How to Estimate House Cleaning Jobs: A Pricing Guide

If you’re new to the house cleaning industry, one of the first decisions you must make is: How much should I charge for my house cleaning services?

A house cleaning job costs $180 on average, while the average national hourly rate is $45–$50 per cleaner, according to Thumbtack. Additionally, a 3-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home typically costs $160 to $200 to clean.

House cleaning rates vary from state to state and don’t take into account the additional price of specialty cleaning costs that must be taken into consideration when cleaning homes.

Estimating a house cleaning job isn’t as simple as quoting whatever your competitors are charging, however. Each business has unique costs that should factor into its prices. Establishing this beforehand can give you the best understanding of what you will need to include to calculate the appropriate price ranges for your business.

So, while there is no “one size fits all” answer for how to estimate house cleaning jobs, if you follow the 7 easy steps below, you should be able to come up with a profitable and reasonable hourly rate you can use for future jobs.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Steps to Create a House Cleaning Estimate
• Average Cost for House Cleaning
• How Much to Charge for House Cleaning
• How Much Should I Charge for Cleaning per Square Foot?
• How Much Should a Housekeeper Get Paid Hourly?
• Your Shortcut to Estimating Rates for Your House Cleaning Services

Steps to Create a House Cleaning Estimate

Follow these outlined steps to efficiently generate a comprehensive house cleaning estimate, ensuring clarity and accuracy in your pricing.

1. Visit the House

Before we get into establishing a price guide so that you can accurately charge for cleaning services, you’ll need to understand the location that you’ll be working with.

First tip: Don’t give estimates over the phone. You must see the house in question when estimating all private house cleaning jobs.

Why? You need to estimate how long it will take your company to clean the house, not how long the customer thinks it’ll take you. The customer is not in charge of a cleaning company, and they won’t have the same level of understanding as you of what the job requires. The customer may try to mislead you to try to get a lower bid. Or they simply don’t know how long a professional house cleaning job takes.

In order to get paid fairly and accurately, house cleaning companies will require the most accurate and up-to-date information for each job.

The best way to do this is to visit the house before you provide an estimate, in order to evaluate the task at hand. Otherwise, you’ll end up consistently paying yourself less than you deserve, putting the state of your business at risk in the process.

While you’re there, measure the space with a laser distance measurer to get an accurate idea of what you’re dealing with. Over time, once you gain more experience, you may feel comfortable eyeballing the dimensions instead.

2. Estimate Time

Now that you’ve seen the house, it’s time to estimate how long you think the job will take.

Groupon conducted a survey of its cleaning service providers to determine how long it takes a 2-person team to clean residences of different sizes. It found that a 1,000-square-foot, 1-bedroom townhouse would take about 2 hours for a basic house cleaning and 2.5 hours for a deep cleaning.

Different types of work, like move-out cleaning, will change the amount of time you can expect a job to take.

Deep cleaning can take much longer than your average house cleaning job. There can be years of damage that require specialized products (or, at the very least, extra cleaning time and effort) to dispel. For the most accurate deep cleaning cost, you’ll need to know the rooms and specific areas they’ll need you to clean, as well as the standards they’re expecting in the final result.

You might want to double or triple your rate for first-time cleanings, especially if the space has been neglected and needs some serious TLC. It’s a good idea to establish how much deep cleaning a house costs in advance for the client to avoid any complications down the road.

Afterward, you can charge your regular rate for any subsequent basic house cleanings since you’ve gotten it back to baseline.

Get in the habit of keeping a log of how long each type of job takes you so you can adjust your pricing accordingly in the future.

3. Calculate Labor Costs

Calculate labor costs even if you’re the one doing the house cleaning. This way, you always pay yourself, and your business continues making money.

First, establish an hourly rate. Charging for your time, services, and equipment used is the most efficient way to make sure your house-cleaning rates are fair. If you use other cleaners, you can also include those charges in your average house cleaning cost.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that house cleaners who service buildings and dwellings made $14.22 per hour on average in 2021. This number is even higher in top-paying states like Hawaii, New York, D.C., Massachusetts, and California, where the average is between $17.64 and $20.29 per hour.

Now multiply your estimated hours by your hourly rate to find labor costs.

For example, let’s say you’ve estimated a 1,500-square-foot house will take 3 hours to clean. If you’re in California, you might pay one cleaner the average hourly rate of $17.83. 

$17.83 x 3 = $53.49

4. Factor in Taxes

If you run a house cleaning service that employs staff, payroll taxes are another consideration. Payroll taxes are officially called FICA taxes. They cover federal income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes. You can estimate that payroll taxes will cost 15%–25% of your labor costs, according to The Janitorial Store.

Taking the example above, your labor cost is $53.49, and you expect to pay an additional 20% in payroll taxes:

$53.49 x 0.20 = $10.70 payroll tax

Now, add your tax cost to your labor cost:

$53.49 + $10.70 = $64.19 total rate so far

5. Factor in Supplies

Supplies like cleaning products are a typical expense in house cleaning jobs. You should expect to pay an additional $3 to $5 per hour on average if you or your staff are using your own cleaning supplies, depending on whether you choose eco-friendly cleaning supplies or standard ones.

