Why cleaners quote by the square foot but price by the cleaner hour
Square footage is how a caller describes the home, but hours are what the clean costs you, so owners who price well work out the time first and turn it into cents per square foot afterwards.
One common way to time a deep clean is by rooms: about 2 cleaner hours per bedroom and bathroom pair, so a 2 bed, 2 bath home is 4 hours and a 3 bed, 3 bath is 6. At $50 an hour the smaller one is a $200 job. The same math works for recurring cleans: one cleaner for 3 hours at $50 is $150 a visit.
Cents per square foot are a fast way to answer the phone. At 15 cents standard, 22 cents deep and 27 cents move-out, a 2,000 sq ft home is $300, $440 or $540. The catch is that square feet hide the things that change the hours: two shedding dogs, clutter, or six months since the last clean.
The worked quote: 2,000 sq ft, 2 dogs, every 2 weeks
The example home prices at $256.55 a visit, $556.71 a month, and earns $57.51 for every labour hour the visit takes.
The home has 3 bedrooms, an office, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living and dining rooms, and 2 dogs. It's a standard clean every 2 weeks with oven and fridge insides left out. Two people clean it: a working owner and one cleaner.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Per visit | Amount |
| 2 | Supplies, cleaning time and the drive | $170.88 |
| 3 | Pet hair, intake, invoicing and other small minutes | $30.91 |
| 4 | Supplies markup, cushion and profit | $54.76 |
| 5 | Price per visit | $256.55 |
Every minute is charged at the business's break-even rate of $44.16 per billable hour. That figure comes from the two people's full yearly cost plus $10,200 of overhead, spread over the hours actually spent cleaning in homes. How that's worked out is in the true hourly rate guide, and you can run your own in the free true hourly rate calculator.
Weekly, every 2 weeks or every 4 weeks: how the price per visit moves
A weekly home costs less per visit and more per month, because the house has less time to get dirty between cleans.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Same 2,000 sq ft home | Per visit | Per month |
| 2 | Weekly | $228.52 | $989.48 |
| 3 | Every 2 weeks (quoted) | $256.55 | $556.71 |
| 4 | Every 4 weeks | $279.91 | $302.30 |
| 5 | One-time clean | $373.34 | n/a |
Some owners get to the same shape with discounts off a monthly price instead: about 5% off for every 2 weeks and 15 to 20% off for weekly, because the team knows the home and the dirt hasn't built up. Either way, a monthly home should never be priced like a weekly one.
Having all four prices ready means you can answer the question of going weekly while the customer is still on the call, without doing math in your head.
Why the first deep clean gets its own charge
The first visit takes hours longer than the routine clean, so the example adds a one-time start-up charge of $241.48, which makes the first visit about $498.
A common approach is to charge every first clean as a deep clean by the hour, then move the client to a flat rate once you know the home. In one owner's example, a $300 first visit became a $250 monthly clean. Folding the deep clean into the recurring price means you either lose money on day one or overcharge on every visit after it.
Move-outs sit above deep cleans, because the fridge, the cabinets and the empty rooms all get done. Some owners add a flat $75 or so to their deep clean price for a move-in or move-out; others use a higher cents-per-foot rate, 25 to 27 cents, for the same reason.
What cleaning owners charge per cleaner hour and per square foot
The working owners in our research land between $50 and $60 per cleaner hour, which is where the example's $57.51 per labour hour sits.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What owners said they charge | Amount |
| 2 | A New Jersey owner, per cleaner hour | $60, $70 for post-construction; started at $45 |
| 3 | A Southern California team, per cleaner hour | $50 |
| 4 | Cents per square foot, standard clean | 14 to 15 cents |
| 5 | Cents per square foot, deep clean | 20 to 22 cents |
| 6 | Cents per square foot, move-in or move-out | 25 to 27 cents |
These are single owners in their own markets, not averages. The example's 13 cents a square foot sits a little under the 14 to 15 cent standard rate, which suggests the cost-built price is not out of line. If your own sheet comes out far below the owners near you, raise it; if it's far above, check your overhead and billable hours before cutting.
Minimums matter too. Some owners won't take a clean below a set dollar amount, others won't come out for under four cleaner hours. A small clean still costs the whole drive and the setup, so set a floor and let the sheet tell you when it's the floor, not the minutes, doing the pricing.
