How much to charge for house cleaning (and how to price each job)

If you are starting a house cleaning business, "how much should I charge?" is the first real question and the one that is easiest to get wrong. Charge too little and you stay busy while barely getting paid. Charge too much with no reasoning behind it and you can't explain the price when a client pushes back.

This guide covers the three common ways to quote (by the hour, by the job, and per square foot), shows what the published ballpark ranges look like, and then walks through building one price from your own numbers. The ranges tell you roughly where the market sits. Your own costs tell you what you need to charge.

The three ways to quote a house cleaning

Hourly. You charge for the time spent. It is the simplest to explain and protects you when a job turns out harder than expected. The downside is that clients can't predict the bill, and some prefer to know the total up front.

Flat rate per visit. You quote a fixed price for a defined scope, such as "3 bed, 2 bath, standard clean, $189." Most residential clients like this because there are no surprises. The risk is on you: if you quote too low, a slow job eats your profit.

Per square foot. The home's size drives the price. It looks objective, but it ignores how clean the home already is, how many bathrooms it has, and how much stuff is in it. Treat it as a cross-check, not your main method.

Many established companies quote a flat rate per visit, but they get to that number from hours and costs, not from a guess. That is the method worth copying.

What published ranges say (US only, and only as a ballpark)

It helps to know where the market sits so your number doesn't look absurd. Housecall Pro, a software company that sells to home-service businesses, publishes a house cleaning pricing guide that I read while writing this. Its figures for the US, as published:

• A typical standard clean: $140 to $220 per visit, for roughly 3 to 4 hours of one cleaner's time on a 2,000 sq ft home.
• Hourly rates of about $30 to $80 per cleaner.
• Per square foot: about $0.10 to $0.20 for a standard clean.

Two cautions. First, these are vendor-published ranges, not independent survey data, and they will not match your town. A rural area and a big city can sit far apart. Second, they describe what clients pay, which says nothing about your costs. A price inside the range can still lose money if your travel time is long or your costs are high.

I haven't found trustworthy, comparable published ranges for the UK, Canada or Australia that I would want to quote here, so I won't invent them. For those markets, look at three or four local competitors' public prices and treat them the same way: as a sanity check.

Build the price from your costs

This is the method behind the free calculator, written out so you can do it on paper. Every number below is an example assumption, not market data. Replace each with your own.

The job: a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home of about 1,500 sq ft (roughly 139 m²). A standard clean. One cleaner.

Step 1: Estimate the hours. Suppose you expect 3 hours of cleaning and 20 minutes of travel in total. Total paid time: 3 h 20 min, or 3.33 hours. Travel counts because you are not earning anywhere else while you drive.

Step 2: Labor cost. Use what an hour of labor really costs you, not just what you'd like to earn. In this example, $35 per hour, which includes your own pay target plus the employer-side costs if you have helpers. Even if you work alone, put a number on your own time. 3.33 h × $35 = $116.67.

Step 3: Supplies. Products, cloths, vacuum bags, disposable gloves: $8 per visit in this example. You'll learn your real figure after a month of tracking receipts.

Step 4: Overhead. Insurance, scheduling software, phone, vehicle wear, marketing, accounting. Suppose these total $400 a month and you do 80 billable hours a month. That is $5 per billable hour. 3.33 h × $5 = $16.67.

Step 5: Your total cost for the visit. $116.67 + $8 + $16.67 = $141.33. That is what the visit costs you before you make anything.

Step 6: Add the margin. Say you want 25% of the price to be profit. Divide your cost by (1 − 0.25):

$141.33 ÷ 0.75 = $188.44, which you round up to $189.

Sense-check it. $189 for a 1,500 sq ft home is about $0.126 per sq ft, inside the published $0.10 to $0.20 band. As an hourly figure, $189 over 3.33 hours is about $56.70 per cleaner-hour, inside the published $30 to $80 range. The number is believable, and you can explain every line of it.

Margin is not markup

This catches many new owners. Adding 25% on top of your cost is a markup, and it gives a lower price than a 25% margin:

• 25% markup: $141.33 × 1.25 = $176.67. Profit is $35.33, which is only 20% of that price.
• 25% margin: $189. Profit is $47.67, which is 25% of that price.

The difference, about $12 a visit, doesn't look like much until you multiply it by 30 visits a month. If you say "I want 25% profit," divide by 0.75. If you say "I add 25%," multiply by 1.25. They are not the same.

Adjust for the things that change the hours

The worked example assumes a normal, reasonably tidy home. Real quotes shift with:

• Condition. A home that hasn't been cleaned in months takes longer. Many cleaners treat the first visit as a one-time or deep clean and then settle into the regular price.
• Pets, clutter and children's rooms. All add time. Ask about them before you quote.
• Bathrooms and kitchen. These are the slowest rooms. A 2-bedroom, 3-bath home can take longer than a 4-bedroom, 1-bath.
• Frequency. A home cleaned every week stays maintained, so each visit takes less time. That is where a recurring discount should come from: fewer hours, not a thinner margin. If you give a weekly client 15% off the price without the hours dropping, you are quietly paying for their discount.
• Extras. Oven, fridge, interior windows. Price each by the time it takes, and list them separately.

Quote a range if you haven't seen the house, and confirm a firm price after a photo or a walkthrough.

Regional notes: US, UK, Canada, Australia

The method is identical everywhere. The inputs change.

Here is the same job, 3 hours of cleaning plus travel, 25% margin, using the starter defaults in the calculator for each currency. Those defaults are editable planning numbers, not market rates, and overhead is scaled to one seventh of the labor rate as in the US example.

A few things that differ by location:

• Size units. UK and Australian clients think in square metres or just in bedrooms. 1,500 sq ft is about 139 m². Quote the way your clients talk.
• Sales tax, VAT and GST. Whether your prices need to include tax depends on your turnover. In the UK you must register for VAT if your taxable turnover goes over £90,000 (the GOV.UK page also covers the 30-day rule). In Canada, a "small supplier" under $30,000 over four consecutive quarters does not have to register for GST/HST. In Australia, GST registration is required when your GST turnover is $75,000 or more. In the US, whether a cleaning service is taxable varies by state. Check your state's rules.
• Paying yourself. In the US, self-employed owners pay self-employment tax of 15.3% on net earnings, on top of income tax (the IRS page explains how it is calculated). Every country has its own version of this, so set money aside from the start.

None of this is tax advice. Thresholds change, so read the linked official pages and talk to a local accountant before you rely on them.

Common pricing mistakes to avoid

1. Pricing from competitors only. Their costs, insurance and hours are not yours.
2. Forgetting travel and quoting time. Unpaid driving between jobs can eat an hour of every day.
3. Treating your own time as free. If you work alone, your labor still needs a line in the price.
4. Discounting to win the first job. A low first price is hard to raise later without a difficult conversation.
5. Never revisiting the numbers. Costs drift. Check them every few months, and see our guide on how to raise prices without losing clients when it is time.

Try it with your own numbers

If you'd rather not do this by hand each time, the free home cleaning price calculator runs the same steps in your browser: you enter the size, type of clean, frequency, your labor rate and target margin, and it shows the hours, your cost, the profit and a suggested price. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.

This guide is general information for planning, not legal, tax or financial advice. The worked example uses assumed numbers to show the method. Your costs, local rules and market will differ.