How to price cleaning services: An expert guide

So you’re just starting a cleaning business and getting your first cleaning clients. But maybe you’re wondering: ‘How much should I charge for my services?’

If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, I cover the cleaning service pricing strategies I’ve used as a six-figure cleaning business owner. I also provide my preferred formulas for both residential and commercial cleaning jobs. More worried about raising your prices without losing clients? I share some best practices to help you charge higher rates.

Residential cleaning pricing formula

Here are a few methods you can use to charge residential clients:

Hourly rate method

With hourly rate pricing, you’ll charge customers for your team’s time. This can help cover your profit margins, since it’s hard to know how much time it’ll take to clean for a new customer.

Here’s what you should consider to identify your hourly rate:

• Contractor split, or CS. This is a fixed split of your revenue. It’s a common practice when you’re working with contractors so that they know exactly how much they get for each job. For example, on a $200 house cleaning with a 50/50 split, the cleaner gets $100, and your business gets $100.
• Overhead costs per hour, or OH. These are the fixed costs of running your business. These include your monthly software budget, vehicle payments, and insurance. You add up these costs and divide them by your monthly billable hours to get an hourly estimate. 
• Operating expenses per hour, or OE. These are the variable costs of running your business. Expenses like your cleaning products and fuel fall under this category. Divide your monthly total variable costs by your billable hours to calculate your OE. 
• Profit margin, or PM. This is the markup built into your price so the business actually earns money instead of just breaking even. It’s usually a percentage: if your costs are $40 an hour and you want a 25% margin, your hourly rate is $50.

With these items, here’s the formula to calculate your hourly rate:

Here’s an example of what this looks like. Let’s assume the following:

• Contractor split, or CS: 50%
• OH: $10 per hour
• OE: $5 per hour
• Profit margin, or PM: 40%

Your hourly rate would be calculated: (15) x 1.40 / (1-0.7) = $70

Under these assumptions, you’d charge customers $70 per hour. 

Flat-rate pricing

With flat-rate pricing, you charge a flat rate for each cleaning service. This ensures customers always know how much they’ll pay upfront. It can also make it easier to calculate monthly revenue, since it’s tied to your monthly bookings.

Here’s the formula you can use to charge customers at a flat rate:

Your hourly rate is how much you plan to charge customers per person, per hour of work. Your production is the time it takes to clean the property, typically measured in hours.

For example, let’s say you charge a customer $50 per hour to clean a one-bed, one-bath property. You also know it will take around two hours to clean it.

Your flat rate would be calculated: $50 x 2 = $100. 

So you’d charge that customer $100 for a single house cleaning.

Square footage method

Square-footage pricing refers to charging customers based on the square footage you’ll clean. This works well if you have a sense of how long it takes to clean a given area. It also gives customers a predictable price — but only if you can verify their square footage in advance. You may need to calculate home size during a walkthrough or ask the client to confirm before committing to a quote.

Here’s the formula you can use to charge customers based on square footage:

Here’s what each of these individual elements means: 

• Square footage: The total cleanable area of a home. Keep in mind that bathrooms and kitchens typically take longer per square foot than open living space.
• Cleanable area per hour: How many square feet your team can clean in an hour. This depends on the type of cleaning you’re doing and the condition of the home.
• Hourly rate: This is the same rate you’d use for hourly pricing.

For example, let’s say a property is 2,000 sq. ft, and your cleaners work at about 500 sq. ft per hour. If you charge $50 per hour, your square-footage price would be: (2,000 ÷ 500) x $50 = $200.

Therefore, you’d charge the homeowner a $200 base price to clean their property.

Per-room pricing

Per-room pricing lets you set a fixed price for each room or area type. It’s easy for customers to understand, and it makes your quotes feel transparent.

All you need to do is set a base rate per room type. Here are some typical price ranges to start with:

• Bedrooms: $25 to $50
• Bathrooms: $35 to $75
• Kitchen: $40 to $80
• Living room or dining room: $30 to $60
• Hallways and entryways: $10 to $20

First, let the customer decide which areas they want cleaned. Then, add up the rooms to calculate the total cost.

As an example, let’s say a client wants you to clean a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, plus the kitchen and living room. Your quote might range from $220 to $445, depending on room sizes and condition.

