Price gutter cleaning so the quote survives the ladder. Free, no signup. All defaults are editable starting points.
Gutter cleaners lose money on one flat per-foot number. Story height, debris level, downspouts, guards, and the drive all get priced at zero. Start with your bar (65), margin percent (20), minimum trip fee ($99), and daily goal ($400). Pick a house preset: Ranch, 2-story, or Split-level, each filling linear feet, stories, debris level, and downspouts as editable starting points. The leaks card prices the margin killers: a steep roof (20 percent more cleaning time), gutter guards (15 percent more), drive minutes plus round-trip miles at $0.67, and bag-and-haul with extra minutes. Debris levels multiply the 0.55-minute-per-foot base (light 0.6x, normal 1x, heavy 1.6x, compacted 2.2x), and 2 stories multiply by 1.5. Results show cleaning time, downspouts, bag and haul, setup, vehicle, true cost, the recommended quote (never below the trip fee, cost plus margin, rounded up to $25), dollars per linear foot, and your effective rate against your bar. Verdicts are PRICED RIGHT, CLOSE, BUT LEAKING, WORKING TOO CHEAP, or LOSING MONEY. The gut check grades your flat instinct quote; the day planner turns your goal into jobs with an over-10-hour warning. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. 2-story defaults at a $65 bar with 20 percent margin: cleaning time is 160 feet times 0.55 times 1.0 debris times 1.5 stories equals 132 minutes; downspouts are 4 times 6 equals 24; setup is 20, for 176 minutes of your time, or 2.93 hours valued at $65, which is $190.67. Vehicle is 30 miles at $0.67 equals $20.10. True cost is $210.77. Recommended quote is ceil(210.77 times 1.20 divided by 25) times 25 equals $275, or $1.72 per foot. Effective rate is (275 minus 20.10) divided by 2.93 equals $86.90 per hour, which clears the bar, so the verdict is PRICED RIGHT. A $200 gut quote would pay $61.33 per hour, fall under your bar, and leave $75 on the table. The day planner turns $64.23 of profit per job into 6.2 jobs and 22.4 committed hours for a $400 goal, which fires the over-10-hour warning.
Why does the story multiplier change cleaning time, not the price?
Two stories slow the ladder work and the bag handoffs. A 1.5x time multiplier prices the slower work directly, so a 2-story house costs more because it takes more, not because of a guessed surcharge.
What fires the drive-beats-job leak note?
When round-trip drive minutes are more than the job's own minutes. The flag tells you to cluster routes tighter or stack a second house on that street.
When does the minimum trip fee decide the quote?
Small one-screen jobs can cost less than $99 to run. The minimum holds the quote up so the smallest jobs still cover the truck roll, ladder setup, and the drive.
How does compacted debris change the math?
The 2.2x multiplier means a neglected gutter costs 120 percent more time than a normal seasonal clean. That is the surcharge most solo cleaners give away for free.
What does WORKING TOO CHEAP mean here?
The quote clears true cost but your effective rate lands between 60 and 85 percent of your bar. Downspouts, guards, or the drive are usually the leak.