Leather Cleaning Business Pricing Quandary WWYD?

[HorseShine]

I own a leather cleaning business in S.W. British Columbia, which cleans & conditions tack, furniture, garments and auto upholstery. I am really good at this and have given my customers the “wow” factor.

I am satisfied with what I charge for all leather items except tack. As I horse owner, I fully appreciate how we struggle to support them. We will feed our horses first before we spend anything else horse-related. :yes:

However, neglected, weakened tack may result in unplanned dismounts should it fail. For the reason of horses being expensive and safety, I have kept my prices way down (to the point that I sometimes joke that it’s a public service to other horse owners.)

I work very hard on each piece of tack. With a western saddle, I like to spend 3 - 3 1/2 hours to clean & condition it. I want to keep that leather strong & stable. I condition in all its nooks & crannies. You know, places that aren’t seen at first glance but are no less important. Safety of it’s owner and her/his horse is too paramount to do a so-so job.

An example of my prices are:

Aussie & W. Saddles : $35 - add $10 if there’s a back cinch
Endurance & Eng. Saddles: $25 - add $5 if there’s leathers

Well, the other day I had an exceptionally moldy & dirty western saddle to clean. I usually charge an extra $5 to deal with mold but the customer was giving me about $260 dollars worth of cleaning to do. I waived the $5. Including the back cinch, it took close to 5 hours clean that saddle. I know that seems like a lot. I am thorough. I take care to apply extra conditioner at leather’s stress points. This means I made $9 per hour.

The pros of NOT raising my rates are

1. I am doing my part to help with rider/horse safety.
   I realize this somewhat compares to say, a boarding barn being reluctant to raise prices (overhead fluctuates) but they want to make it easy as possible to keep a horse. Sensible b.o.'s won’t operate at a loss. In the case of my business, my overhead is the same if the prices rise or not.

The CON of raising my rates are

1. It may make a current or potential customer balk. Then if they don’t maintain their tack themselves, they compromise the stability of the leather. Of course, price increases eventually happen with businesses. Consequently, losing customers is a typical risk.

The pro of raising my rates are

1. I could be paid what my services are worth.

I am not sure if the market would bear an increase.

So, COTH, some of you are small business owners; some in the horse industry. Should I leave my prices the same and call it a public service. Or is everyone doing a collective eye roll, “Ummm, HorseShine, it’s business. Raise your rates if you think you are underpaying yourself. As long as you give quality work, your integrity is half the battle.”

Should I raise my prices? If you think that is good business sense, how much would you raise each item. If it helps, no one has balked at what I charge.

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TL;DR - Not sure if I should raise my prices for tack cleaning. If you think the price should go up, I would welcome suggestions on what should be charged for tack. What I currently charge is in about the 6th paragraph down in blue.

[high_hat]

I’d have an upcharge for extremely dirty/moldy tack. Your prices should reflect the condition of the tack in front of you. If you get a call say your prices are from X-Z dependent on the condition of the tack.

Your prices are low for the western saddle. I’d say double the price of an English saddle.

The English price is good ‘unless the tack is extremely dirty’.

Maid services charge more for the initial cleaning of a house. Usually an hourly rate after that the price is reflective of the average time spent.

[TheHunterKid90]

I wish you were close to me. I would GLADLY pay twice that to have a few of my saddles truly cleaned and conditioned.

[JustTheTicket]

Your prices are waaaay too low for how much work you’re doing. If your customers appreciate that wow factor, they should be willing to pay more. You’re not doing yourself or your business favors by undercharging.

[BuddyRoo]

If I were in a position to PAY someone to clean my tack, I am not eating canned beans and ramen to have money to support my horses, else I’d clean it myself.

So I think that while your heart is in the right place, your business mind is off the rails. But in a nice way.

Charge for your time. Offer estimates. Publish “standard” rates but make a note that based on evaluation of the piece, the price may vary due to work required to do a proper job.

[walktrot]

Pelham Saddlery in New Hampshire charges $35 to detail saddles (English) they take in for consignment. They will do a little dying on very worn spots also. I don’t know how long it takes.

