Price cleaning jobs by the job, not by the hour. Work out your all in cost per hour first, including labor, supplies, travel, insurance, and the unpaid hours you spend quoting and invoicing. Add the profit margin you want, usually 20 to 40 percent. Then estimate how long each job takes and quote one flat price. A standard recurring clean of a three bedroom home usually lands between $120 and $200 in most US markets. Deep cleans run one and a half to two times that. Raise your rates once a year, in writing, with 30 days notice.

Why other people's prices never tell you anything

You already spotted the real problem. Someone says they charge $150 and you have no idea what that covers. It might be a weekly maintenance clean on a small apartment. It might be a four hour deep clean on a five bedroom house with three bathrooms, two dogs, and baseboards nobody has touched since the family moved in. The number on its own tells you almost nothing.

That happens because cleaning prices move on four variables that almost nobody states out loud. Square footage. Number of bathrooms. Frequency. Condition.

Square footage sets the rough baseline. Bathrooms are the slowest rooms in any home, so a 1,800 square foot house with two bathrooms and a 1,800 square foot house with four bathrooms are two different jobs at two different prices. Frequency changes everything, because a home you clean every week needs a fraction of the work a home you clean every three months needs. Condition covers pets, children, clutter, hard water, and how long the place has gone without attention.

So stop trying to reverse engineer the numbers floating around your local groups. Build your price from your own costs, then sanity check it against your market. That order matters more than most owners realize. If you start with the market, you end up anchored to the cheapest operator in your area, and that person is almost always undercharging without knowing it.

Start with your true cost per hour

Your price has to cover far more than the hour you spend scrubbing. Write down every cost your business carries in a normal month, then divide by the hours you actually bill.

Start with labor. If you pay yourself or a cleaner $22 an hour, your real labor cost sits closer to $26 or $28 once you add payroll taxes, workers compensation, and paid time off. If you want a reality check on what cleaners earn in your specific metro area, the federal wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics breaks it down by region and gives you a defensible floor to build on.

Then add everything else.

Supplies and chemicals. Most residential cleaners spend between $3 and $8 per job on consumables, more if you use premium products or supply your own vacuum bags and microfiber.

Equipment replacement. Vacuums, mops, buckets, and steamers wear out. Divide the replacement cost across the jobs they survive and you get a per job number, usually $2 to $5.

Vehicle and travel. Fuel, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation. Track your average round trip per job and price it in. Twenty minutes of driving is twenty minutes you cannot bill somewhere else.

Insurance and bonding. General liability plus a bond runs most small cleaning businesses $50 to $120 a month.

Software, phone, and marketing. Booking software, a phone line, a website, and whatever you spend to get the phone to ring.

Admin time. This is the cost owners forget. Quoting, scheduling, chasing payment, answering texts at nine at night. If you spend eight hours a week on admin and bill 30 hours, every billable hour has to carry roughly 27 percent of unbillable time on top of it.

Add all of that up, divide by your realistic billable hours, and you have your cost per billable hour. Most solo operators land somewhere between $32 and $48. Then add the margin you want. A 30 percent margin on a $40 cost per hour gives you a target rate of about $57 an hour. That is the number every quote you write from now on has to clear.

Turn your hourly cost into a flat job price

Knowing your hourly cost does not mean you should sell hours. You should sell the job.

Flat pricing wins for three reasons. Clients want certainty, so a fixed number closes faster than a moving estimate. Getting faster rewards you instead of punishing you, because your effective hourly rate climbs as your systems tighten. And it stops clients from watching the clock and asking why the bathroom took 40 minutes.

The conversion is simple. Estimate the hours honestly, multiply by your target rate, then round to a clean number.

A three bedroom, two bathroom home on a biweekly schedule takes a solo cleaner roughly two and a half hours once you know the house. At a $57 target rate that is $142.50, so you quote $145 or $150.

The same house as a first time deep clean takes four and a half hours. That is $256.50, so you quote $265.

Build in a buffer for the first visit on every new client. First cleans almost always run 30 to 50 percent longer than the recurring visits that follow, because you are learning the layout, finding the neglected corners, and resetting the place to a standard you can maintain. Price that first visit as a deep clean, say so upfront, and your recurring price stays profitable instead of quietly losing money for a year.

What to charge for a standard recurring clean

Here are working ranges for solo and small team residential cleaning in most US markets in 2026. Adjust up for high cost metros and down for rural areas, but do not adjust below your cost per hour under any circumstances.

One bedroom apartment, one bathroom. Weekly $85 to $110. Biweekly $95 to $130. Monthly $120 to $160.

Two bedroom, one or two bathrooms, around 1,000 square feet. Weekly $100 to $135. Biweekly $115 to $160. Monthly $150 to $200.

Three bedroom, two bathrooms, around 1,600 square feet. Weekly $125 to $165. Biweekly $145 to $200. Monthly $185 to $250.

