Granted, this was way back when I was in HS and going through Pony Club and also later out of college, but both my sister and I offered tack cleaning, braiding and mane pulling at our barn, which was a big competition barn. We did not pick up tack. I think you would have a hard time transporting tack and IMHO that in itself is a liability - see if you can orchestrate time to visit big barns, offer group discounts, etc – that way you are not lugging tack to-and-fro, which you could damage or lose if you did that, and the tack is never leaving the premises. Too much can go wrong. Definitely do not agree to pick up or move people’s stuff. As much as I want to believe people are good, they can be crazy - I have heard of people accusing tack cleaners of scratching, denting, damaging their tack. Thankfully my barn did not have these crazies.
You’ll want to look into different types of leather cleaning goods and what types go best with what type of leather. IE I would not use Lexol on buffalo/calf leather. I’d use Lexol on pigskin though. Conversely not sure I would use castille on pigskin but I’d use it on buffalo… This will be really important if you have high end/luxury saddles of any discipline - you do not want to apply products that will stain or alter the color of a saddle if that is not what your client wants!!
You want to figure out how long it takes you to do an item, and have your price reflect that. I can get a saddle blisteringly clean (not conditioned) in 10 minutes provided it’s been in decent care, but a bridle can take me longer. Conditioning as a rule takes longer as you need to do judicious, slow layers of application. Are you spending an hour on a saddle/bridle combo? 15 minutes? How much do you need to make an hour to make it worth your while?
My cleaning packages were a little more complex than most because I am a little OCD about tack-cleaning (ask my family how they know :winkgrin: )
I offered the base cleaning fee, and you had to select the product packages you wanted. IE I had “Classics” which was glycerin cleaning with neatsfoot oil or olive oil, which was a $15 fee and did not include polishing hardware, or “Luxury” which was castille soap cleaning and Akene or Belharra conditioner followed by hardware polishing (Brasso or Neverdull) which was $20. I was flexible. If you had a request and I had it, I’d do it - if you provided your own leather cleaning goods (which some people did!) I did not charge at all for products used.
So my service charges included the base fee for labor and a base fee for products used. I’m not sure how it would work for western tack which has a lot of tooling and niches that need to be cleaned out, but perfect your routine for systematic tack wipedown, clean, and condition. I would always wipe down with a hot clean damp rag to pull dirt and old conditioning residue up to the service, scrub down with soap of choice, wipe suds/residue off with damp rag, condition, wait to dry, wipe down with light glycerin application and buff. All told, that would take me 30m-1hr depending on the type of saddle, the amount of leather, the care it needed, etc. Some are easier than others.
No one had a problem with it and I think a lot of people really liked that I was open with the products I used and that I offered two different types of services, cleaning and/or restoration. I think people do not want to feel nickle and dimed so when you break down the prices an a way that shows the labor costs + product cost, they tend to be much more willing to pay good money for a service.
It’s been so long I don’t remember the exact prices but I think it was something like:
Base Cleaning Fee:
$15 for a bridle/saddle/girth set
$20 for bridle/saddle/martingale/girth
$5 for bridle only (includes bits/reins)
$5 for halters or other strapgoods
$10 for saddle only
Products Used Fee:
$15 for Classic (Glycerin / Neatsfoot Oil / Glycerin Wipedown)
$20 for Luxury (Castille Soap / Akene or Belharra or Passier / Glycerin Wipedown / Polished Hardware)
So if you had a dressage saddle and bridle you wanted cleaned/conditioned with the Luxurious package, you’d pay $35.
If you had more than one set of tack or you roped friends in, I took $10 off the final bill for each client.
As an aside, I also had a “Hail Mary Restorative” service where I charged $5 per strapgood to clean old, moldy tack (or unlimited amounts of strapgoods for $30) and used a hot bucket of water w/ ammonia, castille cleaning rag and a boatload of Passier Leaderbalsam… I made no guarantees of leather survival but this was for the people who had decades of unused, moldy strapgoods that had piled up in a long-forgotten tack trunk… I never broke or cracked any leather but I always made clients know it was a possibility…
So it averaged to very similar to the prices you have listed… but that was a long time ago.