[gaitedincali]

Local guy charges $100 to deep clean a western saddle and I think that’s more than fair. Slightly less for no tooling. $35 is crazy! That’s charity rate, not regular rate.

I agree with BuddyRoo, someone who can afford to have someone else clean their tack isn’t selling their plasma to be able to afford cup ramen for dinner. The broke and cheap will do it themselves. Everyone else needs to pay a fair rate.

[macmtn]

Charge twice as much…work half as much…make the same money.
this was the philosophy of a production sailmaker I worked for many years ago. He-spent a lot of time sailing instead of sewing.

do not short change yourself. Is a business and you need to run it like you want to be successful, pay the bills and tuck a bit away for poor stretches. And eat steak instead of ramen.

have you done a search on what tack cleaning services elsewhere charge? Good place to start, see what the rest of the world thinks fair is.
its a SERVICE. Get paid for the labor you take pride in.

[mvp]

Yes, charge more for Western saddles.

And I know how long it takes to de-mold a saddle. The tough part about that job is that if you don’t do it right and the mold comes back, your customer will feel ripped off… even if your customer had no idea how many steps/how much labor went into it. So you have to charge more for that. IME, it’s going over every surface at least 2x more than cleaning a saddle. So price accordingly.

One solution that can work: Educate your customers about how you do things-- what products you use; your process; about how long it takes; before and after pictures; what well-conditioned leather looks like and feels like versus what neglected- or even dangerously dry leather looks and feels like.

People feel better about spending money if they feel some mastery in the purchase. Helping them to understand tack care the way you do can help. And for those who bring you a horrible saddle and balk at the price, you can (or have) essentially given them your set of instructions. Trust me: Anyone who let a saddle get into such rough shape is never going to want to spend the time it takes to bring it back. You might be able to send the “cheap” customer home with your recipe for de-molding and cleaning/conditioning a saddle… and still have him come back a few days later, a couple of hours into the process and willing to hand the whole thing over to you.

I hope you can make this work. It’s a great service.

[RedHorses]

Tack cleaning is a LUXURY service. Charge more.

[toady123]

You either need to charge more or work less. if you can’t get your work done any faster, then you should be charging more of your time. I would not double prices overnight as that will just alienate your clients. But incremental increases, and also uncharges for particularly dirty stuff is totally warranted.

[Draftmare]

The leather worker near me charges $45 for cleaning and reconditioning western saddles. I am not sure if he charges more for really dirty tack. My saddle was in good condition, I just wasn’t sure what to do about some of the stains on the roughout or how to get the roughout back to looking like roughout. I would expect to pay more if I took him something truely disgusting and in need of serious help.

[Magicboy]

Prices are way too low…charge more for the first deep cleaning and offer a lower price for return cleaning in 4 months or so

[Casey09]

I say do some market research and price your services fairly. If you want to help other riders, offer to do some seminars at pony clubs and riding groups on tack care. It might get you extra business, and it will help people learn how to maintain tack on a regular basis and spot issues. I clean my tack myself, and I would love something like that! I do use a local place for any repairs that I need. They also do cleaning.

[511]

I think yournprice is fair for a plain untooled working westrn saddle.
The tooling has gotten freaklishly intricate in the past two decades, you should include the difficulty in cleaning that in your price. Perhaps add an hourly charge after a certain time.

[HorseShine]

Wow, you guys are amazing! Thank you to the moon and back for all your well thought out and detailed responses.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been busy with a few saddles from the same customer mentioned in this thread and I have been doing my other outside job. As any business owner hopes, they want their biz to be self-supporting and it looks like I have to take a hard look at my tack cleaning prices. Those are the only prices that bother me.

As for furniture cleaning that’s where the gravy is. One time I cleaned a customer’s sofa, love seat, arm chair and auto upholstery. I made $210 in 2 1/2 hours. In that time, I STILL would have been hard at it with a saddle. Those gravy days are pretty darn scarce. Good times.