Four bedroom, three bathrooms, around 2,400 square feet. Weekly $165 to $215. Biweekly $190 to $265. Monthly $240 to $330.

Notice how the price rises as frequency falls. That is not opportunism, it is arithmetic. A weekly home never gets dirty enough to need real work. A monthly home always does.

Then layer your surcharges on top, and put them on your quote so the client sees them before you arrive.

Pets add $10 to $25 depending on how much they shed. Heavy clutter adds $15 to $30, because moving objects is not cleaning and it eats time. Interior windows, inside the oven, inside the refrigerator, and inside cabinets each add $20 to $45 as separate line items. Stairs add $10 per flight. Anything above the second floor with no elevator adds $15 for hauling equipment.

How to price deep cleans and move out cleans

A deep clean is not a longer standard clean. It is a different product, and pricing it like a standard clean with extra hours bolted on is how cleaning businesses end up working weekends for free.

Deep cleans run one and a half to two times your standard price for the same home. So a house you clean for $150 biweekly becomes a $225 to $300 deep clean. Deep cleans include baseboards, door frames, light fixtures, vents, inside appliances, grout, and the tops of everything nobody ever looks at.

Move out and move in cleans sit higher still, usually two to two and a half times your standard rate, because the home is empty, every surface is exposed, and the client's deposit depends on the result. A 1,600 square foot move out clean typically runs $350 to $500. Quote these by the job after seeing photos or the property itself, never over the phone from a bedroom count alone.

Post construction cleaning is its own category and deserves its own price. Fine drywall dust settles three times before it stops, so you are pricing multiple passes, not one. Charge $0.35 to $0.75 per square foot, take a deposit, and set clear limits on what you will and will not handle.

One rule protects you on all three. Never give a firm number on a heavy job without eyes on it. A ten minute walkthrough or six clear photos will save you hundreds.

How to price commercial and office cleaning

Commercial work uses a different unit. Most offices price per square foot per month, and most janitorial bids get compared on that single number, so you need to know yours.

Light office cleaning three to five nights a week generally runs $0.08 to $0.18 per square foot per month. A 5,000 square foot office at $0.12 works out to $600 a month. Medical, dental, and food service spaces run higher, often $0.15 to $0.30, because of compliance requirements, disinfection protocols, and slower work.

Work the bid backwards. Walk the space, time a realistic single pass, multiply by visits per month, multiply by your target hourly rate, then divide by square footage to see where your number lands. If your calculated rate sits far above local norms, your process is too slow or the scope is too wide. If it sits far below, you missed something.

Two commercial specifics matter more than the rate itself. Get the scope in writing down to the task level, because "clean the kitchen" and "clean the kitchen including the microwave interior and the coffee machine drip tray" are different jobs. And build in an annual escalator of three to five percent so you never have to open a renegotiation from scratch.

How to quote a home in 15 minutes

A tight quoting process makes you money twice, once because you price accurately and once because you stop losing evenings to guesswork.

Walk the home with a fixed sequence. Count bedrooms and bathrooms. Note the square footage. Check the kitchen for grease and appliance condition. Look at floors and count surface types, because four floor types means four tools. Open the shower to check for grout and hard water. Scan for pet hair on soft furnishings. Ask when the home was last professionally cleaned.

Then estimate room by room rather than as one lump. A full bathroom takes 25 to 40 minutes on a deep clean and 12 to 18 on a maintenance clean. A kitchen takes 30 to 50 minutes deep and 15 to 25 maintenance. Bedrooms take 10 to 20 minutes each. Living areas take 15 to 30. Add up the minutes, add 15 percent for setup, packing, and the surprises you have not seen yet, then apply your rate.

Present one number with the scope printed underneath it. Offer two or three options rather than a single take it or leave it price, because a client choosing between a standard clean at $150 and a deep clean at $265 is deciding what to buy rather than whether to buy.

Send the quote within 24 hours while the conversation is still warm. Speed closes more cleaning work than price does, and if you are still building your book, a faster quoting process is one of the cheapest ways to win cleaning clients.

How to raise your rates without losing clients

Two years without a price increase means you have already absorbed several years of cost inflation out of your own pocket. Fixing that is straightforward if you handle it like a professional rather than an apology.

Do it once a year on a fixed schedule. Pick a month, raise prices then, and tell clients at onboarding that you review rates annually. A predictable increase reads as normal business practice. A surprise increase reads as opportunism.

Give 30 days written notice by email or text, not in person mid visit. Written notice gives people time to absorb it without having to react in front of you.

Keep the message short and factual. Name the new price, name the date it starts, thank them, and stop. Do not itemize your costs, do not apologize, and do not offer to justify the number unless they ask.

Hi Sarah, quick note that starting on the first of March my rate for your biweekly clean will move from $140 to $155. This is my first increase since 2024 and it reflects rising supply and insurance costs. Everything else stays exactly the same. Thank you for having me in your home, I really do appreciate it.

Keep increases in the five to twelve percent range. Below five percent is not worth the conversation. Above fifteen percent triggers people to start shopping.

