SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Quotes & Estimates

Building Your Solar Cleaning Service List: The Prices Every Estimate Starts From

A service list is the menu your company quotes from. Every estimate is built by picking lines off it instead of typing numbers from memory. When it is set up well, anyone in your office can send an accurate solar cleaning quote in a few minutes, and two people quoting the same roof get the same total. When it is missing, every quote is a fresh guess.

Bringing the Pieces Together

The last several articles each covered one piece of the price: the per-panel rate, the minimum, height and pitch, mounts, bird proofing, critter guards and, most recently, Adding an Inspection to a Solar Panel Cleaning Quote. The service list is where all of those pieces live together, written down once.

The Core Lines Most Companies Need

Most residential solar cleaning companies can quote nearly every job from a list this short:

• Solar panel cleaning, per panel. Your base price, multiplied by the count.
• Minimum job charge. The floor for small systems.
• 2-story add-on. For the taller ladder and longer setup.
• 3+ story add-on. For the tallest homes and the extra rigging.
• Steep-pitch add-on. For roofs that need more safety setup and slower work.
• Bird proofing, per panel. Closing off the gap under the array.
• Critter guards. Quoted on their own line.
• Inspection. A visual check with photos and notes.

That is eight lines. You may add a few more, like a ground mount rate, a carport rate, a first-time cleaning charge or a long hose-run access charge, but resist the urge to build a list of forty items. A short list gets used. A long one gets ignored.

Name Lines the Way Customers Read Them

The names on your service list show up on the estimate the customer sees. Write them for the customer, not for your crew:

• “Solar panel cleaning (per panel)” instead of “SPC-RES.”
• “Second-story roof add-on” instead of “2S.”
• “Bird proofing (per panel)” instead of “mesh.”

Add a short description where it helps, such as “Pure-water cleaning with soft brushes, rinsed and spot-free.” A customer who understands each line is more likely to approve the whole estimate. There is more on this in Writing Solar Cleaning Estimates Customers Actually Understand.

Setting the Prices

Your prices depend on your area, your costs and your competition, so there is no universal number. Some practical guidance on getting them right:

• Start from time. Time real jobs from arrival to departure and put a cost on that hour, then set prices that cover it with a margin.
• Price add-ons for the work, not the customer. A second story costs you the same extra setup whether the house is big or small.
• Keep extras separate. Do not hide bird proofing inside the cleaning price, or customers who do not need it are overpaying.
• Mark taxable lines correctly. Sales tax rules vary by place. Ask your accountant which of your services are taxable where you work.
• Review once a season. Fuel, labor and materials change. Your list should too.

Commercial and Plan Lines

Commercial arrays are usually priced job by job after a site visit, so you may only need a general commercial cleaning line that you price on each estimate. For recurring work, you do not need separate lines for twice-a-year or quarterly plans. The plan is set on the job itself, by the minimum days between visits, and the same service list prices each visit.

Using the Service List in Software

In SolarCleaningBossPro, your service list is the source for every estimate. You set the per-panel price, the minimum charge, the story and steep-pitch add-ons, bird proofing per panel, critter guards and inspection once. When quoting, you pick the lines, enter the panel count where it applies, and the estimate totals itself with sales tax on the lines that need it. The customer approves online, and the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job.

The same list also helps on the billing side. When the tech completes the job, the invoice is created with line items your customer has already seen on the estimate, so there are no surprises when the card on file is charged.

Keep It Tidy

A service list is never quite finished. Every few months, look at the lines you actually used. Remove anything nobody quotes. Merge lines that mean the same thing. Fix names customers asked about. A tidy list keeps quoting fast for you and clear for the customer.

With the list in place, the next step is getting customers to say yes, starting with Online Estimate Approval: Letting Customers Say Yes to a Solar Cleaning Quote. To see the service list, estimates and online approval together, visit the solar cleaning estimate software page.