How Much Does House Cleaning Cost: Pricing Guide (2023)

You worked hard on itStart your own cleaning businesscompletely new. You have registered your business, decided which oneTypes of cleaning services to offer, and bought your owncleaning products and equipment.

Now you are looking for new jobs and potential clients are asking for your house cleaning price list. But then it hits you — you're not quite sure how much to charge for cleaning a house.

For a standard cleaning, you can charge $40 per hour, $25 per room, 10¢ per square foot, or $100-$170 flat rate. But which option is best for your business and your customers?

It all depends on a number of factors, which we will now discuss. We will also explore the different types of pricing methods and show examples of how cleaning services are priced. Let's start!

How to set your house cleaning rates:

1. Consider your pricing factors
2. hourly rate method
3. Flat Rate Method
4. Pricing method for room rates
5. Calculation method for square meter prices
6. Price method for special services
7. Calculate your tariff

To create a quote for cleaning services: Consider your pricing factors

Before you start thinking about exact numbers, it's important to think about the most common factors that affect your home cleaning costs:

• Work:How many workers do you have and which onesclean salary? Consider your hourly rate for your team's work, even if you're currently a one-man team. Multiply your hourly rate by the number of workers on that job, then add 18% salary. That's your absolute minimum, not counting overhead and other factors.
• Overhead and Profit Margin:What does your cleaning business need to survive and profit? This includes taxes, fuel,cleaning insurance, deliveries,advertising, and all other business expenses. Once you know your hourly rate, add at least 50% to cover overhead and profit margins (which should be 20-35% alone).
• house size:What size apartment will you clean? This is usually determined by square footage or the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The bigger the house, the more you should charge for your house cleaning service.
• Initial state:How dirty is the apartment right now? Get photos or do a walkthrough to find out. The worse the condition of the house, the more cleaning is required - and the more you want to charge for your time and effort. You may want a higher price if the customer also has pets, as this could mean you need to come more often or clean more carefully.
• Hometown:where is home If you have to travel a longer distance, you will have to charge more to cover travel time and fuel. You can also schedule or use customers in the same area on the same dayroute optimizationto reduce travel time.
• Local demand:What is the standard tariff in your region? Your rate should be unique to your business, but some areas will have a higher or lower rate depending on the level of demand for cleaning services. Use the local rate to make sure you're not paying too much or too little.
• Ideal Customer:What kind of clients would you like to work with? If you work in a lower-income area, premium pricing won't get you very far. On the other hand, lower interest rates in a high-income area could mean you're leaving money on the table. Make sure you charge the exact rate your customer is willing to pay.
• Type of cleaning:What services does the customer need? Basic tasks like vacuuming and dusting (especially if you do them every week) don't take as long as a more thorough one-time deep cleaning. You want to charge more for services that require more time, effort, or materials—or specialty services that your competitors don't offer.
• Cleaning frequency:how often will you clean A one-time deep clean takes a lot of time and thrills, especially if it hasn't been done in a while. However, if you're cleaning regularly, you won't be as busy since you're in maintenance mode. The more time and effort you put in, the more you should charge.
• Experience level:How long have you been cleaning professionally? If you've been in the industry for a long time, you can charge a premium for your reputation and expertise. If you are less experienced, you may have to wait to charge this higher rate until you have the experience to secure it.

Pro Tip:if there is onecleaning contractinvolved, try to do an initial cleaning before signing on the dotted line. This shows you how much work to expect each time. Otherwise, you could get locked up for a lower price or longer cleaning time than planned!

FREE TOOL:Try our free cleaning estimate template

How to charge for cleaning a home: Choose a pricing method

There are five common methods to help you decide how much to charge for cleaning a home. They can all be effective - it's just a matter of finding thempricing strategythis works best for you.

1. House cleaning hourly rate

Calculating an hourly rate for house cleaning is a great idea when you are starting out. You may not know how long the cleaning will take. So if you charge every hour you will have the time you need.

Here's how to charge for cleaning a home based on the hourly rate. There are two different numbers at play - the amount each worker takes home and the amount you actually charge per hour:

How much should I charge for house cleaning on an hourly rate?

• Thataverage hourly wageis for a maid, cleaner, or housekeeper in the United States12,58 $. This number can be a few dollars higher or lower depending on your skill level, average pay in your state, and whether you work in homes or hotels, since homes pay slightly better. The average salary per state can provide a starting point for pay, but make sure you and your employees are getting a fair wage based on work and experience.
• Yourhouse cleaning hourly rateFactors in labor, overhead and profit margins. A reasonable hourly rate is around $25-$50 for less experienced cleaners or standard services, but the one-time cost for a deep cleaning per hour can be as high as $100.

Lower prices are usually for regular customers who have you clean every week or so. If the house needs more work or more cleaners, you can charge a higher hourly rate for house cleaning.

You can also offer a discount for regular customers, service packages orandere Upsells.

Should you charge an hourly rate for house cleaning?

