Priced the way Gutter Cleaning work is billed
A single-story gutter clean and a gutter guard install don't get quoted the same way, so why would every trade? SideWRK prices Gutter Cleaning the way the work is really billed: per linear foot — about $1 a linear foot — with guards and repairs billed separately. Tap the work, put in the numbers, and the line prices itself — no napkin math, no undercharging a job because you rushed the quote.
What Gutter Cleaning jobs actually run
These are the starting numbers SideWRK loads for common Gutter Cleaning work — researched to be realistic, so you can send an estimate that isn't a guess. Adjust any of them to your market in a tap.
Typical starting prices in the app — your area, your materials, and your reputation move them. You set your own; these just keep you from undercharging on the first quote.
Gutter guard install, priced out
Numbers only mean something on a real job, so here's how SideWRK builds the ticket on a common one:
SideWRK puts the parts on at what you actually paid — so the $765 of labor is what you clear, not a marked-up parts total dressed up as profit.
What moves a Gutter Cleaning price
Two Gutter Cleaning jobs that look the same on paper can be a hundred dollars apart once you're on site. Here's what actually changes the number — the things to size up before you quote:
- Stories and pitch — a two-story or steep roof is more ladder time and more risk for every foot of gutter.
- Debris load — a year of packed pine needles and a downspout clog is a different clean than light leaves.
- Guards and repairs — installing guards or resealing a leaking seam is separate from the cleaning itself.
What a Gutter Cleaning job puts on the record
Every trade documents something different, and Gutter Cleaning is no exception. SideWRK captures the number of stories and the rest of what your work needs on the record — the details that protect you and make the invoice stand up:
- the number of stories
- whether gutter guards are on or off
- the roof-access type — ladder, walkable, steep
- a work-at-height note
Example note on a job: "Fascia rot spotted at rear corner — cleaned only; repair recommended."
How to price a Gutter Cleaning job in SideWRK
- 1
Start the job and add your work
Open a Gutter Cleaning job and tap a suggestion like "Single-story gutter clean" or "Two-story gutter clean" — the common work is already loaded, so you tap instead of type.
- 2
Price it per linear foot
Enter the numbers and the line prices itself, per linear foot — about $1 a linear foot — with guards and repairs billed separately. Put parts on at your cost so what you clear is real profit, not just the Gutter Cleaning ticket total.
- 3
Note the details
Add a plain-English note — for example, "Fascia rot spotted at rear corner — cleaned only; repair recommended." — and a photo of the work.
- 4
Log what the job needs
Capture the Gutter Cleaning-specific records: the number of stories, and whether gutter guards are on or off.
- 5
Send it and get paid
Send the Gutter Cleaning estimate for approval. Your customer approves from their phone, the invoice goes out, and you get paid — card or Apple Pay, on the spot.
Staying on the right side of the rules
SideWRK documents your Gutter Cleaning work — it doesn't make you licensed, and it says so plainly. What to know: a business license in some places and clear work-at-height responsibility — repairs beyond cleaning can cross into licensed contractor work. The app flags the permit and license triggers so they never surprise you mid-job.
Gutter Cleaning pricing — common questions
How do I price a Gutter Cleaning job in SideWRK?
You bill per linear foot — about $1 a linear foot — with guards and repairs billed separately. Add the work — Single-story gutter clean, Two-story gutter clean, Downspout flush — enter the numbers, and each line prices itself. Parts go on at your cost, so you see real profit and not just the total.
What does a typical Gutter Cleaning job cost?
It depends on the work, but as a realistic starting point a common job like gutter guard install runs about $900 in the app — roughly $765 of that is your labor and about $135 is parts at your cost. Common Gutter Cleaning work ranges from about $60 to $900. Those are defaults you can change — you always set your own prices.
What does SideWRK document on a Gutter Cleaning job?
The records Gutter Cleaning work actually needs: the number of stories; whether gutter guards are on or off; the roof-access type — ladder, walkable, steep. They stay on the job as you work, so the paper trail is built instead of reconstructed later, and the disclosures this trade needs print on the estimate and invoice themselves.
Do I need a license to do Gutter Cleaning work?
