CarpetBossPro Blog — Estimates & Quotes

Room Minimums: Setting a Floor Under Every Carpet Cleaning Quote

A one-room job takes nearly as much setup as a four-room job. The van still drives across town, the hoses still come off the reel, the truck-mount still warms up and the tech still walks the house with the customer. If the price is just one room at your per-room rate, the small job can cost you money. That is what a minimum is for.

Minimums Go With Room Pricing

If you price per room, you need a clear rule about what a room is. That is covered in What Counts as a Room? Writing a Room Policy Your Carpet Cleaning Quotes Can Stand On. A minimum is the other half of the same idea: a floor under the total so that even the smallest job pays for the trip.

The minimum is your business decision. There is no right number for everyone. A shop in a dense suburb with short drives might set a lower floor than an owner who covers a big rural area.

Two Common Ways to Set a Minimum

Most carpet cleaners use one of these:

• A minimum number of rooms. “Two-room minimum.” Easy to say on the phone and easy for customers to understand.
• A minimum dollar amount. “Minimum job $150.” Works across carpet, upholstery and rugs, so a single chair is covered too.

A dollar minimum is a bit more flexible because it covers jobs that are not rooms at all, like one area rug or one loveseat. A room minimum is a bit friendlier because it gives the customer something for their money: “You're paying for two rooms anyway, want us to do the hallway too?”

Work Out What a Trip Really Costs

Before picking a number, add up what it costs to show up at all. Drive time there and back. Fuel. The tech's time for setup and teardown. Solution and wear on the equipment. The walk-through and the final walk-through with dry time explained.

None of that changes much between one room and three. Your minimum should cover it with something left over. If the number feels high, remember that it only applies to the smallest jobs, and that those customers often add a room or a piece of upholstery once they see the minimum.

Pricing your own services from your own costs is covered more fully in How to Price Your Own Carpet Cleaning Services Without Borrowing Someone Else's Numbers.

Showing the Minimum on the Estimate

Customers accept minimums when they see them up front. They resent them when they show up on the invoice. In CarpetBossPro, there are a few clean ways to handle it on your service list:

• A “Minimum charge” service. When a job falls under the floor, the person quoting adds it as a line so the total comes up to the minimum. The line name says what it is.
• A small-job package. “Up to two rooms” at a flat price, used instead of the per-room line for small jobs.
• The policy in the description. Put “two-room minimum” in the description of your per-room service so it appears on every estimate.

Pick one approach and stick with it. The customer approves the estimate online, so the minimum is part of what they agreed to before the van rolls.

Say It on the Phone First

The best time to mention a minimum is before you build the estimate. “Just so you know, our minimum is two rooms. If it's only the one bedroom, you're paying for two, so if there's a hallway or another room you've been meaning to do, now's a good time.”

Said that way, the minimum is a heads-up rather than a penalty. Plenty of callers add the hallway, the stairs or a chair. The ones who do not at least know what to expect when the estimate arrives.

Minimums on Add-On Visits and Repeat Customers

Some customers call back a week after a big job to add one chair they forgot. Decide ahead of time whether your minimum applies. Some owners waive it when the follow-up is booked into a day they are already in the neighborhood. The dispatch board, filtered by van, makes it easy to see whether a van is nearby that day.

For repeat customers on a yearly cleaning, the job fills in from their last visit, so you will see right away if this year's job is smaller than last year's and whether the minimum comes into play.

A Floor Protects the Whole Schedule

A clear minimum keeps small jobs from crowding out profitable ones and keeps the conversation simple. Set the number from your own costs, put it on the service list, mention it on the phone and let the estimate show it. To see how minimums fit with room pricing, packages and online approval, visit the carpet cleaning estimate software page.