Thirteen, not twelve. There are fifty-two weeks in a year, and fifty-two divided by a four week gap is thirteen cleans. Calendar monthly produces twelve. Those two words get used on doorsteps as if they mean the same thing, and they are a whole clean a year apart per customer. On 300 customers that is 300 cleans.
Window cleaning frequency is the only lever that moves your income without touching your prices, your area or your hours. Most cleaners have never sat down and worked out what theirs is worth. It takes about a minute.
What each window cleaning frequency is worth over a year
Two sums, a minute's work: cleans a year, then what those are worth per customer.
Where 13, 8.7 and 6.5 come from
Every interval is the same sum. Fifty-two weeks, divided by the gap in weeks:
- 52 divided by 4 is 13
- 52 divided by 6 is 8.666, call it 8.7
- 52 divided by 8 is 6.5
Calendar monthly is the odd one out, because months are not four weeks. Twelve months, twelve cleans.
Now multiply each of those by the price. At £14 a clean, which is roughly a mid-range 3-bed semi:
| Frequency | Cleans a year | Per customer, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 4-weekly | 13 | £182 |
| Calendar monthly | 12 | £168 |
| 6-weekly | 8.7 | £122 |
| 8-weekly | 6.5 | £91 |
So 13 times £14 is £182, and 6.5 times £14 is £91. The 6-weekly line, 8.7 times £14, comes to £121.80, rounded to £122.
Read the last column again. The 8-weekly customer is worth half the 4-weekly one. Not a bit less. Half.
What menu people actually offer
The standard UK menu is 4, 6 and 8 weekly plus monthly. It is not universal. Twelve-weekly and quarterly exist, one firm publishes only 6 or 12 weekly, and a South West firm reports that its domestic customers typically pick bimonthly or quarterly. So the honest answer to "how often should windows be cleaned" is partly a regional one, and a menu that is standard in one county can sound odd in another. Fortnightly is rare on domestic work. Weekly is commercial.
Householders say much the same. On a UK parenting forum they describe monthly or every four to five weeks as normal, with some at six weeks and some every other month. One recounted her cleaner pushing back on every-other-month, telling her the longer gap meant dirtier windows and about double the work for the same fee. She did not think it unreasonable, which is worth knowing before you brace yourself for that argument.
The uplift does not buy back the lost visits
Everyone charges more for a longer gap, and they should, because the glass is dirtier and the job takes longer. The rates people use land in a band. The most commonly reported ratio is £12 at 4-weekly going to £16 at 8-weekly, which is a third more. Others work on a pound per extra week. A figure that circulates on the trade forums is to charge 50% more for the 8-weekly. Reading those together, the band the trade works in is 33% to 50%.
Now do the year, on the same £14 customer as the table.
A third of £14 is £4.67, so a third more is £18.67. Call it £18.50 at the door. Thirteen cleans at £14 is £182. Six and a half cleans at £18.50 is £120.25, because six at £18.50 is £111 and the half clean is £9.25. Take £120.25 off £182 and you are £61.75 a year down on that customer. You have put your price up by a third and lost a third of the annual value.
Go to the top of the band
Fifty per cent more does not rescue you either. Half of £14 is £7, so the 8-weekly price is £21. Six at £21 is £126, plus £10.50 for the half clean, so £136.50. Against £182 that is £45.50 short.
What the uplift is really paying for
That is the bit both camps skate over. A doubled interval halves the visits. Charge a third more per visit and you get two thirds of the annual money back, £120.25 of £182. Charge half as much again and you get three quarters, £136.50 of £182. Neither closes the gap. The uplift pays you for the extra time on dirtier glass. It does not pay you for the visits that no longer happen. The arithmetic gets reported both ways, and it is easy to land on whichever framing suits the round you already run.
Using the longer gap to save a price rise
When someone digs their heels in over an increase, do not defend the price. Offer the longer gap instead. Take the £14 customer from the table, going up a pound in May.
Prices are going up £1 from May, so yours would be £15. If you would rather not pay more over the year, I can move you to 8-weekly instead. That is £20 a clean, because there is twice as long on the glass, but six or seven cleans a year rather than thirteen. Works out about £65 a year better off for you. Let me know which suits and I will set it up.
Do the £65 out loud, because the customer will not do it for you. Thirteen cleans at £15 is £195. Six and a half at £20 is £130. £195 less £130 is £65.