That depends on your state and the job, but here's the shape of it: a business license in some places and clear work-at-height responsibility — repairs beyond cleaning can cross into licensed contractor work. SideWRK documents the work; it doesn't certify you. It flags the permit and license triggers so nothing sneaks up on you.
Does SideWRK work for trades other than Gutter Cleaning?
Yes — it runs all 42 trades, each priced and documented its own way. If you run more than one, the Multi-Trade plan unlocks them all and switches between them in a tap.
Your first jobs
Prices are the easy half. The first houses that will pay them are a separate problem, and the guide below is where that one gets solved. This chapter is narrower: what happens between the ladder coming off the truck and the money landing.
- The pricing craft has its own guide. Pricing Gutter Cleaning Jobs by the Linear Foot is this trade's deep-dive — the rate behind every service, the first-clean premium and why charging it protects the customer who books you every spring, the minimum that keeps a short run from wrecking your day rate, and a neglected two-story colonial worked line by line to a real total. Read that one before you put a number on a house that's been let go.
- Quote it before you fold the ladder. Pace the perimeter, type the feet, and the estimate goes out branded, from where you're parked, for the customer to approve on their own phone. Their typed name is the signature and it lands on the document with the date. The deposit is yours to set per estimate off a fixed picker — waived, 10, 25, 33, or 50 percent — and if you quoted guards as a maybe, mark those lines optional and let them keep or drop them at approval.
- The app tells you when they're reading it. Opening the estimate trips a notice back to you — a push where your phone is subscribed, an email where it isn't, one or the other by design and never the pair, and at most once per job in any six hours. Held that tight, it means something when it fires: they have the number in front of them right now.
- Nobody has to chase the quiet ones. An estimate that goes unanswered gets a nudge at 3 days and again at 7. Twice, then it stops, and it's a toggle you own.
Repeat business
Gutters fill twice a year whether anyone calls you or not, which makes this the rare trade where the second job is already scheduled by the weather. How to ask for it while you're still on the property, and what to actually say, is the linear-foot guide's territory. What follows is the machinery underneath it:
- The record is what makes next spring easy. A gutter job hangs off a job site, and the site asks the things you'd otherwise be squinting to remember in March — stories, whether guards are on, off, or partial, and how you got up there: ladder from the ground, walkable roof, steep and harness needed, or tight access. The notes box asks for the rest in plain words, right down to where the debris goes.
- "Same as last time" is two taps. Open last fall's job and copy it. You get a fresh estimate for the same customer at the same site, same lines at the same prices, ready to edit. Payments and photos stay behind; only the work comes across.
- Put the twice-a-year on a cadence. A recurring plan is a template with a schedule — weekly, every two weeks, monthly, or every so many days — plus its own line items. When a cycle comes due the visit is simply there in the morning — already filled in, carrying a Recurring tag — and if the customer beats the calendar to it you can start the next one early yourself.
- The seasonal note is already written. Two of them. "Gutters before the fall rains" comes up September through November, "Spring gutter clean-out" March through May, both in this trade's own words with a Spanish version beside them. The app hands you the message and your customers' addresses formatted for BCC, and you paste both into your own email and send it yourself — nothing here mails anybody. Anyone who once asked to be left alone stays off the list.
- The lights are the same ladder. October is when the gutter call and the holiday-lighting call are one conversation: you are already on their roofline with a tape measure, and the install window closes with the weather, so a yes on the ladder in October is a booked November and an email in December is somebody else's job. Both trades' seasonal reminders are keyed to the same three months for exactly that reason. Switch trades and the customer and the job site come with you — one list across all 42 trades — while jobs, plans, and the price book stay separated by trade, so gutter money and lighting money never blur into one number. Two things to settle before the first one. What that side actually pays, and how a stored set turns into next year's re-install at almost no material cost, is worked out in Book Your Holiday Lighting Season Before Fall Hits. And your insurance: call your carrier and ask straight out whether roofline lighting work sits under the policy you bought for gutter work, because they are the only ones who can answer it. December ladder work is its own job, too — shorter daylight, colder hands, frost on the gutter edge some mornings — not an easier version of an October clean.
- The review ask, without the reminder to yourself. Close a job and it can go out on its own: one email, a single nudge roughly three days behind it, then silence. That cap is deliberate — this is a favor asked once, not a campaign — and the whole thing turns off in Shop if you'd sooner ask a person while you're folding the ladder.