Adjust your rate again to account for cleaning supplies:

$64.19 + $3 = $67.19 total rate so far

6. Factor in Overhead

Overhead is any house cleaning cost that isn’t specifically associated with the job at hand, such as office rent, marketing, business insurance, utilities, and more. Add 50% to cover these costs:

$67.19 x 0.50 = $33.60 overhead costs

Then add your overhead costs to the hourly cleaning cost:

$67.19 + $33.60 = $100.79 total rate so far

7. Add Your Markup

You want to make a profit on this job, beyond just covering your costs, so you need to add a markup. If you’re just starting out, add 33% to your cost to account for your profit margins.

You can reduce this number if you really need the money, want to be competitive, or really want to land this client. But, remember not to undersell yourself.

$100.79 x 0.33 = $33.26 markup

Now you have the hourly rate you’ll charge your client:

$100.79 + $33.26 = $134.05 final rate

Remember that this is a 3-hour job, so your per-hour rate is $44.68. Or $45 per hour if you want to round up to a nice even number.

8. Don’t Forget Sales Tax (If Applicable)

If your state requires you to charge sales tax, add that to the estimate as well. In California (our example state), service-based businesses don’t need to charge sales tax. That means your cost guide can represent your cleaning rates as accurately as possible.

TaxJar has a simple sales tax calculator that estimates your tax rate by street address.

Average Cost for House Cleaning

The average cost of hiring a house cleaning service is $180. A 3-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home typically costs between $160 to $200 on average to clean.

House cleaning prices will depend on the home’s size, condition, and frequency of service (a weekly cleaning service may be discounted, as opposed to monthly or bimonthly cleaning).

Although this may change from place to place and will depend on the area of cleaning required, it’s a good start to establish price list examples. Remember that some cleaning agencies may charge more than this, as they’ll need to incorporate other factors into the cleaning house costs.

Clients are also charged fees for extended travel to the home. Cleaning prices may increase for jobs that are considered beyond basic services, like:

• Oven Cleaning
• Refrigerator Cleaning
• Cleaning High Shelves or Ceilings
• Cleaning Fireplaces
• Cleaning Multiple Bathrooms
• Carpet Cleaning
• Window Cleaning
• Deep Cleaning

Fees will vary based on the city or state, too.

How Much to Charge for House Cleaning

You can price your house cleaning services by the hour. The national average hourly rate is $45–$50 per cleaner.

To ensure you offer the most competitive rates, check the prices stated by your closest competitors and use that as a base for forming your own prices. It’s also a good idea to calculate the price per square foot in order to get the most accurate cleaning prices.

Alternatively, use our step-by-step house cleaning pricing guide above to calculate an hourly rate and pricing list for each house cleaning service based on overhead costs, profit margin, time and labor needed, and other factors.Use this free house cleaning cost calculator to find average prices based on factors like frequency, cleaning type, and pets. Animals can cause damage and extra work for cleaners, so they’ll need to be included up-front in order to get the most accurate pricing list.

How Much Should I Charge for Cleaning per Square Foot?

Typically, a house cleaner can charge customers about $70 to $200 for a house that’s less than 1,000 square feet and up to $800 for a house that’s 3,000 square feet or more, according to Home Advisor.

A residential cleaning business usually charges by the hour. Office, janitorial and commercial cleaning is more frequently charged by the square foot—usually 7 to 15 cents per square foot for a 12,000-square-foot office building or smaller. Usually, larger offices get discounted per-square-foot rates. Commercial cleaning services often take into consideration the industry involved when they calculate the price per square foot.

Since the footage charges can fluctuate depending on size and industry, it’s a good idea to establish the cleaning prices per square foot beforehand.

Services like carpet cleaning and cleaning microwaves or fridges are usually charged extra.

Also Read: How to Price Pressure Washing Jobs

How Much Should a Housekeeper Get Paid Hourly?

A housekeeper should be paid minimum wage, at the very least. Here’s a list of minimum wages by state.

Housekeeper cleaners make an average of $12.89 hourly nationwide, with a low of $8.98 and a high of $18.22.

The rate for housekeeping services also depends on the industry. Housekeepers who work in dwellings make $12.36 per hour on average, according to the 2019 estimates collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In comparison, hotel housekeepers make $13.96 per hour on average, according to 2022 data from Indeed. House cleaning costs may be higher, depending on your location.

Your Shortcut to Estimating Rates for Your House Cleaning Services

It might take a new cleaning business a few rounds to get comfortable with the estimating process. That said, it’s important to learn how to do it properly to earn a decent living wage.

Need help creating estimates for your cleaning business? FreshBooks’ online estimating software makes generating and sending estimates easy. Plus, you can quickly convert your estimates into invoices when the job’s done.Next step? Now that you’ve set your rates and sent your estimate, download one of our professional-looking free house-cleaning invoice templates (no email required) to start getting paid.

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