Pricing guide
How to price window cleaning
Window pricing confuses house cleaners because the unit is wrong: homes are priced by size and rooms, but glass is priced by the pane. Get the counting unit right and everything else — add-ons, standalone jobs, and the factors that raise the rate — falls into place.
Count panes
The pane is the unit of work. A quick walk-around count beats any square-footage rule.
In, out, or both
Exterior panes take longer than interior ones. Quote each side, not just each window.
Factors, not guesses
Height, screens, tracks, and hard water each have a named upcharge — so the price explains itself.
Building the per-pane price
- Set a base per-pane rate — derived from your hourly rate and how many standard, reachable panes you clean per hour. Interior-only panes go faster; both-sides service is the exterior rate plus the interior rate.
- Add named factors — second-story or pole work, screen removal and washing, track and sill detail, and French/divided-light grids. Each is a small per-pane or per-window upcharge you can point to when explaining the total.
- Apply a job minimum — the same logic as house cleaning: setup and travel don’t shrink because the customer has six windows. Your standard minimum job price applies here too.
- Quote hard-water and paint spots separately — mineral staining needs restoration products and time, and it may not fully come out. Setting that expectation in the quote protects the review, not just the margin.
Add-on service vs standalone job
As a house cleaning add-on
A flat interior-windows add-on keeps quoting fast and raises the average ticket with work you can do with supplies already in the caddy. Cap what the flat fee covers (reachable glass, standard home) and fall back to pane counting past the cap.
As a standalone service
Standalone window jobs compete with dedicated window companies, so the walk-around pane count and a clean factor list are what make your bid look professional. Ground-floor residential is the entry point; leave multi-story exterior work until the equipment and insurance genuinely support it.
FAQ
Should window cleaning be priced per pane, per window, or per hour?
Per pane is the professional standard because it scales cleanly with the actual work: a colonial-grid window is many small panes, a picture window is one big one. Count panes on the walk-around, apply your per-pane rate for inside, outside, or both, then sanity-check the total against the hours it implies.
What makes a window cost more to clean?
Height (ladder or pole work), screens that must be removed and washed, tracks and sills caked with grit, storm windows, French panes, skylights, and hard-water stains — which are a restoration job, not a cleaning job, and should be priced or declined separately.
How should house cleaners price interior windows as an add-on?
A flat add-on works for reachable interior glass — it keeps the quote simple and covers the typical home. When a customer has a sunroom, French doors throughout, or two-story foyer glass, switch to a per-pane count instead of letting a flat fee absorb an hour of extra work.
Is exterior window cleaning worth offering as a house cleaning business?
Ground-floor exterior glass pairs well with interior service and raises the ticket meaningfully. Multi-story exterior work needs ladders, safety practice, and often different insurance — treat it as a separate service you grow into (or refer out) rather than an add-on you improvise.
Keep reading
House cleaning pricing guide
Build a repeatable pricing method using baselines, add-ons, minimums, and travel fees.
How to price deep cleaning
Scope detail-heavy jobs, decide when to use multipliers, and protect your margins.
Move-out cleaning pricing
Quote empty-home turnovers with clearer expectations, labor buffers, and checklist-based extras.
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