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¿Robot o humano?

Window and facade cleaning

Rope-access or lift crew (contract) vs Cleaning-drone service

Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos. Metodología · Historial de aciertos

Humano · Al año150.000 US$Rope or lift contractor
Robot · Al año54.000 US$Drone cleaning service
Plazo de recuperaciónimmediate
Año de cruceyaBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

Facade square feet cleaned per year (e.g. 60,000 sq ft twice).

Supuesto

Working hours per day.

Supuesto

Working days per month.

Supuesto

Months per year (volume is annual).

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 37-2019.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Precios
Calculado Sky PSI (drone cleaning company)

Low-to-mid point of conventional lift/rope bids $0.50-$3.50/sq ft. Source is a drone cleaning company, so treat as their view of the competition.

Calculado Vista Drone Cleaning

Upper end of commercial drone-cleaning published rates ($0.12-$0.25 Miami; $0.25-$0.50 Southern California).

Robot
Supuesto

Facade sq ft per drone-hour including setup and moves.

Calculado Lucid Bots

Midpoint of Lucid Bots Sherpa operator subscription $2,950-$4,600/month.

Supuesto

Pilot certification, insurance and gear to run your own drone.

Supuesto

Subscription commitment in years.

Supuesto

Share of working hours flyable (wind, rain, battery swaps).

Supuesto

Work lost to faults.

Supuesto

Share still done by rope or lift (recessed windows, detail work, inspection).

Supuesto

Crew minutes per drone-hour: pilot plus a ground person for the hose and the public.

Supuesto

kWh per drone-hour.

Supuesto

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzas
Supuesto

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Supuesto

Years in the NPV comparison.

Supuesto

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Supuesto

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Supuesto

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Resultados

OpciónAl mesAl añoPer unit (sq ft)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Rope or lift contractor Referencia 12.500 US$150.000 US$1,25 US$— — — —
Robot Drone cleaning service 4500 US$54.000 US$0,45 US$— immediate — 416.012 US$
Robot Run your own cleaning drone (subscription) 6961 US$83.532 US$0,696 US$5000 US$ 0.9 meses 2 %
Utilisation 6 %
 299.089 US$

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Drone cleaning service5-year NPV vs baseline: Drone cleaning serviceWorkloadlow value: 30000 → 104.003 US$high value: 500000 → 1.733.382 US$Rope or lift contractorlow value: 0.5 → 105.241 US$high value: 3.5 → 1.348.323 US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → 494.014 US$high value: 0.4 → 312.009 US$Drone cleaning servicelow value: 0.12 → 469.020 US$high value: 0.5 → 314.073 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 447.747 US$high value: 0.12 → 378.356 US$Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 405.945 US$high value: 0.0636 → 426.464 US$416.012 US$low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos.

ChartCosto humano por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance rápido), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$0,50 US$1,00 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / sq ftscenario rangeCosto humano por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled es…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
Takes people off ropes and lifts for routine washes, the main reason buildings try it.
Calidad
Soft-wash rinsing is not squeegee-clean glass; ask for before and after photos.
Flexibilidad
Rope teams also inspect sealant and fix things.
Edge cases
Wind, tall towers, dense downtowns and airspace rules limit drones.
Customer experience
Tenants prefer not having a person at the window.
Jobs and redeployment
Rope access shifts toward inspection and repair.
Regulación
Drone pilot certification (FAA Part 107 or local equivalent), tethered-flight and water-runoff rules apply.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

Las notas y las fuentes están en inglés; la versión en inglés es la de referencia.

  1. Conventional lift/rope exterior cleaning bids $0.50-$3.50 per sq ft (for comparison with drone cleaning) Sky PSI (drone cleaning company), 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Drone facade/window cleaning, commercial buildings: $0.12-$0.25 per sq ft Vista Drone Cleaning, 2026-10 · vendor
  3. Lucid Bots Sherpa cleaning drone subscription for operators: $2,950-$4,600 per month Lucid Bots, 2026-10 · vendor
  4. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  5. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  6. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  7. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  8. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  9. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  10. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  11. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  12. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  13. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  14. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013