Two window cleaning quotes for the same house can differ by half. Here is how to tell whether you are comparing prices or comparing two different jobs.
If one window cleaning quote comes in at nearly double another for the same house, the usual reason is not that somebody is overcharging. It is that the two numbers are priced on two different jobs. Window cleaning has no standard unit, so two honest companies can walk the same house in St. Paul and quote work that differs by a third before anyone touches the glass. Comparing the prices means getting the scope to match first.
Ask what the number covers before you compare it
A window cleaning quote is really a quote for time. Anything that changes how long the work takes moves the price, and anything left out of the scope takes time back out of it.
So the first question is not how much, it is what for. Four answers settle most of it: how many panes are being counted, whether the inside is included, what happens to the screens, and whether sills and tracks are part of the job. Our window cleaning cost page lists what a Gleam Team quote covers, and the useful part of reading it is not the figure at the bottom. It is seeing the shape of what a quote should spell out.
The pane count is where most of the gap comes from
A 1920s house in Macalester-Groveland with double-hung sashes divided into six lights each has several times the pane count of a 2005 build with big single sheets, even when the two have the same number of window openings. One company counts openings and another counts panes, and those two numbers were never going to agree.
It is also why a per-window price given over the phone, sight unseen, is a guess. Divided lights, storm panels, a window well, a deck in the way of the back wall: none of that is visible from an address. A quote that arrives before anyone has looked at the house is a number somebody will have to revise later, and the revision tends to land on the day of the work.
Inside work is the other half of the gap
Exterior glass moves quickly. The outside panes get brushed and rinsed with purified water through a pole from the ground and then left to dry, with nothing wiped. Interiors are hand work. Furniture moves and comes back, blinds come down, sills and tracks get wiped, and that is where most of the clock actually goes. There is a fuller walk through the order of the work in what actually happens during a window cleaning.
So an exterior-only number and an inside-and-out number for the same house are nowhere near each other, and that is the single most common reason two quotes look wildly apart. Before you decide one company is expensive, check whether the cheaper one is coming inside at all.
Send everyone the same five details
If you want numbers you can line up side by side, give each company the same five things:
- Roughly how many window openings, and whether the sashes are divided into small panes
- Inside, outside, or both
- Whether there are storm windows, and whether you want the screens done
- How many storeys, and anything blocking access, like a hedge, a deck or a fenced yard
- Roughly when the glass was last cleaned
That last one matters more than people expect. Glass that has gone three or four winters without a wash needs scraping and dwell time, not just a brush, and a quote built on the assumption of a yearly clean will not survive contact with it.
When the cheaper quote is the right one
Sometimes the low number is simply correct. A newer house with a dozen large panes, all reachable from the ground, exterior only, is a small job and ought to be priced like one. Paying more for that does not buy anything.
Two more honest notes. If the only thing bothering you is the film on the inside of the glass, that is the half of the job most people can do themselves in an afternoon, and there is no reason to hire it out. And whatever the price, ask what happens if you look at the windows afterward and are not happy with them. A clear answer to that question tells you more about a company than the figure on the quote does.
Want a number for your own house? You can ask for a quote or book a visit, and the quote is free either way.
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