator sets the rates once in /dashboard/widget and never has to think about pricing arithmetic again. The same framework, applied identically every single quote.

The Squeegify demo lets you type any UK or Irish address and see what the engine produces against the default UK calibration. If you tune the rates to match your own market (which 90% of operators do within their first week), the engine becomes your pricing voice.

If you'd rather try the framework manually first, work through it on three of your existing customer properties this week. The five-component breakdown · base call-out, per-window, floor multiplier, frequency, extras · usually surfaces 5 to 15% of underpricing on existing accounts. Raise those at the next renewal cycle.

If you want the engine to do it for every visitor on your website, /pricing is the four plans. Solo £14.99/mo (30 quotes included), through to Fleet £59.99 (625 quotes). The first ten UK or Irish operators get FOUNDER25 for 25% off any plan, locked for the lifetime of the subscription. Solo drops to £11.24 with the code.