How Much Should I Charge for House Cleaning?
Guessing at a price is how cleaning businesses go under while staying busy. Put in the bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, what labor costs you and the profit you want — this works out the hours and hands you the number to quote.
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Charge this much
$390
Comfortable range $355 – $430
10.75 hr on site · $36/hr effective
- Square footage time1,800 sq ft ÷ 190 sq ft/hr
- 9.5 hr
- Bedrooms + bathrooms10 min per bedroom, 25 min per bathroom
- 1.25 hr
- Labor cost10.75 hr × $25.00/hr
- $270
- Your profit30% of the price
- $120
- Price per square footHandy for comparing against competitors
- $0.22 / sq ft
This is an estimate to anchor your quote, not a substitute for walking the house. Condition, pets, clutter, stairs and drive time all move the number.
Want to send this as a professional quote?
CleanQuotes does this math on-site with your own price book, scans the rooms with LiDAR so you aren't guessing at square footage, and emails the customer a branded PDF before you leave the driveway.
- Your rates and branding
- Scan rooms instead of measuring
- Priced PDF before you leave
How to price a cleaning job in four steps
Every profitable cleaning price is the same equation: hours on site, what those hours cost you, and the margin you keep on top.
Start with time, not with a gut feel
Square footage divided by how fast you actually clean gives you hours. Bedrooms add 10 minutes each and bathrooms add 25 — a bathroom is the slowest room in the house per square foot, and a four-bath home is real work a floor plan alone won't tell you about.
Cost your labor honestly
Your labor rate is not the wage on the paycheck. Add payroll taxes, workers' comp, and insurance — usually 15–25% on top. Quoting off the raw wage is the fastest way to work a full week and end up with nothing.
Add profit as a margin, not a markup
If you want to keep 30% of the job, divide your cost by 0.70 — don't multiply it by 1.30. Multiplying by 1.30 leaves you with 23%, and that 7% is your whole year.
Never quote below your minimum
Drive time, setup and the supplies you carry in cost the same on a 600 sq ft condo as on a big house. A 2-hour minimum keeps small jobs from quietly losing money.
How fast should you expect to clean?
Production rate — square feet finished per hour — is the number the whole quote hangs on. These are sensible starting points for one cleaner working to a professional standard. Time your own jobs and replace them.
| Type of clean | Sq ft / hour |
|---|---|
| Maintenance clean | 190 |
| Deep clean | 145 |
| Move in / move out / post-construction | 145 |
What the market tends to pay
Rates vary a lot by region, so treat these as a range to check yourself against, not a target. If your calculated price is far outside them, look at your speed and your labor cost before you discount.
- Maintenance clean$0.10 – $0.25 / sq ft
- Deep clean$0.20 – $0.40 / sq ft
- Move out / post-construction$0.25 – $0.50 / sq ft
- Effective hourly rate on site$35 – $60 / hour
Under-pricing is the most common mistake in this trade. A price that wins every single job is a price that is too low — expect to lose some.
Cleaning pricing questions
- How much should I charge for house cleaning?
- Most residential cleaners land between $0.10 and $0.50 per square foot depending on the type of clean, which works out to roughly $35 to $60 per hour charged to the customer. The right number for you comes from your own costs: how fast you clean, what your labor actually costs you once payroll taxes and insurance are in, and the profit margin you need to stay in business. Use the calculator above with your real numbers rather than copying a competitor's price.
- How do I price a deep clean versus a regular clean?
- Price the difference in time, not with an arbitrary multiplier. A maintenance clean on a home that is already in decent shape runs about 190 square feet per hour. A deep clean — baseboards, inside appliances, grout, build-up — drops to about 145 square feet per hour. Same rate, more hours, higher price.
- What should I charge for a move-out clean?
- Move-out and post-construction jobs are the slowest work there is: the house is empty, every surface is exposed, and you clean inside every cabinet and drawer. Budget the same production rate as a deep clean and expect the total to land 1.5 to 2 times a maintenance clean on the same house. Post-construction dust settles again after you leave, so quote a second pass or say plainly that it isn't included.
- Should I charge hourly or a flat rate?
- Quote a flat rate, but build it from hours. Customers want to know what they will pay before you start, and an hourly rate punishes you for getting faster. Work out the hours internally, apply your labor cost and margin, and hand over one number.
- How do I find my own cleaning speed?
- Time three or four finished jobs end to end, including setup and pack-up, and divide the square footage by the hours. That number is worth more than any published average, because it reflects your crew, your equipment and your standard of finish. Enter it in the calculator above and everything else follows from it.
- How much should I raise my prices for a house in bad condition?
- Condition is a time problem like everything else. If a house will take you half again as long, it should cost half again as much. The practical version: lower the square-feet-per-hour figure you enter until the hours match what you honestly expect to spend on site.