Free tool · Cleaning
Cleaning job pricing calculator
Cleaning does not price like other trades. You quote a flat number per visit while your cost runs by the hour, materials barely register, and the thing quietly eating your margin is the driving between jobs.
Quote this visit at
$0
$0 per sq ft · $0 per paid hour
| Time on site | 0 |
| Cleaner hours | 0 |
| Drive hours you pay for | 0 |
| Labor cost | $0 |
| Supplies | $0 |
| Overhead | $0 |
| Break-even | $0 |
At this drive time
0 homes a day per cleaner
Drive time is the whole game
A clean that takes four cleaner hours with five minutes of driving and the same clean with thirty minutes of driving are not the same job. The second one has less billable time inside it, so either the price goes up or your margin goes down, and it also costs you capacity across the day.
This is why route density matters more in cleaning than almost anything else. Two houses on the same street beat two houses across town at the same price, and the gap compounds every working day of the year.
A practical rule
If drive time is more than about fifteen percent of paid time, you are running a driving business with some cleaning attached. Either tighten the route, charge a travel premium for outlying jobs, or stop taking them.
The first clean is a different job
A first visit takes considerably longer than the recurring ones that follow, because nothing has been maintained to your standard yet. Quote the recurring price for it and the account opens at a loss, which is the single most common reason a new customer turns out unprofitable.
Price it separately, say why, and most customers accept it without argument because the reasoning is obvious once stated.
Where the published numbers sit
Useful for sanity-checking a quote rather than setting one, since none of them know your route or your costs.
| Measure | Published range |
|---|---|
| Standard visit | $120 to $280, around $180 for a 2,000 sq ft home |
| Per square foot | $0.06 to $0.16 for a standard clean |
| Independent cleaner | $25 to $45 an hour |
| Small company | $35 to $60 an hour |
| Established company | $50 to $75 an hour |
| Cleaning pace | 400 to 600 sq ft an hour per person |
| Deep clean | 1.5 to 2.5 times a standard clean |
Published industry ranges, checked 28 August 2026. Rates vary substantially by region, and a figure from a national average is a starting point rather than a market rate for your town.
What this deliberately leaves out
- Your own time. If you are on the job, your hours belong in the cleaner count at a real rate.
- Card processing. Around three percent comes straight off the margin shown here.
- Cancellations. A customer who cancels on the morning costs you a slot you cannot refill. A cancellation policy is a pricing decision.
- Equipment. Vacuums die. Spread the replacement cost through the overhead figure rather than pretending it is free.
Want this emailed to you?
Your numbers are already on the page and they always will be. This is only here so you can keep a copy or send it to whoever does your books.
Common questions
How much should I charge for house cleaning?
Published ranges put a standard residential clean at $120 to $280 a visit, with around $180 typical for a 2,000 square foot home, or roughly $0.06 to $0.16 a square foot. Those are useful for a sanity check. What you should charge depends on how long the job takes you and how far you drove to get there.
Should I charge by the hour or per visit?
Per visit, almost always. Customers prefer a known number, and hourly pricing quietly punishes you for getting faster. Work the price out from hours, then quote a flat figure.
How many houses can one cleaner do in a day?
Usually two, sometimes three for smaller homes on a tight route. The limit is rarely energy. It is drive time, because thirty minutes between jobs three times over is an hour and a half nobody pays for.
How much more should a deep clean be?
Industry pricing runs 1.5 to 2.5 times a standard clean. Move-outs sit at the top of that, because the place is empty but filthy and a landlord is going to inspect it.
Why did my new customer turn out unprofitable?
Almost always the first clean. It takes far longer than the recurring visits that follow, and quoting the recurring price for it means the account starts in a hole it may never climb out of. Price the first visit separately.
Software for a 3-person cleaning company Cleaning crew checklist