Back Trade Owner HQ

How much to charge for house cleaning

A cleaning price that works is built from three things: how long the house really takes, an hourly rate that pays you and your costs, and the small extras (supplies and driving) that add up over a week.

Pricing for cleaners ·

Short answer: price = cleaning hours × your hourly rate + supplies + drive cost. In our worked example below, a recurring clean of a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home that takes 2.5 hours, at $50 an hour, with $6 of supplies and a 10-mile round trip, comes to about $140 a visit. The first deep clean of the same home, at 4.5 hours, is about $240. The $50 rate, the hours and the supply cost are examples, so put in your own.

How do you price a house cleaning job?

  1. Estimate the hours. Count crew-hours, not clock time: two cleaners for 1.25 hours is 2.5 crew-hours. Use the walk-through or the customer's answers (bedrooms, bathrooms, pets, how long since the last clean).
  2. Multiply by your hourly rate. This is what the business charges per cleaner-hour, not what you would pay a helper. It has to cover your pay, payroll taxes, insurance, your car, and the hours nobody pays for: quoting, driving, laundry of cloths, texts and billing.
  3. Add supplies. Chemicals, cloths, vacuum bags and gloves, as a cost per visit.
  4. Add the drive. Miles to the home and back at a real cost per mile.
  5. Round to a clean price and quote it flat. Customers want one number per visit. You keep the hours on your side of the math.

A worked example

A 3-bedroom, 2-bath home of about 1,800 sq ft, cleaned every two weeks. Every input here is an example for showing the math, not a market price.

  • Hours: 2.5 crew-hours for a standard recurring clean (starting guess; time your own).
  • Labor: 2.5 × $50 an hour = $125.00.
  • Supplies: $6.00 a visit (starting guess).
  • Drive: 10 miles round trip × 72.5¢ a mile (the IRS 2026 business mileage rate) = $7.25.
  • Total: $125.00 + $6.00 + $7.25 = $138.25, quoted as $140.

The first visit takes longer. At 4.5 crew-hours the same math gives 4.5 × $50 + $6.00 + $7.25 = $238.25, quoted as $240.

Should I charge by the hour, by the room or by the square foot?

Quote a flat price per visit, and build it from hours. Room counts and square feet are good ways to guess the hours before you see the home, but they miss what really drives the time: pets, clutter, how many people live there, and how long since anyone cleaned. Two 1,800 sq ft homes can be a 2-hour job and a 4-hour job.

Once you have cleaned a home two or three times, you know its real hours. If it keeps running long, the price was wrong; adjust it at the next visit instead of eating the time for months.

How should I price the first deep clean?

Price it as its own job. The first visit removes the build-up that recurring visits never see: baseboards, inside the microwave, soap scum, dust on top of everything. A starting guess is one and a half to two times the recurring hours; check it against the walk-through. Tell the customer up front that the first visit is priced separately and why, so the recurring price doesn't look like a bait-and-switch.

Do weekly customers pay less than monthly customers?

Usually per visit, yes, and it should come from the math, not from a coupon. A home cleaned every week stays cleaner, so each visit takes fewer hours. A monthly home has four weeks of build-up and takes longer. Time each schedule for a few visits and price each one from its own hours. What weekly customers really give you is a steady, predictable route, which is worth more than any single visit.

What do cleaners forget to charge for?

  • Drive time, not just miles. 20 minutes each way is 40 minutes you are paid nothing for unless it is in the price. Group homes by neighborhood so the drive is short.
  • Extras done "while I'm here". Inside the fridge, inside the oven, interior windows, laundry and changing beds all take real time. List them as add-ons with their own price.
  • Lockouts and late cancels. A cancel policy (for example, a fee if they cancel the same day) protects a slot you could have filled.
  • Your own payroll taxes. Working for yourself, you pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare, 15.3% on most earnings (IRS). An employee only sees half of that.

What hourly rate should a cleaner use?

Work it out, don't copy it. Start with the pay you want for a year, add your yearly business costs (car, insurance, supplies you don't bill, phone, software, advertising), and divide by the hours you can really bill. Most owners find they can bill far fewer than 40 hours a week once quoting, driving and admin are counted. Our hourly rate calculator does this math step by step; the plumber wage figures in it won't fit cleaning, but the formula works the same for any trade, so put in your own numbers. To add a profit margin on top, see markup vs margin.

Questions cleaners ask

Should I bring my own supplies or use the customer's?

Bringing your own keeps the results the same in every home and lets you charge for them. If a customer insists on their products, you can use them and leave the supply line off the price.

How do I quote over the phone without seeing the home?

Ask the same short list every time: bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, pets, how many people live there, and when it was last cleaned. Give a range, and confirm the price after the first visit.

How do I raise prices on long-time customers?

Give notice (a few weeks is common), say what the new price is and when it starts, and keep the reason short: costs went up. A once-a-year review is easier on everyone than a big jump after several years.

Is the drive cost really 72.5 cents a mile?

That is the IRS standard rate for business driving in 2026, meant to cover gas, wear and insurance. Your real cost may be lower or higher; it's a sound starting point.

Sources