Hourly rate vs flat rate pricing: Which should you choose?

I charge first-time clients hourly pricing and repeat clients flat rate pricing. That’s because it’s hard to estimate how much time every home needs for a full clean.

Think of it this way: if you charge a flat rate for new customers and they need more time than you initially estimated, you risk losing a lot of money. There are so many things that could go wrong or be a surprise. For example, the house is bigger or the dirt level is higher than you expected. Or maybe you’re actually doing a move-out clean instead of the basic cleaning the client suggested.

For this reason, I recommend every first clean should be charged by the hour, whether you’re just starting out or not. That way, you’ll never underbid yourself.

If the client still wants a rough estimate, try this:

“A home your size typically takes about six hours. But if we arrive and need more time for unforeseen reasons, we’ll give you a call. That way, we can let you know how much additional time we may need. With your approval, we’ll continue at an additional $50 per hour.”

After the first clean, you can move to flat-rate pricing. By then, you’ll know the layout and the time it takes. You’re also more likely to be doing regular cleans instead of a deep cleaning.

Specialty cleaning services and add-on pricing

Your base residential rate won’t cover every job. Many customers may have special requests on top of a standard clean.

Make sure you’re prepared to handle specialty requests with a custom rate sheet that works for you.

Here’s a list of specialty services with average rates:

Service	Rate
Window cleaning	$4 to $10 per window
Refrigerator cleaning	$10 to $40
Carpet cleaning	$75 to $200
Baseboard cleaning	$25 to $75
Laundry	$5 to $20 per load
Cleaning cabinets	$20 to $50
Post-construction cleaning	$75 to $200
Polishing or waxing floors	$25 to $50
Dusting	$10 to $30
Oven cleaning	$20 to $40

Source: Angi’s List

Commercial cleaning pricing formula

Commercial cleaning contracts work differently from residential jobs. For one thing, clients prefer monthly billing, usually for predictability on their end.

That also means commercial contracts tend to be stickier than residential ones. Once a business locks in commercial cleaning services, they’re far less likely to shop around or cancel on short notice. That makes your revenue more stable and your scheduling more efficient.

Here’s how you should charge your commercial clients:

Here’s what each of these elements means:

Hourly rate: Calculate this rate similarly to your residential cleaning calculation. How much are you planning to charge customers per cleaner, per hour of work?

Production rate: This is the time it takes to clean a business property. Remember that commercial jobs are very different from residential cleaning services. 

To estimate your production rate in commercial spaces, calculate how long it takes you to:

• Clean a restroom
• Mop 500 sq. ft of tile
• Vacuum 1,000 sq. ft of carpet
• Sanitize 10 desks

Then, you can match these numbers to the square footage of your commercial client’s property.

Here are some rough square footage estimates based on different types of businesses:

• General offices: 3,000 to 4,000 sq. ft
• Medical facilities: 2,000 to 2,500 sq ft
• Warehouses: 4,000 to 6,000 sq ft

Finally, you’ll need to know your client’s desired cleaning frequency. Do they want weekly cleaning? Biweekly cleaning? Or some duration in between?

By multiplying these factors by 52 weeks and dividing by 12 months, you’ll get a monthly rate that you can pitch to your clients. 

Let’s say you run a commercial cleaning company and have been asked to bid on a 3,500 sq. ft. office that wants twice-weekly cleaning. You charge $35 per hour per cleaner, and you’ll send a two-person crew, so your effective labor cost is $70 per hour. Based on previous experience, and after walking the property, you estimate your production rate will be around 3.5 hours per visit.

Now, you plug all the numbers into your formula:

($70 × 3.5 hours × 2 visits × 52 weeks) ÷ 12 = $2,123

That means you’d charge your commercial cleaning client $2,123 per month, or $490 per week.

Expenses to consider for your pricing strategy

As you decide on the ideal pricing for your business, keep the following expenses in mind. That way, you’ll arrive at a competitive price that works for your business, team, and clients.

