Price a gutter cleaning visit from linear feet, building height, downspouts, travel and your own production rate.
Labor hours = linear feet ÷ production rate × height factor + downspouts × minutes ÷ 60 + travel and setup.
Labor cost = labor hours × wage × (1 + burden %).
Overhead = labor hours × overhead per labor hour.
Price = (labor + direct costs + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin %), or your minimum charge if that is higher.
The height factors are starting points. Replace them with what your own time records show.
A two-story home has 180 feet of gutter and 4 downspouts. At 90 feet per hour, the gutters take 2.8 crew-hours with the 1.4 height factor, the downspouts 0.53 hours and travel 0.75 hours: 4.08 hours. At $24 with 22% burden, labor is $119.56. Disposal is $10 and overhead $32.67, so cost is $162.23. A 20% margin gives $202.78, or about $1.13 a foot.
Fictional numbers for illustration only.
Gutter cleaning is priced by the foot in many markets, but costs come from time. A two-story house with heavy debris can take twice as long as a one-story ranch with the same footage. This calculator starts from time so your per-foot price is grounded in your crew’s real pace.
Measure your production rate from a few recent jobs: total linear feet divided by total crew hours on the ladder.
A single-story house with 150 feet of gutter is a different job from a three-story home with the same footage. Ladder moves, safety setup and extra time per section increase with height. Price by linear foot and add a height factor, then check against your actual time on the first ten jobs. If the factor is too low, you will see it in the hours.
Downspout flushing, minor repairs and gutter guards often take little extra time and add margin. Offer them as separate line items so the customer can choose. Record the time for each so you learn which add-ons are really profitable.
Group jobs by neighborhood and height. Two single-story homes next to each other can be done in one trip, while a three-story home takes a slot of its own. Schedule by travel time, not just by order of booking.
Customers like a simple per-house price. Build it from footage and height so that your price still covers time on bigger homes.
Removing and refitting guards adds a lot of time. Track it separately and add it as extra minutes per foot.
Not always. Many companies send two people for ladder safety; price the crew you actually send.
Margin is profit as a share of the price; markup is profit as a share of cost. A 20% margin equals a 25% markup. Mixing the two up is one of the most common reasons small contractors underprice.
Many homes need cleaning once or twice a year, more with heavy tree cover.
Include it in the price or add a trip fee for remote jobs. Be consistent.
Ladder work carries risk. Talk to your insurer about the right cover.
EZTime records crew hours by job, so your price per foot comes from your own work. Book a demo to see it.