Note the £20. A third more than £15 is £20 exactly, which is the bottom of the uplift band, not a generous number. Offer the same longer gap at £16 and you have talked yourself into twice the dirt for a pound a clean. Priced properly, you keep the customer, your rate per visit covers the extra time, and they hear a real annual saving. You still take less off them over the year. That is the trade you are making, and it beats losing them over a pound.
The two awkward ones
Two conversations come up more than any other, and both are arguments about frequency in disguise.
"Just do it when it looks dirty"
The settled trade answer is that this is not a service model, and the reason is round space. A customer who calls twice a year still takes a position on your route, still needs the text, still needs chasing for the money, and pays a fraction of what the house next door pays. A regular's admin for a fraction of a regular's income.
So it gets quoted as a one-off each time. One-offs run at two to three times the regular price, and several firms take payment in advance. That is not a punishment. It is what an unplanned visit to a house with eight weeks of dirt on it is worth. Say it plainly, at the door, without apologising for it.
"We'll stop over the winter"
There is an honest customer-facing argument, and it is worth making first. The line firms use is that winter dirt bonds harder to glass and to frames. Leave it from November to March and the catch-up is genuinely more work, which is why it will not be at the normal price. Neglected glass can take two or three visits to come back properly, according to Federation of Window Cleaners guidance.
The prevailing forum view is that winter cancelling is an excuse rather than a budget decision, and the reply that works is that you cannot promise a slot when they want to come back in the spring. That converts a good number of them. Plenty of cleaners skip the conversation and drop them.
If the reason given is that they have bought a pressure washer, be kind about it. It will do the glass, after a fashion. It will not do the frames, it will not do the sills, and it will not do upstairs.
Both sides of 4 weekly vs 8 weekly window cleaning are right about something
Both cases below, then the two questions that settle it on your round.
The case for 8-weekly
It is stronger than the annual figure makes it look.
More money lands per visit, so there is less pressure to rush eighteen houses before the light goes. And to turn over the same money you need roughly twice the customers, which sounds like a cost until you remember what a customer is. Every one is a doorstep you already have permission to knock on. A gutter clear at £75 to £150 is five to ten cleans' money for one visit, since £75 ÷ £14 is 5.4 and £150 ÷ £14 is 10.7, and fascias, conservatory roofs and solar panels sell to people who already trust you with the back gate key. Twice the database, twice the pool for that work. It is the best argument going.
The case against it
The case against is the table above. You halve what each customer is worth over a year. You need about twice as many to stand still. And you fragment the day, because two intervals running through the same street stop the street being a street and turn it into a list.
How to decide it on your own round
Two questions settle it. Can you actually sell add-ons, or do you only mean to? And are you short of customers or short of hours? Short of hours, 8-weekly at a proper rate buys you some. Short of customers, it costs you the ones you have. Answer both honestly and you have your answer.
In general the trade has not settled it, and some cleaners now refuse longer intervals outright. Which is why the two questions are worth more to you than the argument is.
Mixed frequencies, one frequency a day
Almost everyone lands in the same place. They offer more than one interval, but keep a single frequency per day, or per area, so the route stays coherent. Baddow Road is a 4-weekly day. The village run is 8-weekly. Nothing interleaves. That is the part to copy.
Some go further and offer two options only. Fewer choices, fewer arguments, and a window cleaning schedule you can still see in your head. If your days have already drifted into a mixture you cannot untangle, that is a rebuilding job rather than a scheduling one, and planning the round is where to start.
Terms that make a frequency stick
A frequency only holds if it survives contact with the customer. Three lines in your terms do most of the work:
- a minimum commitment of three cleans, with the balance chargeable if they pull out early
- cancellation needing at least one clean's notice
- one-offs paid in advance
Add a line on locked gates, charged in full or deferred as you prefer, and you have covered most of the ways a booked interval quietly turns into "when it looks dirty".
A first-clean premium does the same job at the other end, because it stops someone calling themselves a regular just to get the regular price, then cancelling after one visit. How often one cleaner found that happening is in the canvassing post. The mainstream band is 25% to 50% and some charge double, and pricing window cleaning jobs sets that premium out properly.
The bit you cannot hold in your head
The hard part of a mixed round is not the policy. It is remembering, eighteen months later, that number 14 went to 8-weekly during the price rise and number 16 did not. RoundWiz holds the frequency against each customer and works out who is due from it, so the schedule stops living in your head. There is a rundown of what it does.
£7.99 a month, or £79.90 for the year, VAT included, and the 30-day trial does not ask for a card. Import your spreadsheet, set the frequencies properly once, and let the round come back round on its own. Start the trial.