There are a few situations where charging an hourly rate for house cleaning may not benefit you:

• If you are an established company, you will not be rewarded for getting faster and better at your job unless you charge a higher hourly rate.
• Some clients may not want an hourly rate for house cleaning—they may think you're purposely taking longer to make more money.

But if you calculate the right home cleaning rates and take the time to build trust with your customer, you can still make this pricing method work for you.

Pro Tip:The first visit takes the longest. You may want to charge a higher price for the first visit and then reduce your price for future visits. Make sure you do a preview as well the first time – this can help you decide what to charge for house cleaning.

2. Flat rate

With flat rates, you don't have to worry about fair pay and customer trust as much as you do with hourly rates. This is one of the most common pricing methods for cleaners.

With the flat rate pricing method, you're pricing your value, not your time. Your services solve a problem - what is the solution worth to the customer?

For example, maybe your client lives alone and works long hours. You don't have time to tidy up or do laundry. Show them the value of solving their problem, and the flat fee is a small price the customer has to pay.

CONTINUE READING:Unique cleaning business ideas to boost your business

How to calculate flat rate house cleaning:

Flat fee house cleaning pricing guide

• Aweekly or bi-weekly cleaningcan be $100-170 for a typical single family home. You can increase your flat fee if you clean more rooms or visit less often, or lower your rate if you clean an apartment or smaller home.
• Oncethorough cleaningcan be $200-400, especially if the house is larger. if it is aMove-in or move-out cleaning, aim for the top of this area - the house will be empty, so you'll be covering more ground than normal.
• For aconstruction cleaning, you can charge up to $800 off your normal deep cleaning rates for a new build or recent renovation cleaning.

When determining your flat fee, consider pricing factors such as time, number of rooms, and number of employees. Build in healthy profit margins and a little extra cushion in case unexpected hiccups arise at work.

CONTINUE READING:Start using these best practices for quoting

Should I charge a flat rate for my cleaning services?

A flat fee is based on value and is most beneficial to your customer. Your budget is fixed from the start, no matter how much cleaning product you use or how much time you spend on the job.

While a flat fee may be easier to sell to customers, it can also cost you if your plan doesn't cover all of the cleaning required. You should make money with this pricing method and not lose it.

Pro Tip:When you're cleaning, take your time to see how long it takes, and then think about how you can make sure you're hitting that time limit with every job. If you don't already have clients, clean your own home or a friend's.

3. Room rate

Charging a flat rate can be tricky when you're cleaning homes of all shapes and sizes. Because of this, some cleaners base their price list for home cleaning services on a room rate.

The term "room rate" most often refers to the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, not the number of actual rooms in the house. That means you can definitely charge a price based on actual rooms if you want!

CONTINUE READING:Use our free house cleaning checklist

Use these numbers as a starting point when deciding how much to charge for house cleaning per room:

How much is house cleaning per room?

The average room rate for a one bedroom, one bathroom home is $75-$110 plus $25 for each additional bedroom and $10 for each additional bathroom.

So, assuming a starting price of $95 and cleaning a three bedroom, two bathroom home, a reasonable price might be $160 for a weekly cleaning job.

If a house has more bedrooms, it may also have a larger kitchen and living space. Keep this in mind when calculating room rates for homes with four or more bedrooms.

Should I charge a room rate for my cleaning services?

This pricing method works better for repeat jobs where each room is in reasonably good condition. It won't work as well to deep clean a house that hasn't been done in a while.

The room price also applies to any room, no matter how big or small it is. So make sure you assign accurate prices to each room type to keep your jobs as profitable as possible.

CONTINUE READING:Learn how to bundle and resell cleaning services

4. Square footage

If calculating a room price seems like too much math, you can follow in the footsteps of other successful cleaners and base your home cleaning prices on a square foot basis.

This type of pricing is easy to calculate on-site when a customer asks for a quote. Just ask them the square footage and then multiply that number by your square footage.

Your square foot price should vary depending on the size of the home and the type of cleaning you offer. To calculate the cleaning cost per square foot:

How much do I charge for cleaning a house per square meter?

• To theweekly or bi-weekly cleaning, you can charge 5-15¢ per square foot. As a general rule, the higher the square footage, the lower your price should be.
• If you do oneExcerpt clean, you can charge up to 22¢ per square foot since you are actually cleaning every single one of those square feet.
• Oncethorough cleaningcan cost up to 33¢ per square foot as it may not have been done in a while and you put more effort into each square foot.

So if you're deep cleaning a 700-square-foot furnished apartment costing 30¢ per square foot, you'd be shelling out $210 for this one-time job.

On the other hand, cleaning a 2,000 square foot house regularly at a cost of 7¢ would set you back $140 a week. It's less income per job, but it's recurring work that you can always count on.

Should I charge a square foot rate for my cleaning services?

Square foot prices work especially well if you do tooclean commercial space. Commercial customers prefer this pricing method, so you may find it easier to price all your cleaning jobs the same way.

If you decide to quote by square feet, run the numbers for a few different house sizes. Then make sure you still come out on top when it comes to labor, inventory, overhead and profit margins.