1. Labor: The cost of hiring employees or subcontractors to manage your cleaning jobs. 
2. Supplies: Cost of cleaning supplies and materials needed to complete your cleaning services.
3. Taxes and insurance: Sales tax and general liability insurance.
4. Marketing: Factor in the cost of acquiring your leads.
5. Tool expenses: Cost of any back-office tools and equipment.
6. Profit margin: How much you want to make after delivering your services to customers. While profit margin isn’t a customer-facing expense, it’s important to factor it into your pricing. Otherwise, you might land at a lower price and not make any money on each clean. 

When you factor all these expenses into your pricing model, you might be curious about the profitability of a cleaning business. Dive deeper as we answer the question: Is a cleaning business profitable?

How to develop your pricing strategy

Every cleaning business’s pricing model is different. I’m based in New Jersey, so I might charge higher prices compared to a cleaning provider that operates in Wyoming. 

Pricing formulas can stay standard for every cleaning business. But you still need to arrive at an hourly rate that’s competitive in your market. Here’s how:

1. Research cleaning businesses in your area

New businesses should research the local cleaning market before deciding on an hourly rate. This means calling local cleaning companies and asking for their rates so you can calculate an average cost.

Keep in mind some businesses may just share their flat-rate pricing with you. But you can always work backward from those numbers to figure out their hourly rate. 

Don’t forget to ask about all their add-ons and upgrade pricing. That way, you’ll have a point of reference for what to charge per hour for those services, too. 

2. Understand your production rate over time

It’s hard to know how efficiently your team cleans if you’ve only provided service for a couple homes. For this reason, be conservative with your production rate at the start. This will help you set the right expectations. Plus, you can adjust estimates after your first batch of jobs. 

The general rule of thumb is to underpromise and overdeliver. For example, you might promise customers you’ll finish a job in four hours but end up only taking three. That way, you satisfy your customers  while still giving yourself some buffer room if it takes longer than expected. 

3. Set clear policies for deposits and cancellation fees

Always take non-refundable deposits, whether cash is tight or not. If you don’t, your client might shop around, find a better deal, and then cancel so that they can get a refund.

We charge an upfront deposit of 25% of the job cost, but I also know people who charge up to 50%.

We also charge fees if clients cancel or reschedule. If they call more than 48 hours before their appointment to reschedule, we don’t charge them anything. But if they call within 48 hours of their appointment, we charge them a rescheduling fee. If they cancel the same day, they owe the remaining balance of the service.

4. Review your rates regularly

Cleaning businesses should conduct regular pricing reviews to make sure rates keep pace with the cost of living. I recommend doing this every three to six months, especially now.

Just pay attention to the news — things are changing fast. Cleaning product prices are rising, hourly wages are going up, and gas prices are going up significantly. We just can’t price how we used to.I also know a lot of business owners are afraid to raise their prices. But if they don’t, they end up almost working for free. If you’re paying an extra dollar for gas or if cleaning products cost more because of shipping, you need to adjust accordingly.

Operate your cleaning business more efficiently with Quo

I’m a big proponent of charging what you’re worth. But choosing a fair price that works for you comes with a responsibility to your customers. Clients who pay premium rates expect prompt replies and clear communication. That’s where your cleaning business software, including your phone system, comes in.

Quo, formerly OpenPhone, is a business phone system that can help improve your cleaning business’s efficiency. As one of the best phone systems for cleaning businesses, Quo can help you:

• Split responsibility for calls and texts with shared numbers. That way, everyone on your team can pick up the phone and prevent callers from waiting for a callback or trying a competitor.
• Pick up the phone 24/7 to answer questions, qualify leads, and book appointments. Quo’s AI cleaning answering service, Sona, can handle calls when your team is busy or unavailable.
• Automatically send out appointment confirmation and reminder messages. You can also connect to more than 8,000 other platforms via Zapier and Make.
• Keep job details and conversations in one place by syncing call and text data in your CRM. You can sync conversation history directly to your jobs in Jobber and DripJobs, so nothing gets lost between your phone and your CRM.
• Get context into every conversation with automatic call recording, AI summaries, and transcriptions. Get the whole context of every customer conversation instantly.
• Route callers to the right person or phone number. Set up custom call routing that matches your team’s schedule, then easily adjust it as you add more contractors and team members.

See why so many cleaning businesses trust Quo to run their communications. Sign up today for free with Quo’s seven-day trial.

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