Pricing Your Professional House Cleaning Services

To build a successful professional house cleaning service, you need to be clear on pricing your services. Charge too much, and the competition will clean up, winning competitive quotes. Charge too little, and you'll work way too hard with not enough to show for it when done. So, it pays to know the going rate.

The average cost of house cleaning services can range from $25 to $50 an hour. The total cost could be from $80 to $100 for a small apartment cleaning to $150 to $250 for cleaning a 2,000-square-foot house. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says the mean wage for house cleaners is $13.47 an hour.

This house cleaning pricing guide will give you more insight into how you should charge for your services.

Quoting Your Services

When you're putting together a quote for the cost of house cleaning or apartment cleaning, there are many factors you'll need to consider. For example, what part of the country you live in will affect how much charge. House cleaners in New York and San Francisco, where the cost of living is high, will earn more to clean homes than those in smaller, less-expensive locations.

Other factors in deciding a house cleaning rate include:

  • Whether you're an independent contractor or running a larger business
  • Overhead costs
  • The cleaning products required
  • The type of cleaning (regular or deep cleaning, one time or weekly, for example)
  • The size of the house
  • The amount of time
  • The number of bedrooms and bathrooms
  • Any taxes
  • Add-on services (major carpet cleaning and sterilization, for example)
  • Markup for profit

Putting together a quote for home cleaning services isn't just a matter of sitting at a desk and plugging in prices, though. When putting together an estimate for the cost of house cleaning, it's a good idea to do a walkthrough of the prospective customer's house, apartment, or condo first. Every job is unique, so visiting a home is the best way to understand what needs to be done, assess general cleanliness, and ensure that the required job is as described by the customer on the phone or through an email or web form.

The process of winning a new customer for your house cleaning business is made easier if you have access to Skynova's convenient estimate template, quote template, and invoice template. They are free to try, simple to use, and customizable with your business's unique branding, creating a professional appearance.

Cleaning Service Quote or Invoice Basics

Whether creating a house cleaning quote or invoice, Skynova makes the process quick and easy. With the online templates, simply fill in your name and address and the homeowner's name and address. Then, fill in the quote or invoice number and the date.

The most important part is to itemize the services you'll render (with hourly rates or daily fees, charges by the square foot or room, or specific cleaning services), products used (including regular cleaning supplies), and any special surcharges and cleaning tasks, such as a response to an urgent request for same-day cleaning.

A box for notes could mention that the invoice is higher than the original quote because the customer asked for extra services during the job, such as emptying and thoroughly cleaning a well-used and long-neglected fridge. Or it might explain that you had to charge for using your own supplies after the homeowner changed their mind about providing them.

The invoice or quote would automatically total the document, adding whatever sales tax amount you specify in the customizable options.

Skynova's broad range of invoice solutions offers the ability to:

  • Send the invoice online, getting notified when the customer opens it
  • Accept online payments
  • Record payment information
  • Manage customer information with an unlimited number of contacts
  • Keep organized with invoices that are automatically tagged, sorted, and searchable
  • Brand the invoices with your logo

4 Ways to Calculate House Cleaning Prices

It's not only a matter of how much you charge but how. Following are four common methods of calculating house cleaning prices. Keep in mind that while pricing jobs can be tedious, the Skynova quote template makes the process fast and easy so that you can concentrate on the cleaning work at hand.

Price per Square Foot

When charging a cleaning job by the size of the home and its square footage, you obviously make more money the larger the house is. While house cleaning is more often charged by the hour, office, janitorial, and commercial cleaning is often charged by the square footage.

For basic cleaning, the average price ranges from $0.07 to $0.15 a square foot, with a deep cleaning job costing an average of $0.20 a square foot or more. So, for standard cleaning, a 1,000-square-foot home would cost in the $50-to-$200 range. For a 3,000-plus-square-foot home, the price goes up to $210 to $600.

Price per Room

If you're going to charge for cleaning services by the room, you'll have to consider the number and types of rooms in a dwelling. Some cleaners will also charge for the number of people using a room since cleaning will typically go up with the more people using it.

Kitchens ($40 to $80), bathrooms ($35 to $60), and master bedrooms usually require more cleaning than other rooms, so they usually command a higher price. For example, the bathroom includes a thorough cleaning of the faucets, shower/bath, and disinfecting the toilet bowl.

When charging by the bedroom, standard cleaning prices can range from $75 to $110 for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom dwelling to more than $210 for five bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Price per Hour

Some professionals charge hourly rates for their cleaning companies' services. How much cleaning can be done, whether it takes less time or more time, can vary considerably. But at least one industry estimate states that, on average, the time cleaning takes is 1.5 hours for every 1,000 square feet of space (or three hours for a 2,000-square-foot home). The national average for house cleaning prices is $25 to $50 an hour, with most home cleaning visits lasting a couple of hours, costing for one worker $75 to $110.

Other factors affecting hourly rates include if it's a one-time or first-time visit versus a weekly (or biweekly) cleaning service, move-out cleaning/move-in cleaning, or a request for same-day service. So, one home cleaner working one hour might charge $30 to $50 for a weekly service, $45 to $50 for a one-time visit, and $68 for same-day service. For two home cleaners working four hours on a larger space, the rates could be roughly $200 to $250 weekly, $220 to $275 for a one-time visit, and the same-day price is variable but would definitely go higher to cover the extra time involved.

Flat Rate per Service

Some homeowners might only want a certain cleaning service or an additional service as a house cleaning is underway, so it's a good idea to have a flat rate per service. While different cleaners have different rates, here is the HomeAdvisor estimate:

  • Window cleaning: $4 to $10 a window and $3 a screen
  • Refrigerator: $20 to $80
  • Oven cleaning: $20 to $50
  • Move-in/move-out cleaning: $200 to $400
  • Shampooing the carpet: $75 to $200 or $0.15 to $0.30 per square foot
  • Fridge cleaning: $10 to $40
  • Floor polishing or waxing: $25 to $50
  • Changing bed sheets: $10 to $20 per bed
  • Washing and drying laundry: $5 to $20 per load
  • Dusting blinds: $10 to $30
  • Polishing wood surfaces: $20 to $40
  • Cleaning cabinet interiors: $20 to $50
  • Cleaning baseboards: $25 to $75

What Are Some Best Practices When It Comes to Calculating Cleaning Services Prices?

The level of residential cleaning services required will change how much you charge. Generally speaking, the deeper the clean, the higher the price. At the bottom of the scale would be a standard or basic cleaning, tidying up, mopping, vacuuming, dusting, etc.

A deeper maid service would involve intensive cleaning, removing grime and dirt, often in key areas, such as bathrooms, bedrooms, and kitchens. It could also include cleaning refrigerators, lampshades, windows, window shades, and other hard-to-reach areas.

Doing a residential cleaning after a major event, such as a party or anniversary celebration, can also involve a lot of extra work, as can cleaning a place before moving out, removing carpet and wall stains, and much more.

Of course, the size of the place being serviced also has to be taken into account in the house cleaning pricing. Is it a small bachelor or one-bedroom apartment or a 2,000-plus-square-foot house? With the spread of the coronavirus, house cleaners often have to know COVID-19 sterilization and cleaning protocols, including what protective gear to wear and which cleaning products to use.

Get Organized With Skynova

No matter how you decide to charge for your house cleaning company's services, Skynova can help your business run smoothly. Our full range of solutions aimed at small businesses covers accounting, invoices (including recurring invoices), subscription invoices, retainers, and credit notes. We have the tools to help you land business, get paid more quickly, and manage your operations more efficiently.