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Robot ou humain ?

Window and facade cleaning

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

Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits. Méthodologie · Bilan des prévisions

Humain · Par an150 000 $USRope or lift contractor
Robot · Par an54 000 $USDrone cleaning service
Délai de retour sur investissementimmediate
Année de basculedéjàBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

États-Unis · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Charge de travail
Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Working hours per day.

Hypothèse

Working days per month.

Hypothèse

Months per year (volume is annual).

Personnel
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).

Prix
Calculé 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.

Calculé Vista Drone Cleaning

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

Robot
Hypothèse

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

Calculé Lucid Bots

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

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Subscription commitment in years.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Work lost to faults.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

kWh per drone-hour.

Hypothèse

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

Finances
Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Years in the NPV comparison.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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)

Résultats

OptionPar moisPar anPer unit (sq ft)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Rope or lift contractor Référence 12 500 $US150 000 $US1,25 $US— — — —
Robot Drone cleaning service 4 500 $US54 000 $US0,45 $US— immediate — 416 012 $US
Robot Run your own cleaning drone (subscription) 6 961 $US83 532 $US0,696 $US5 000 $US 0.9 mois 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 $UShigh value: 500000 → 1 733 382 $USRope or lift contractorlow value: 0.5 → 105 241 $UShigh value: 3.5 → 1 348 323 $USWork that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → 494 014 $UShigh value: 0.4 → 312 009 $USDrone cleaning servicelow value: 0.12 → 469 020 $UShigh value: 0.5 → 314 073 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 447 747 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 378 356 $USWage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 405 945 $UShigh value: 0.0636 → 426 464 $US416 012 $USlow 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. Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits.

ChartCoût humain par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès rapide), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès lent). 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 $US0,50 $US1,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / sq ftscenario rangeCoût humain par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled es…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Takes people off ropes and lifts for routine washes, the main reason buildings try it.
Qualité
Soft-wash rinsing is not squeegee-clean glass; ask for before and after photos.
Flexibilité
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.
Réglementation
Drone pilot certification (FAA Part 107 or local equivalent), tethered-flight and water-runoff rules apply.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

Les notes et les sources sont en anglais ; la version anglaise fait foi.

  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