How much to charge for house cleaning
Most US cleaners charge $110–$155 for a 1 bed / 1 bath routine clean and $215–$295 for a 3 bed / 2 bath home, quoted as a flat rate. A first-time deep clean runs about 1.75× those minutes, and recurring clients usually pay 12–18% less per visit.
That is the short answer. The rest of this page is how to get to those numbers from your own costs, and which extras belong on their own line instead of hidden inside the price.
Price the time, then price the time again
Pricing is the decision that decides whether a cleaning business grows or burns out. Charge too little and every booked job steals hours from marketing, hiring, and sleep. Charge too much without a written scope and you lose the job to a competitor who sounded cheaper.
Start with measured time. Until you have your own timed jobs, MaidPilot plans a routine clean of an occupied home at:
30 + (25 × bathrooms) + (12 × bedrooms) + (square feet ÷ 20) minutes
Run a retail rate of $65–$90 per cleaner-hour over that time and you get the planning band below. Your market, your wage floor, and your supply cost move the rate; the minutes move with the house.
| Home | Planning minutes | Hours | Flat price band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bed / 1 bath, ~700 sq ft | ~102 | 1.7 | $110–$155 |
| 2 bed / 1 bath, ~900 sq ft | ~124 | 2.1 | $135–$190 |
| 2 bed / 2 bath, ~1,100 sq ft | ~159 | 2.7 | $175–$245 |
| 3 bed / 2 bath, ~1,600 sq ft | ~196 | 3.3 | $215–$295 |
| 4 bed / 3 bath, ~2,400 sq ft | ~273 | 4.6 | $300–$410 |
Then apply the job-type factor to the minutes, not to the final price:
- Routine clean: 1× the minutes above.
- First-time or heavy-condition deep clean: about 1.75× the minutes.
- Move-out / move-in: about 1.5× routine minutes, plus interior cabinets, appliance interiors, and interior windows as separate lines.
The house cleaning price guide has the same ranges as a reference table, and house cleaning prices per hour explains why the hour stays internal.
Why the same house gets three different prices
Two companies can quote the same 3 bed / 2 bath home $80 apart and both be right, because the price is built from cost, not from the house. Four numbers go into it:
- Fully loaded labor — wage, payroll tax, workers' comp, paid travel between jobs.
- Supplies and equipment — products, vacuum wear, and laundry if you take it.
- Overhead — insurance, bonding, software, phone, fuel, marketing.
- Margin — the part that funds growth and an owner paycheck.
The rule of thumb many owners use: if a cleaner costs you $X per hour fully loaded, a sustainable retail rate is often 2× to 3× that figure once overhead and profit are included. A $22/hour wage with taxes and insurance lands near $28 loaded, which puts the retail rate at $56–$84 per hour. If that number cannot cover the table above, the problem is your overhead or your route density, not the customer.
Work the same arithmetic backwards before you accept a job that feels wrong: hours × your rate, minus drive time, minus supplies, minus the callback you will probably make on a first visit. A "good" price with a two-hour drive is a bad job.
Extras that must be priced separately
A "house cleaning" is not one product. The fastest way to lose money is to absorb extras into the base price and discover the cost after the visit. Publish these as add-ons:
| Extra | Typical US add-on |
|---|---|
| Inside oven | $25–$60 |
| Inside refrigerator | $25–$55 |
| Inside cabinets and drawers | $40–$90 |
| Interior windows | $5–$12 per pane |
| Laundry (wash, dry, fold) | $15–$30 per load |
| Garage, patio, or balcony | $40–$120 |
| Heavy pet hair | $20–$50 |
| Same-day or after-hours turnaround | +15–25% |
| Supplies included | +$5–$10 per visit |
| Post-construction dust | Custom bid by area |
Two scope questions decide more quotes than the price itself: is the home occupied or empty, and will the customer supply products. An empty home is faster on surfaces and much slower on interiors. A home that supplies its own equipment can mean unfamiliar machines and a longer first visit.
Frequency changes the price, not the value
Weekly and biweekly clients are cheaper to serve than one-time jobs: less relearning, less travel, no new acquisition cost per visit. Passing part of that back is how recurring books fill.
| Frequency | Multiplier on the one-time price |
|---|---|
| One-time | 1.00 |
| Biweekly | 0.88 |
| Weekly | 0.82 |
That is a 12–18% discount in practice, and a biweekly client at 0.88 of the one-time rate still produces far more annual revenue than two one-time cleans. Keep the first visit priced as the deep clean it is: the recurring rate starts on visit two, in writing.
Put the number in a quote, not in a text message
A price without a scope still loses jobs, because the customer cannot compare it to anything. The quote should name the service, describe the property, list what is included, list what is excluded, state the price and the expiry, and end with one next step.
Pair this page with how to write a cleaning quote that wins and the free quote template, and keep the same line items on the invoice so the discount story never changes between the sale and the bill.
Where software fits, and where it does not
MaidPilot does not invent your market rates and will not tell you what your town pays. What it does is stop the leaks around pricing:
- Capture every inbound request with optional AI Receptionist so you are not cutting price to make up for calls you never answered, which is exactly the math in what a missed call costs.
- Keep quotes, jobs, and invoices in one CRM, so add-ons and discounts stay visible instead of living in a notebook.
- Follow up unanswered quotes automatically with AI Follow-Up, where most lost jobs are lost to silence rather than price.
If you are still setting the company up — entity, insurance, first price list — start with how to start a cleaning business and come back here for the rate.
Next step
- Run the cleaning price calculator with the real bedroom, bathroom, and square footage numbers.
- Check the result against the table above and against your loaded hourly cost.
- Write the quote with a clear scope and exclusions, then send it the same day.
Want the operations stack behind the quote? Start a 14-day Starter trial or talk to us.