Cleaner pay times 2.5: does the rule cover a two-person team?
Not quite: the example visit needs about 3.4 times cleaner pay, because the price also has to pay a working owner, payroll taxes, the drive and the overhead.
A rule you'll hear often is to charge about 2.5 times what you pay the cleaner. The example visit takes about 4.2 labour hours once the drive and small jobs are counted. At an $18 wage, a common figure for cleaners, that is roughly $76 of pay against a $256.55 price. A solo cleaner with no office costs can get by on a lower multiple; a team with an office manager needs a higher one.
On profit, everything added on top of the $201.79 cost comes to $54.76: a 27% markup that is a 21% margin on the price. Some owners stack 10% for expenses and then 30% profit on the cleaner's pay, and talk about 25 to 40% depending on the market. That 10% has to cover the drive and insurance, which the example counts separately, so the two numbers aren't the same thing. The difference between the two percentages is in markup vs margin, and what belongs in overhead is in overhead and profit.
Pets, offices and dead trips: the time a phone quote leaves out
What sinks a house cleaning quote is usually minutes, not supplies: dog hair, a room nobody mentioned, the drive between homes and the visit you can't clean. In the example these lines add $30.91 to every visit, before profit.
Dog and cat hair. Ask about pets on every intake call. Owners add anywhere from half an hour to 45 minutes to a clean for heavy shedding, or charge pets as a percentage upcharge, often 20%. In the example, 2 dogs add 20 minutes a visit.
The office that isn't a bedroom. Callers describe the home from memory and leave out offices, half baths and finished floors. Pulling the address up on a listing site while you're still on the phone catches the fourth bedroom they forgot.
The drive between homes. It's unpaid unless you price it. With two cleaners in the car, every minute of it is paid twice, so a home out of the way should cost more than one on your route.
The small jobs at every visit. Carrying caddies in and out, shoe covers, gate codes, chatting with the customer and invoicing are a few minutes each. Together they are real paid time on every visit, all year.
Add-ons the customer thinks are included. People assume the finished basement comes with the clean. Owners commonly price inside the fridge, inside the oven, cabinet fronts and a finished basement at about one cleaner hour each, on top of the regular visit.
Water off, power off, nobody home. Cleaners arrive at homes with no running water or no power and can't do the job, and sometimes don't get paid for the trip. Ask about both on the intake call, and decide what a wasted trip costs.
Free favors. Taking the trash out to the curb once turns into an unpaid job every visit. Clean to a checklist and quote the rest.
Where house cleaning quotes lose money
Most losses come from a flat price set on a guessed time and never checked again.
A flat quote on a guessed time. New owners often quote a flat price for what looks like a two or three hour home, then spend most of the day there. The spreadsheet's Job Log shows the same story: one home was quoted at 5 hours a month, took 7.5, and lost $94.21 a month. Comparing quoted and actual hours home by home is covered in job costing.
Raising every home by the same amount. A flat $10 raise on every recurring client misses the point, because some homes already pay far above your target rate and others are well below it. Raise the homes that earn below your rate, and leave the ones that already pay.
Quiet discounts. It's common to drop a price because a customer seems stretched, then never bring it back up. Put any discount in writing with an end date.
No minimum. A 90 minute clean across town costs nearly as much to get to as a 4 hour one. Without a minimum charge, your smallest homes are paid less than the drive.
Put these house cleaning terms on the quote before the first visit
Written terms stop most of the leaks above before they cost you a visit.
- The price assumes the home you were told about. A home very different from the phone description gets a new price before anyone starts.
- Extra time gets approved first. Call before time runs out and ask whether to add paid time or focus on the priority rooms, and put your extra-time rate per cleaner hour in the terms.
- Extras are only in the price if they're listed. Basements, inside the fridge and oven, cabinet fronts and walls.
- No water, no power or no access still costs a trip. Decide what you charge for it and say so up front.
- Know your limits. Many cleaners won't work above a short step ladder, and post-construction dust is quoted separately at a higher rate.
For a customer who adds rooms or services after saying yes, see change orders. The House Cleaning Pricing Calculator comes with ready-made terms along these lines that you can edit.