The Complete Guide to Building a Window Cleaning Round

Starting a window cleaning business? Already cleaning windows but want to grow your customer base? Understanding how to build and manage a window cleaning round is the foundation of a successful business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to optimise what you've already got, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know.

What Is a Window Cleaning Round?

A window cleaning round is your portfolio of regular customers that you visit on a set schedule. Think of it as your recurring income stream – the customers who have you back every 4 weeks, 8 weeks, or monthly to keep their windows sparkling.

The beauty of a well-built round is predictability. Instead of constantly hunting for new work, you've got a reliable schedule of customers who know you, trust you, and pay you regularly. It's the difference between scrambling for cash and running a proper business.

A good round isn't just about having lots of customers though. It's about having the right customers – ones who pay on time, are geographically close together (often called a "compact round"), and value your service enough to stick with you for years.

Should You Build Your Own Round or Buy One?

When you're starting out, you'll face a choice: build your round from scratch or buy an established one from another window cleaner.

Building from scratch takes more time but costs less upfront. You'll learn the ropes as you go, build relationships with customers from day one, and have complete control over who you take on. The downside? It can take 6-12 months to build up enough work to go full-time.

Buying a round gets you up and running faster. Established rounds typically sell for 2-5 times their monthly turnover (sometimes up to 10x for premium rounds in sought-after areas). A £3,000/month round might cost you £6,000-£15,000. The catch? You might lose some customers during the handover, and you're taking a gamble on whether the seller's been honest about the customer base.

If you do buy a round, protect yourself: insist on cleaning the entire round together with the current owner so customers can meet you properly, ask for bank statements to verify income, and get everything in writing. Too many window cleaners have paid good money for rounds that turned out to be half the size promised or filled with awkward customers the seller was desperate to offload.

For most people starting out, building your own round is the better path. Yes, it's slower, but you'll build something solid.

How to Build Your Round from Scratch

Right, let's get into the practical stuff. How do you actually get those first customers?

Canvassing: The Old School Approach That Still Works

Canvassing is knocking on doors (or posting flyers) in a targeted area to drum up business. It's been the backbone of window cleaning for decades, and it still works brilliantly.

The canvassing process:

1. Pick a specific area – ideally somewhere within 10-15 minutes of where you live
2. Print simple flyers with your name, phone number, services, and rough pricing
3. Work street by street, posting flyers and knocking on doors where possible
4. When someone answers, keep it brief: "Hi, I'm [name], I'm a local window cleaner building up my round in this area. I'm offering first cleans at a discount. Would you like a free quote?"
5. Quote on the spot if they're interested, and try to book them in there and then

Why canvassing works: It's targeted (you control exactly where you build your round), it's personal (people like meeting their window cleaner), and it's cheap (just printing costs).

The downside: It's time-consuming and you'll get plenty of "no thanks." But if you canvas consistently – say, 2-3 hours a day, 3 times a week – you'll build momentum fast.

Top tip: Canvas areas where you already have customers. Once you've got a few houses on a street, use that as social proof. "I already clean numbers 12, 24, and 37 on this street" works wonders.

Online Advertising: Let Customers Come to You

Most businesses need some kind of online presence now, and window cleaning is no different.

Build a simple website with:

• Your services and prices (transparency builds trust)
• Your coverage area
• Photos of your work
• A way to contact you (phone and email at minimum)
• Ideally, a way to book online

You don't need to spend thousands. A £500-£800 website from a decent designer, or even a DIY job using Wix or Squarespace, will do the trick if it looks professional.

Use local Facebook groups. Post regularly (not daily – that's annoying) in your local community groups. Keep it helpful, not spammy: "Hi everyone, I'm a local window cleaner covering [area]. I've got availability for new customers on [days]. First clean 20% off. Message me for a quote!" Mix in before/after photos when you can.

Google My Business is free and essential. Claim your listing, add photos, encourage reviews. When someone searches "window cleaners near me" in your area, you want to show up.

Paid ads (Facebook or Google) can work but need careful targeting to avoid wasting money on enquiries from outside your area. Start small – £50-£100/month – and track what works.

The beauty of online marketing is it works while you sleep. You can be out cleaning windows while enquiries come in through your website. The downside? It's harder to target specific streets, so your round might end up less compact than with canvassing.