How gutter cleaning bills
One meter, and a handful of lines that deliberately ignore it. The work form on a gutter job asks two numbers — Linear feet and Rate ($/linear ft), preloaded at the researched $1.00 default — with a "This work =" figure under the fields that redraws on every keystroke. Don't feel like walking the perimeter? Trace the run off the satellite and the footage drops straight into the box. What the meter makes of a house — and note the second story is its own number, not the same rate over more feet:
Same arithmetic on every row at the $1.00 default. That 60-foot row is the one that shouldn't leave the truck — drive time, ladder setup, and teardown cost the same on 60 feet as on 200 — which is why the linear-foot guide sets a working floor and holds it. That guide is also where the per-service rates live: the second story bills more per foot and not just more total, guards carry their own number, and a house nobody has touched in three years is a restoration, not a cleaning.
Not every line rides the meter, and the app knows which. The clean is per foot. A downspout flush, a realign and re-seal, and a debris haul-away are flat lines. Guards are per foot at their own rate. Each "Add work" lands as its own line on the estimate, so the customer reads what every dollar bought instead of one number and a shrug.
Three taps off the suggestion chips. Only the first line touches the per-foot rate, so changing the rate box moves the clean and leaves the flush and the haul alone — which is the whole reason the clean bills by the foot and the rest bills by the job.
Multiplying jobs
A packed gutter photographs better than anything else in this trade. Nobody argues with a handful of what came out of their own downspout. What the app does with it:
- The before and after works the rest of the street. Tap two of the job's photos — the packed trough, then the clean run — and they post as a pair to the work gallery on your public page. Between two names on a list, a homeowner picks the one whose gutters they have already seen.
- The unpaid ones chase themselves. A balance still sitting there gets a note at 3 days, 7, and 14 — three of them and no more — each showing what's owed and a link to settle it. The link opens the same approval page they signed, which takes a card or Apple Pay. If you'd rather keep the fee, the Request Payment card is the other rail: you make it, you send it, and it carries your Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle.
- Guard stock rides along. Truck stock is one list across every trade you run, so the guard sections and sealant you bought for a gutter job are the same shelf you draw from when you're back at that house hanging lights.
A whole gutter business, jobs and photos and follow-ups already loaded, is open at the live gutter cleaning demo. No signup, nothing to fill in.
Price it now
Feet of gutter, how many stories, how bad it's been let go, your rate, and what the job costs you out of pocket. It's the same free tool sitting on the gutter cleaning page, and it works right here (full version opens in its own page):
The paper worth keeping
Above is the list of what a gutter job records. Here is what each of those answers is actually for, where it ends up, and which parts of it a customer ever lays eyes on:
- The site record is for you; the note is for them. Stories, guards, and access sit on the job site, so next season opens on a record instead of a guess. The part a customer reads is the note you type on the work in plain words — the fascia-rot line quoted further up this page is the shape of it. That sentence, written the day you saw the thing, is what settles who knew what and when.
- Height is yours, and the document says so. Every gutter estimate and invoice carries it in writing: work at height is the operator's responsibility, ladder safety and fall-protection practices apply on every gutter job, and steep or high roof work carries added risk you have to judge. It also says plainly that the document is not a safety certification, because it isn't one.
- Where cleaning stops and contracting starts. Routine gutter cleaning generally needs only a local business license. Repairs past cleaning and re-securing — fascia or roof-edge repair, a new gutter, a guard installation — can cross into licensed contractor work once a job passes your state's minor-work limit. That's a line worth knowing before you quote the guard job rather than after you've bought the material. There's an optional business license field, and once you fill it in, the number prints in the header of every document you send.
- The debris is yard waste, mostly. Gutter debris counts as yard waste in most areas, and the disposal rules are local. That's one phone call to your hauler or transfer station, once, and then you know for every job after it.
- April is mostly filing, not reconstructing. The numbered invoices, what came in, the fuel and the dump tickets — a year-end wrap-up pulls them into one place, totalled by category, with CSVs and a printed sheet to hand your preparer.
SideWRK is the notebook, not the license. It documents the work, and it never determines or guarantees compliance with any licensing, safety, or disposal requirement. Meeting them stays yours.