Expect to lose a few clients, and treat that as the process working rather than failing. If you raise prices ten percent and lose one client in ten, your revenue is flat and your workload dropped ten percent, so your effective hourly rate just went up. If nobody leaves at all, you were underpriced by more than you thought.

Raise new client prices first if you are nervous. Quote the new rate to every new inquiry for a month, watch how many still book, then move your existing clients to match.

What to say when someone calls you expensive

You will hear it. The answer is not a discount, it is a scope conversation.

When a client pushes back on price, avoid defending the number and start describing what sits inside it. Insurance so a broken vase is your problem and not theirs. A consistent cleaner rather than a rotating stranger. A written checklist so the same 40 tasks happen every visit. Products that will not damage their finishes.

Then offer a smaller version instead of a cheaper version. Drop to monthly instead of biweekly. Cut the bedrooms and keep the kitchen and bathrooms. Remove the interior window add on. Changing the scope protects your rate. Cutting the rate teaches the client that your prices are negotiable and invites the same conversation every year.

Some prospects only want the lowest number, and those are not your clients. According to LOGO.com data, more than 600 people selected a cleaning, house cleaning, or janitorial industry when they started building a brand on LOGO.com in a single recent month, so the person quoting $75 for your $150 job will very likely be gone within a year. Competing with them on price means racing to disappear alongside them.

Pricing mistakes that quietly drain your margin

Quoting from a phone call. Bedroom counts hide clutter, pets, and neglect. Ask for photos at minimum.

Forgetting drive time. Three jobs spread across 45 minutes of driving each is a very different day from three jobs in one neighborhood. Cluster your routes and add a travel surcharge outside your core area.

Charging the same for the first clean. First visits take longer. Always. Price them as deep cleans.

Pricing by the hour on recurring work. The better you get, the less you earn. Flat pricing flips that.

Absorbing scope creep. "Could you just do the fridge while you are here" is a $30 task. Add it as a line item, cheerfully, every time.

No cancellation policy. A same day cancellation is an unpaid hole in your day. Charge 50 percent inside 24 hours and say so in writing before the first visit.

Undercharging because you feel awkward. The most common pricing problem in this trade has nothing to do with spreadsheets. Your price is not a judgement of your worth as a person, it is arithmetic that keeps a business alive.

Frequently asked questions

Should I charge by the hour or by the job?

Charge by the job for residential work and by the square foot for commercial work. Hourly pricing punishes you for getting faster and makes clients watch the clock. The only sensible time to bill hourly is on genuinely unpredictable work like hoarding cleanups or post disaster jobs, where you cannot reasonably scope the hours in advance.

How much should I charge per square foot for house cleaning?

Residential cleaning generally works out to $0.08 to $0.20 per square foot for a standard clean and $0.15 to $0.35 for a deep clean. Use square footage as a cross check rather than a primary method, because bathroom count and condition change the time required far more than floor area does.

How often should I raise my cleaning prices?

Once a year, on a schedule your clients know about from day one. Five to twelve percent is the range that sticks without triggering people to shop around. Waiting two or three years forces a jump big enough to lose clients you could have kept.

What profit margin should a cleaning business aim for?

Target 20 to 40 percent net margin as a solo operator, and 15 to 25 percent once you employ cleaners and carry payroll overhead. If your margin sits below 15 percent you have almost no protection against a bad month, a broken vacuum, or a client who pays late.

Should I show my prices on my website?

Show starting prices or ranges rather than exact numbers. A line like "recurring cleans from $120" filters out bargain hunters before they reach your phone and still leaves room for you to scope the job properly. Hiding pricing entirely makes cautious clients bounce, and publishing exact prices invites competitors to undercut you by five dollars.

What should I do if a client refuses the new price?

Thank them, honor the old rate through your notice period, and let them go without friction. Then fill the slot at your new rate. Most owners find the replacement client is easier to work with than the one who left, because they agreed to your current pricing rather than a legacy number.

Price like a business, not like a helper

The reason pricing feels so hard is that you are running a business while doing the work with your own hands, and those two roles pull in opposite directions. The cleaner in you wants the client to be happy. The owner in you needs the numbers to hold. Both matter, but only one of them keeps the doors open.

So do the boring part once. Write down your costs. Set your target hourly rate. Convert it to flat job prices. Put your surcharges in writing. Pick your annual increase month. Then stop relitigating your prices every time somebody hesitates.

Looking the part makes those numbers easier to defend. A quote that arrives with a proper logo, consistent colors, and a clean written scope reads as a business worth $150. The same quote typed into a text message from an unnamed number reads as a favor worth $80. If you are still working out how to present the cleaning business you have built, LOGO.com lets you create a logo and a full brand kit in minutes, with matching estimate templates, invoices, and a simple website, so the way you look finally matches the rates you charge.

Raise the price. Send the quote. Let the work speak.

How to Price Cleaning Jobs and Raise Your Rates