Referrals: Your Best Customers Finding You More Customers

Once you've got a few happy customers, ask them to spread the word. A simple referral scheme works wonders: "Refer a friend and you both get £10 off your next clean."

Print referral cards and leave them with payment request slips. Make it easy for customers to recommend you. Some window cleaners even put a note on the back of their job sheets: "Know someone who needs their windows cleaned? Give them this card for 20% off their first clean."

The quality of referrals is usually excellent – people don't recommend tradespeople unless they're genuinely happy with the work.

Pricing Your Round: Getting It Right from the Start

Pricing is tricky. Price too low and you'll be working your socks off for peanuts. Price too high and you'll struggle to win customers.

What to charge? This varies massively by area, but as a rough guide:

• Small terraced house: £10-£15
• Semi-detached: £15-£25
• Detached house: £25-£40+
• Add-ons (conservatory, gutters, etc.): £10-£20 extra

Factors affecting price:

• Your location (London vs rural Scotland = massive difference)
• Method (traditional ladder work vs water fed pole)
• Access and difficulty
• Frequency (monthly customers often pay more per clean than 8-weekly)

Don't underprice to win work. Competing on price is a race to the bottom. Compete on reliability, quality, and service instead. Customers who just want the cheapest price are usually the most awkward to deal with anyway.

Build in price increases. Prices should go up a bit each year to cover inflation and your increasing experience. A 5% increase annually is reasonable – most customers won't even notice.

Scheduling Your Round: 4-Weekly vs 8-Weekly

One of the big decisions you'll face is how often to clean. There's no one-size-fits-all answer.

4-weekly (13 cleans per year): More frequent income, cleaner windows, tighter relationship with customers. But it's more work to manage – getting everyone done in exactly 28 days can be stressful if the weather's against you or you need time off.

8-weekly (6-7 cleans per year): Less frequent income per customer but you can take on more customers overall. Easier to manage your schedule. Windows might look a bit grimier between cleans though.

Monthly (12 cleans per year): The simplest schedule for customers to understand. "I'll see you first Tuesday of every month."

Most window cleaners start with 4-weekly because it builds the relationship and income faster. As your round grows, you might shift some customers to 8-weekly to free up space for new work. Just be upfront about the change – customers appreciate honesty.

Weather contingency: British weather doesn't play nice with rigid schedules. Build in some flexibility. If you get rained off on Tuesday, can you catch up Wednesday evening or Saturday? Having one "buffer day" a week helps enormously.

Route Optimisation: Working Smarter, Not Harder

Here's where most new window cleaners waste time and money: driving all over town instead of building a tight, efficient round.

Think geographically. Your ideal round is clustered in 2-3 neighbourhoods, not spread across the whole city. Every minute you spend driving is a minute you're not earning.

Batch by area and day. Monday = Estate A, Tuesday = Estate B, Wednesday = Town Centre, etc. Get into a rhythm where you're not zigzagging across town.

Turn down customers outside your area (unless they're paying enough to make the drive worthwhile). It's painful saying no to work when you're starting out, but taking on a customer 30 minutes away for £15 doesn't make sense when you could canvas three more houses on your existing streets in that time.

The "density rule": Before taking on a new customer, ask yourself: do I already have work near this address? If not, will this be the anchor for a new cluster? If the answer to both is no, think twice.

Minimise backtracking. Plan your route so you're moving through an area logically – one end of a street to the other, not random houses.

This gets easier with a bit of planning. Whether you're using a paper diary, a spreadsheet, or job management software like Surehand, having a clear view of where all your customers are on a map makes a huge difference.

Keeping Your Customers: Retention Is Everything

Winning a customer is one thing. Keeping them for years is where the real money is.

Reliability is your superpower. Show up when you say you will. If you can't make it, let them know in advance. This sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many window cleaners are flaky. Just being reliable puts you ahead of half the competition.

Communicate well. Let customers know you've been (door sticker, text message, or email). Let them know if you're running behind schedule or if bad weather's pushed you back a week. People are remarkably understanding if you communicate.

Do quality work. This also sounds obvious, but cut corners and word spreads. Take pride in your work – clean the frames, sills, and glass properly. Leave the place looking spotless.

