Pricing guide
How much should you charge for house cleaning?
Customers don’t mind paying good money—they mind pricing that feels inconsistent. This guide shows a practical way to price cleaning work using a repeatable method: baseline labor, room adjustments, add-ons, minimums, and frequency.
Clarity
Make the quote easy to explain: labor, extras, travel, and minimums.
Consistency
Quote the same way across your team so pricing doesn’t drift job-to-job.
Confidence
Use a method that protects margins without guessing or overthinking.
The simplest pricing model that still works
A quote becomes consistent when it’s built from the same building blocks every time. A strong baseline model looks like this:
- Baseline labor based on home size (square footage or a size band).
- Room adjustments for bedrooms/bathrooms beyond your baseline.
- Add-ons for common tasks (appliances, windows, laundry, pet hair).
- Service & frequency multipliers (deep clean, move-in/out, weekly/biweekly).
- Travel fee + minimum to keep small jobs profitable and consistent.
Hourly vs flat-rate: what to choose
Hourly pricing
Great for learning your true labor time. Make sure you’re tracking travel, supplies, and the time it actually takes to do the work you promise.
- Good early on or when scope is uncertain
- Can feel unpredictable to customers
- Can lead to “we’re slower so you pay more” awkwardness
Flat-rate quoting
Customers love clarity. The key is to ground your flat-rate in labor hours, minimums, and add-ons—so the number stays defensible.
- Easy to present and compare
- Encourages efficiency
- Needs a consistent method (not guessing)
Minimums and travel fees (why they matter)
Two teams can clean the same “small” home and get very different outcomes depending on drive time, setup, and expectations. A minimum job price keeps small jobs from being underquoted. A travel fee can cover the real cost of getting to the job.
Demo minimum job
$120.00
A floor to prevent tiny jobs from eating your schedule.
Demo travel fee
$15.00
Helps cover drive time and overhead in a consistent way.
Add-on pricing examples (what to charge for extras)
Customers understand extras if they’re clear. The easiest extras are common, repeatable tasks with predictable time. Condition-based work is often better priced as labor time.
Flat-rate extras
- Inside oven
- Inside fridge
- Interior windows
Flat extras keep quoting fast and easy to explain.
Hour-based extras
- Laundry (fold)
- Pet hair detail
- Condition-based detailing
Hour-based extras scale better when the home condition varies.
A repeatable workflow beats perfect math
The goal isn’t to calculate a “perfect” price. The goal is to quote in a way that’s consistent, defensible, and fast. Customers want confidence and clarity. Your team needs a method that holds up across different homes and different days.
FAQ
Should I price house cleaning hourly or flat-rate?
Many teams start with hourly pricing to learn their true labor time, then move to flat-rate quoting using a repeatable formula. Flat-rate feels clearer to customers, but it must be grounded in realistic hours and minimums.
How do I price deep cleaning vs standard cleaning?
Deep cleans usually require more time per room and more detail work. A simple approach is to use a multiplier for deep cleaning so the estimate stays consistent across home sizes.
What add-ons are easiest to charge for?
Appliance interiors (oven/fridge) and interior windows are common flat-rate add-ons. Condition-based work (like pet hair) is often best priced as additional labor time.