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5. Specialty Cleaning Services

Specialty Services are an extra step to help your customers solve a problem. Many household cleaners don't have the ability to solve it, but they do - and that's what sets you apart from your competitors.

Not sure how much to charge for specialty services? Typically, these types of add-ons use a mix of the other four pricing models, depending on the service.

CONTINUE READING:Offer service packages at good, better and best prices

To charge for cleaning services that are not offered as frequently:

Pricing guide to home cleaning by specialty services

• floor cleaningServices are mostly based on square meters, but you can also charge hourly, flat rate or room rate. Polishing costs 4-12¢, tile cleaning 12-21¢, carpet cleaning 16-28¢, and stripping and waxing 30-50¢.
• The average cost ofequipment cleaningdepends on how big the device is and how much work is required. They can usually charge $10-$35 per unit, but you can offer up to $100 for a bigger job like a fridge cleaning if it's in really bad shape.
• If you offerclean windows, it is common to charge $2 to $6 per slice depending on size, time and effort.
• laundry servicecosts $5-20 per load. That usually just involves washing and drying - if you're willing to spend time folding and putting away as well, make sure you charge more.
• QuoteFurniture and curtain cleaning, like everything else, depends on how many pieces you're looking at, how big they are, and what shape they're in. You can start at $100 an hour for this type of service and work your way up from there.

Keep in mind that this is just a starting point. You can set your own prices based on what feels right for your situation and your customers - and what they are willing to pay.

Pro Tip:You can also set yourself apart from the competition by using iteco-friendly cleaning products, either as added value or at extra cost. Just make sure your bottom line can handle more expensive consumables!

How much does it cost to deep clean a house?

Performing a deep clean can increase your normal cleaning rates by an additional 30-50%. This is what it could look like with the different pricing methods:

• Hourly rate for deep cleaning:$40-100 based on team size and experience
• Flat fee:$200-400+ depending on the size of the house (and your team)
• Room rate:$98-165 for 1 bed and 1 bath, plus $35/bedroom and $15/bathroom
• Quadratmeter-Footage-Rate:$0.11-0.33 per square foot (on the low end for larger homes)

To quote cleaning services: Calculate your price

So you've considered all your pricing factors and chosen a pricing method. Now it's time to actually learn how much they charge for cleaning the house and how to present the price quote to your client.

Here is an example of how a cleaning job is priced. Let's say a new client asks for a quote. After asking them a few questions, you find out the following:

• The house is 3,000 square meters
• You live next door to one of your other clients
• They want you to clean every week
• You need a basic cleaning plus laundry service
• They have three dogs that shed

You decide you need a team of three cleaners for four hours a week. Treating the dog hair will take time, but you can be more efficient if you schedule this client and their neighbor on the same day.

Pro Tip:If your new customer was recommended by their neighbor (one of your existing customers), think about offering somethingReferral Incentivesfor both customers to thank them for their business.

"How much should I charge to clean a house?"

Let's dive into the math with an hourly pricing model:

1. Calculate working time:Multiply the number of people on the job (three) by the number of hours the job will last (four). This adds up to a total of 12 hours of work per visit.
2. Calculate labor costs:Multiply your hours worked (12) by your workers' total hourly wages (let's say they make $12 an hour). That's a labor cost of $144. This step can be difficult if your employees are paid different wages, but in this case, average their wages and use this number.
3. Add labor costs:Multiply your labor costs by your salary percentage, which covers expenses like workers' compensation, Social Security, and healthcare benefits. This number varies by state and should be populated somewhat. So if your state's percentage is 17%, round up to 20% to get the total employee expense of $172.80.
4. Add more fees:Let's say you offer laundry on top of your regular cleaning services. They charge $10 per load, and the customer requires three loads per visit, which adds up to $30 each time. Since the client also has dogs, decide to add a small fee of $15 per visit to clear up the extra dust and pet hair. That's a total of $45 in additional fees per visit for a total of $217.80.
5. Add overhead:Youroverheaddepends on factors such as B. how big your company is, how muchMarketingyou do and how far you have to travel for jobs. Still, it's good practice to add at least 20-25% to your total work count. Assuming you are on the low end, this brings your bid to $261.36.
6. Add markup:Everything you've calculated so far will help you pay your workers and keep your business running, but you still have to do itCalculate profit marginsfor this job so your business can grow! Add a markup of at least 10% to bring your final number to $287.50, which means you'll make $26.14 from this job.

It might sound like a lot of math, but if you use itCleaning software for businessesTo create your free estimates, you can send offers on site and start cleaning even faster.

Pro Tip:If you plan to discount your services in any way, increase yoursmarkup percentageSo you still make money from every job. Remember, this rebate cannot come from wages or overhead—it can only come from your profits.

FREE TOOL:Try our free cleaning receipt template

"So how much should I charge to clean a house?"

Now you know the answer - it depends! There are many factors to consider and a number of pricing methods to help you set your home cleaning prices.

Your prices will not be exactly the same as others, nor should they be. Instead, it's the prices that are just right for you and your customers.