Handle complaints quickly. If a customer's not happy, sort it immediately. A free re-clean is cheaper than losing a customer who might have stayed with you for 10 years.

Payment collection. This is where many window cleaners come unstuck. Chasing cash or cheques is a pain and some customers will constantly "forget" to leave payment out. Consider modern payment methods:

• GoCardless or similar direct debit services (customers set it up once, you automatically get paid after each clean)
• Bank transfer (send a text with your details after each clean)
• Contactless card readers
• Online payment links

The easier you make it to pay, the faster you get paid and the fewer awkward conversations you have.

Managing Your Round: The Tools You Need

When you're starting out with 10 customers, you can probably manage everything in your head or on scraps of paper. By the time you've got 50+ customers, you need a system.

Paper round book: The traditional approach. Buy a cheap diary or round book, write down each customer, their address, price, and schedule. Simple, cheap, doesn't need charging. The downsides? Easy to lose, impossible to search, and you can't see your route on a map.

Spreadsheet: A step up. Create columns for customer name, address, postcode, phone, email, price, frequency, and last clean date. You can sort by street, search for customers, and calculate your monthly income. Better than paper, and free if you use Google Sheets. The downsides? It's fiddly to use on your phone when you're out and about, there's no way to automate payment reminders or collections, you can't send automated "we've been today" messages to customers, and route planning still means manually looking up addresses. It works fine for smaller rounds, but starts to feel clunky once you're juggling 100+ customers.

Dedicated software: Purpose-built job management software like Surehand takes it further. You can see all your customers on a map, schedule jobs, track payments, send automated reminders, and access everything from your phone while you're out working. If you're serious about growing beyond solo operation, it's worth considering.

The right tool depends on your size and ambition. Starting out? Paper or spreadsheet is fine. Planning to grow to multiple vans and employees? You'll outgrow paper fast.

Growing Your Round: From Side Hustle to Full-Time Business

Most window cleaners don't want to stay solo forever. Here's how you grow:

Maximise your existing customers. Offer add-on services: conservatory cleaning, gutter clears, fascia and soffit cleaning, solar panel cleaning. You're already at the property – might as well earn more per visit.

Increase prices gradually. As you get more efficient and build a waiting list, you can afford to be pickier. Raise prices on new customers and gradually with existing ones.

Take on staff or subcontractors. Once you're fully booked and turning away work, it might be time to hire. Start with someone working alongside you, then eventually give them their own van and round to manage.

Buy smaller rounds to bulk out your coverage. If there's a gap in your area, buying a small round can be faster than canvassing from scratch – as long as the price is fair and you vet it properly.

Stay disciplined about density. As you grow, resist the temptation to spread out geographically. Keep building cluster by cluster.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Pricing too low. You can always drop your prices if you're not winning work (you won't need to). You can't easily raise them later without losing customers.

Taking on problem customers. If someone's rude, constantly cancels, or haggles over price during the quote, walk away. They'll be even worse once you're working for them.

Forgetting to market. Even when you're busy, keep marketing. Customers move, switch to cheaper services, or drop off. You need a steady flow of new work to replace natural attrition (usually 10-20% annually).

Skipping insurance and safety. Get public liability insurance and use equipment safely. One accident could wipe out your business.

Not tracking your numbers. Know your average clean value, how many customers you have, your monthly turnover, and your profit after expenses. If you don't track it, you can't improve it.

Final Thoughts

Building a window cleaning round takes time, but it's one of the most straightforward businesses to start. Low barriers to entry, recurring income, cash flow from day one, and plenty of demand.

Start small, build systematically, treat customers well, and stay consistent. In 12 months you can have a thriving full-time business. In 3-5 years, you can have a proper operation with multiple vans.

The key is treating it like a real business from day one – even when you're just starting out with a ladder and bucket. Professional pricing, reliable service, good communication, and smart growth. Do that and you'll be ahead of 90% of window cleaners out there.

Now get out there and start building your round.

Ready to Manage Your Round Professionally?

Once you've built your customer base, managing scheduling, payments, and customer communication becomes the next challenge. Surehand is purpose-built software for trades businesses like yours, helping you schedule jobs, track payments, and grow efficiently. Start your free trial and see how much time you can save.