How to Price Softwashing Jobs Without Underselling Yourself

Mark Cave

Picture a lad who's been pressure washing for a couple of years. He's just added softwashing. He pulls up outside a semi, looks at the rendered elevation, and thinks: right, two hours of spraying. Call it a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred quid. Sounds fair. And then he's on that driveway for six hours.

Mark Cave

That's the trap I want to unpack today. How to price softwashing jobs without guessing. I'm Mark Cave from SoftWash UK, and this one matters because pricing is where a lot of good contractors quietly lose their business.

Mark Cave

Here's the root of it. A lot of people come into softwashing from pressure washing or window cleaning. In pressure washing, the machine does the cleaning with force, so time on the surface is a decent guide to the price. Softwashing isn't like that. It's a controlled chemical process. The chemistry does the work, and your job is to set it up, control it, and finish it safely. The spraying is the smallest, most visible part.

Mark Cave

So let's walk the whole job. Start with the survey. You're identifying the surface. Is it monocouche, silicone render on insulation, porous brick, aged roof tile? You're photographing hairline cracks, blown render, failed coatings, so nobody can blame you later for damage that was already there.

Mark Cave

Then protection. Garden furniture moved. Outdoor sockets, sensor lights and cameras taped up. Plants and lawns pre wetted until they're saturated, with covers or diversion sheeting for delicate borders and ponds. That alone can eat a good chunk of an hour.

Mark Cave

Then access. Ladders, towers, a MEWP, or a carbon fibre water fed pole, all positioned safely. Then the application itself, in manageable sections, at low pressure, not misting everything about in the wind.

Mark Cave

Now here's the part people forget. You don't just spray and leave. You're watching dwell time. On render with sodium hypochlorite, that might be ten to fifteen minutes, and in warm sun you have to make sure it doesn't dry out. Then you rinse at low pressure: the surface, the UPVC trim, the glass, the soil around the base.

Mark Cave

And then pack down. Flush the pump, the Dosatron, the hose reels with clean water. Complete your RAMS and job log. Hand over an aftercare sheet. A job with two hours of chemical application is easily five or six hours of proper, professional time on site.

Mark Cave

Do the sums on that. Two hundred pounds over six hours is roughly thirty three pounds an hour. And that's before chemical, fuel, insurance, kit wear, or a single day lost to rain. That isn't a wage. That's a slow leak.

Mark Cave

Those costs are worth naming, because they're the ones that get missed. Your stock chemical, whether that's fresh fourteen to fifteen percent sodium hypochlorite or Soft Wash Pro 50 biocide. Surfactant, like Clever Wash at two hundred to one, which is five millilitres per litre. Replacement PPE: gauntlets, face shields, splash suits, respirators. Then fuel, travel, vehicle wear, and pumps and fittings that are built to survive chemicals.

Mark Cave

And insurance. Many generic public liability policies exclude damage caused by chemicals or environmental runoff. So check yours covers treatment risk and chemical cleaning explicitly. That cover has a cost, and it has to be in your price.

Mark Cave

One more, and it's the one people feel guilty about. Profit. In the UK, wind, heavy rain and frost will push your jobs around. Profit isn't greed. It's the working capital that covers the bad weeks, pays for training, and replaces worn kit without a cash flow panic.

Mark Cave

So how do you build a number you can stand behind? Three tools.

Mark Cave

First, a minimum call out charge. Mobilisation, travel, connecting up, protecting the site and cleaning down take about the same time on a fifteen square metre job as on an eighty. If you price a small porch or a short garden wall purely by the square metre, you're guaranteeing a loss.

Mark Cave

Second, square metre rates, but never flat ones. Ten square metres behind a fragile glass conservatory, surrounded by someone's prized ornamental planting, is a very different job from fifty square metres of open boundary wall at ground level. Use the rate as a baseline, then adjust for difficulty.

Mark Cave

Third, build the quote in layers. Here's an example, and the figures are illustrative, not a price list. A hundred and twenty square metres of render across two elevations, moderate algae. Base rate of three pounds fifty a square metre gives you four hundred and twenty. Add sixty for site preparation and vegetation protection. Ninety for access, because you're working over a single storey extension roof with poles. Forty five for chemical and consumables. Thirty five for admin, quote preparation and the RAMS pack. Total: six hundred and fifty pounds before VAT.

Mark Cave

Notice what that does. Every line is something you can explain. So when the customer says, that's more than I expected, you're not defending a number. You're showing them a process.

Mark Cave

Because that call is coming. Someone will compare you with a mate who's got a jet washer. And the knee jerk reaction is to knock twenty or thirty percent off. Don't. It tells the customer your first price was padded. And worse, it changes how you work. When you've discounted, you start skipping the plant watering, rushing the dwell time, or strengthening the mix to get off site sooner. That's how you end up with scorched borders and a complaint.

Mark Cave

Instead, explain the value, calmly, without getting defensive. Low pressure protects render finishes, mortar joints and tile coatings from permanent gouging and water getting in behind. The quote includes protecting their lawn, plants and drainage. And you're trained, you follow COSHH, and you carry insurance that actually covers treatment risk. That protects their property, not just your pocket.

Mark Cave

And if the budget genuinely isn't there, change the scope, not the rate. Treat the heavily colonised north facing wall now, and book the lightly soiled front elevation for next season. Same standards, same price per task, and the door stays open.

Mark Cave

One last point. Know who you're quoting. Domestic customers want kerb appeal and peace of mind that their pets, lawns and flowerbeds are safe. Facilities managers want risk control: out of hours scheduling to avoid foot traffic, solid RAMS, COSHH data sheets, and asset protection. Their quotes need to allow for site inductions, barriers and phased working.

Mark Cave

Now, a podcast can show you the thinking. But confident pricing comes from confident knowledge. Survey method, dilution maths, surface compatibility, safety compliance. That's what the SoftWash UK CPD Certified Softwash Training Course covers, and you can work through it online at your own pace.

Mark Cave

Complete it and you can become an Approved Softwash Applicator, with a listing in the directory and a place in the National Association of Softwash community. The first twelve months of membership is included. That kind of recognition is what lets you quote properly and mean it. Have a look at softwashing.uk, where you'll also find the professional chemicals, equipment and resources.

Mark Cave

Here's a challenge before you go. On your next job, time it from the moment you leave the yard to the moment you're back. Every minute. Then divide your price by those hours. If the number surprises you, you've just found your next pricing lesson.

Mark Cave

Take care and speak to you again soon.