Christmas Light Takedown Pricing, Scheduling and Storage

How do you price Christmas light takedown?#

Bundle it when you supply the lights, and price it as its own visit when the customer owns them. That is the whole rule, and the rest of this section is why.

When you supply the lights (seasonal install or lease). The lights are yours, they are coming down and going into your bin, and you want the same customer next November. Takedown inside the per-foot rate means no second invoice in January, no "we thought that was included" call, and no reason for the customer to hire someone else for the easy half of the job. GlowBid's default C9 line prices roofline at $8 per foot, ridge line $8, peaks $9, ground $5, tree $6 and jumps $4 per unlit foot, with takedown and storage inside those rates. Installers set their own numbers; the seasonal per-foot pricing guide walks through each one.

When the customer owns the lights. Then takedown is labour on somebody else's product, and it gets its own line and its own visit. Three published ways to set it: LightQuoter's 20 to 30 percent of the install price, Thumbtack's "about half," or Jobber's flat $100 to $400. If you already run a seasonal service line for re-installs on customer-owned lights (GlowBid's default is $3 per foot of roofline, $3.50 on peaks, $1.50 per foot of jump), a takedown-only visit can price from half of that line. On the worked house that is $311.50, and it is an example setting of ours, not a default.

The minimum job trap. GlowBid's default minimum job is $1,500, and a $311.50 takedown line gets lifted to it. That is right for a November install and wrong for a 40-minute January visit. Set a separate service minimum where your truck actually leaves the yard, or bundle takedown so the question never comes up.

Percent of what. If you use a percent rule, say whether it is a percent of the whole invoice or of the lit runs only. Timers, wreaths and a rush premium are not coming down in January, and a customer who paid a 20 percent rush charge in December will notice a takedown line that includes 25 percent of it.

What does takedown cost you to deliver?#

Less than any of the price rows above, if the route is tight. Jason Geiman's takedown post says most residential takedowns run 10 to 15 minutes and a crew can do 10 to 15 houses a day, which is only possible if the strands were labelled at install and the January route is built by neighbourhood, not by who phoned first. His crew pay guide pays 3 percent of the job for takedown against 12 percent for install. On the $1,691 house that is $50.73 of crew pay to take down what cost $202.92 to hang.

The costs people forget are the ones that are not on the truck. Geiman prices a 10 by 20 commercial storage unit at $2,000 to $3,000 a year. A leased strand that comes down wet and goes into a tote untested is a repair in November. A route that spends 20 minutes driving between 12-minute jobs has doubled its labour. Takedown is a scheduled job with a route and a record, not a favour.

When do you schedule takedown?#

At signing. The takedown window goes on the quote, the job goes on the January board the day the customer signs, and the crew never asks "who is left" in the third week of January. Our lease clause reads January 2 to February 28, weather permitting, because Ottawa gets a week of minus 25 or freezing rain most Januaries and the window has to absorb it. LightQuoter's playbook uses January 5 to 25 as its example window and makes the same point about booking at signing.

Route the month the way you routed November. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood, two-storeys first while the crew is fresh, bungalows in the afternoon, the wide gables and tree wraps on the dry days. Send the on-the-way text the morning of, so the homeowner unlocks the gate and moves the car. Weather moves dates; the contract should say that neither side owes a penalty for a weather delay, and the customer should hear from you, not silence, when the truck does not come.

On a multi-year lease this stops being a memory problem. When a lease is signed in GlowBid, every season's install job and takedown job is created that day, so the January board already has the house on it in August. The clauses are in the multi-year lease agreement template.

What goes in the storage record?#

One line per customer, written at the truck before the bin closes. This is the record that settles a damage claim, tells you what to test in October, and tells the crew which bin to load for the re-install.

Geiman's method for the strands themselves is the cheapest one that works: coil, do not fold, five or six bulbs to a loop, into a labelled tote or a fruit tray, one customer per container. Label the run on a piece of tape at the plug end during install and the takedown crew reads it instead of guessing. The full bin system, the liability cap and what the asset record looks like on a lease are in storing leased Christmas lights.

Worked example: the $1,691 house, three takedown lines#

The house is a two-storey with a garage bump-out and two front gables. Measured from one photo with the 16 ft garage door as the reference; you can price this house in the free tool in a few minutes. C9 LED we supply, GlowBid's default seasonal card, US dollars before tax.

Now the three ways takedown shows up on that quote:

• Bundled (what we do). No takedown line. The scope block says "Includes install, timer, takedown between January 2 and February 28, and storage." The customer signs for $1,691.00 and hears from us once in January to confirm the date.
• Separate line, customer-owned lights. Same house, but the homeowner bought the C9 last year. Install prices from the service line at $623.00 (roofline $420, peaks $161, jumps $24, storey $18), and takedown at half the service line is $311.50, our example setting. Both lines sit under the $1,500 default minimum, so a service minimum has to be set or the quote does not make sense.
• Percent rule, unbundled. If you follow LightQuoter's 20 to 30 percent, the install rate has to come down to match, or the customer pays twice. On $1,691 that is a $338.20 to $507.30 takedown line against an install line that should now be nearer $1,200 to $1,350.

Pick the rule that makes the signed total honest for the visit you will actually make.

How does takedown set up next season?#

Takedown is the first sales call of next year, and it is the only one where the crew is already standing in the driveway. Three things happen at the truck: the strands are tested and logged, the homeowner is asked whether the same layout is wanted next year, and the re-book date goes on the calendar. Shack Shine prices year two and beyond at 45 to 55 percent of the first year for install and takedown on lights the customer now owns, which is the plainest published example of takedown feeding the re-install price. On a lease, the next season's install job already exists; on a one-season job it is a Re-book stage in the pipeline. How to price the second season, on leased and on customer-owned lights, is in year-two rebook and re-install pricing.

Mistakes we have seen with takedown#

• Takedown left vague on the quote. "Lights, $1,691" with no window and no word on takedown becomes a January phone call and a one-star review. Put the window in the scope block.
• Booking takedown in January. By the time the calls come in, the route is a scatter plot. Book it at signing and route by neighbourhood.
• Pulling strands in freezing rain. Cord goes stiff, clips snap, and a $50 visit becomes a $200 repair in the bin. The weather clause exists so you can wait two days.
• Untested strands into the tote. The dark section is found in November on a ladder. Test at the truck, log it, repair in April.
• One bin, three customers. The re-install crew spends 20 minutes sorting. One customer, one labelled bin, one line on the record.
• A percent takedown line on top of a bundled rate. The customer pays for takedown twice and notices. Unbundle the install rate or drop the line.
• The $1,500 minimum applied to a 40-minute visit. Set a service minimum for January work, or bundle and skip the question.
• No liability cap on stored lights. A tote that floods in a rented unit becomes an argument over replacement value. Cap it in the agreement.

Every seasonal quote we send carries the takedown window, the storage line and the measurement disclaimer that the footage came from a photo and is confirmed on site. In GlowBid the drawing, the footage and the price are one object, a signed lease creates the takedown job on its own, and the January board fills itself. Founding prices for installers are on the pricing page.