Am I being unreasonable increasing my cleaning rates to £17.50 an hour?

[Chattychoo]

I am a cleaner , I am half semployed half self employed. I charge £15 an hour(north west) , some I provide cleaning products some they provide.
I last increased my rates 3 years ago but now employ my daughter a few hours a week.
I have a few clients I travel to (20 mile round trip) and due to inflation, fuel and general increased prices thought it was time for a price increase.
i have googled and tried to find what the general prices people charge and I don't want to overcharge anyone.
i have sent a couple of clients that I travel to an email raising to £17.50 an hour but it's not going down well. I haven't heard off one but the other has questioned it . I stated costs have risen and did mention fuel which I probably shouldn't have.
Ive been asked to re consider as it's now coming back down but all my other costs have gone up, insurance , minimum wage even cost of washing my cloths , even my rent so now I don't know how to reply , I feel I'm overcharging and wish I'd never mentioned it!

She isn't an employee, she's a business and they are a client - so she's entitled to factor those costs into the overheads for her business, and work out what a client needs to pay based on this. During a working day, if she only does 2 hrs per client she will be driving maybe 4 or 5 times round the houses - that's not a commute.

Petrol costs are very relevant overheads for cleaners.

One of my cleaners used to come by bus, but then she moved and it wasn't worth her time on the longer bus to come and clean for me. I entirely understood! I used to pay her bus fare.

Being in the same location, roughly, as the cleaner is great. Cleaners are entitled to pick and choose people who are more local or pay more, but far away clients who use petrol and quibble about an increase on £15 are not going to keep their cleaners.

This is really good
except I think I would leave out the suggestions of slightly reducing the time or adjusting the frequency, in the first email.. because that's giving them the option to back down.
They could simply cut an hour out.. and the OP would end up losing the pay for a whole hour but probably strive to push the boat out and give the same service. but she'd still have the same fixed costs, including the away further travel.. So that would negate any benefit from the £2.50 pay rise. Also... its backing down and that's a bad precedent to set.

Maybe explaining it like that will make them think fair enough, and just agree to pay.
I'd leave it up to them to come back with their own suggestion if they really feel they have to by that point. But if they can't realise that she clearly can't maintain the same rate for more than 3 years in the face of rising costs, then I would start looking for a new client anyway.

OP it sounds like you are a good, efficient and reliable service provider. I hope they agree to the full raise. I bet none of these people go up to the till in the supermarket and say "This butter's gone up by x per cent... but I've been paying the same price for three years now so I think I'll carry on paying that price or go elsewhere" (even if they know that its gone up everywhere)

Let your clients have a chance to shop around and see that you were providing really good value and a good working relationship and that they've paid a low rate for 3 years and your proposal is well within the market price.

I pay £15 an hour for my cleaner in the North West but rates are different everywhere. I certainly think you have every right to charge what you like and what you need but it would be worth having a look at what others in your area charge so that you are competitive and you'll be less likely to lose clients. I would also add that if you were my cleaner - I have her for two hours per week so that for me would be an extra £5 per week/ about £20 per month which is a large increase for clients. I think there is a misconception that people who have cleaners are millionaires, but it's often the elderly too. It might be worth upping your prices annually in future in smaller increments. Good luck!

I think there is a misconception that people who have cleaners are millionaires, but it's often the elderly too. It might be worth upping your prices annually in future in smaller increments.

But that's irrelevant to OP, though. She's selling a service at a standard market price (if not below) and it doesn't really matter what the customers' circumstances are to her.

Whether they're elderly/disabled and cannot do their own cleaning, busy and don't have time or fit, healthy and have plenty of spare time but just can't be bothered... if they can afford OP's prices (based on her earning a livelihood), it's an option; if they can't, it isn't. Like with any consumer goods or services: it makes no difference to the seller whether you would love to buy it but don't have the money, or if you do have the money but don't want to buy it; the only ones that matter to them are the customers who want it and can afford it.

I don't actually see, though, how upping it in small increments would make any difference to elderly customers or anybody else on a budget? If OP ups her price no by £2.50 or if she'd upped it by 83p annually for the last three years, they'd still be paying the same now; in reality, they've just managed to save a chunk of money over the past two years.

Pay 20ph north west and cleaner leaves early so its even more. I'd stand my ground if I were you. Get a new client on £20ph instead.

Don’t back down, your increase is reasonable.

I’m in West Yorkshire and we pay our cleaner £20 an hour. £17.50 seems fair, but how many hours are you doing per client? If you’re doing 2 a week, £5 a week is ok - £20 -£25 a month. If you’re doing 10 hours a week, it’s a big difference.

Our cleaner used to offer a £5 discount for 3 hours. Maybe consider something like that, so keep the increase but maybe say 4 hours (together) for £65.

Fuck's sake. What a ridiculously narrow and judgemental post. If there's nothing stopping you cleaning your home, that's great but for a lot of us it's a challenge that has nothing to do with being 'lazy'.

I pay my cleaner £14/hour in the E.Midlands and she's very good. If she tried to put her prices up there's 2 or 3 more in the village that would do it for that price. The alternative is a minimum wage job in a local factory. I'm not sure anyone is getting 17% pay rises in the current climate!

If you were working in a factory you’d be getting holiday pay and employer pension contributions which would be the equivalent of earning £14.12 an hour plus you wouldn’t have dead time travelling between clients or pay for materials/ petrol.

I’m not saying some people won’t work for £14 ph self employed but they will be worse off than an equivalent min wage employee everything else being equal (commuting / childcare costs etc)

I live in northeast our cleaner £20 p.h and all cleaning stuff etc is here for her, gone up a pound a year for the last five

behold the Great British mindset of 'I'm too good to clean the shit stains off my own toilet so I'll hire an immigrant to do it'

You're aware disabled people exist, right? There are myriad reasons someone may not be able to clean their house themselves.
Cleaning work is simply work. It's work that helps a lot of people find flexible working hours that fit their needs, that shows a solid work ethic, that helps keep a lot of women in the workforce who might otherwise be kept out circumstantially. It moves money directly from those who are financially rich but time poor to those who are financially less well off.
Describing it as something you 'hire an immigrant to do', in such a derogatory way, is offensive to immigrants and to all the hard working people working in the industry.

behold the Great British mindset of 'I'm too good to clean the shit stains off my own toilet so I'll hire an immigrant to do it'

Some of my friends have cleaners. They're not immigrants. My niece is a cleaner. She's not an immigrant either. What an odd thing to say.

It’s a 16% increase. Inflation is not running at 16% and I don’t know anyone who has received 16% pay rises from their employer. When you look at it in that context then yes it is a significant increase and you can expect to lose a few clients - others won’t bat an eyelid.

You can bore off with your attempt at rage baiting. I was talking about heath and mobility limitations, nothing to do with where a cleaner comes from, nor anyone thinking they are 'too good' to clean their own toilets. On that point, though, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of us who have a cleaner, including myself, still clean the toilet ourselves because we actually happen to respect our cleaners and don't feel they should have to clean up our shit.

If the bile you just spat is fuelled by bad experiences of your own, that's unfortunate but doesn't make it OK to make insulting blanket assumptions about others.

If you are near Manchester send me a DM as I currently pay more and they are OK but not brilliant.

What hourly rate would you charge to clean per hour? Factoring in your costs, fuel etc etc