You’ve checked off all the background work. You’ve registered your business, written up a cleaning business plan, and started building a website. But as you’re getting ready to start marketing your new company, there’s one burning question left to answer: How much should you charge? 

In this article, we’ll look at the various factors that influence house cleaning estimates and common pricing models that house cleaners use, as well as the types of services you offer and how these impact pricing.

Why house cleaning estimates matter

As time-consuming as producing house cleaning estimates might be, there’s a very good reason for it.

An accurate house cleaning estimate helps you drive topline revenue, preventing you from over-quoting and losing out to competitors. It also ensures that you don’t under-quote and end up going backward on a job, which means a good estimation process helps protect the bottom line as well.

Factors that affect house cleaning estimates 

There are five important factors that impact house cleaning estimates:

1. Home size and number of rooms 

The size of the house is an obvious place to start. Bigger houses, naturally, cost more to clean as they require more labor and materials.

It’s not just the square footage that you should consider, however. Depending on the pricing model, a four-bedroom house might cost more than a three-bedroom, even if the two houses are the same size.

2. Type of cleaning 

The type of cleaning service you’ll be performing is one of the most important factors in determining price.

Deep cleaning services cost more than standard cleaning services due to factors such as the cleaning materials and time you’ll need to complete the job. Similarly, a house cleaning job that includes carpet and upholstery cleaning will cost more than cleaning an empty house with wooden floors.

We’ll explore the different types of house cleaning services and their costs in more detail shortly.

3. Frequency of service 

The frequency of cleaning has an impact on cost as well.

It’s common to charge less for weekly cleaning when a fixed-term contract is in place than for a one-off clean, even if the job itself is the same.

This is not just about providing a loyalty discount, however. If you return to the same place every week, you also prevent the house from becoming excessively dirty—so the house is less likely to require deep cleaning services, reducing your labor and material costs.

4. Location and cost of living in your area 

The city and suburb you live in is another important factor, owing to factors like cost of living and labor, as well as competition for cleaning services in your area.

In California, for example, the average hourly wage for cleaners is $21.47, compared to $17.11 in Indiana. 

5. Condition of the home 

Finally, it’s important to take into account the home’s condition.

While we can broadly categorize home cleaning into “regular” and “deep cleaning” requirements, it’s also true that certain factors might require a more intensive service.

A household with pets, for example, may require a professional carpet cleaning and pet hair removal service on top of the standard cleaning price, which increases the overall house cleaning estimate.

Common pricing models for house cleaning 

As you’re pulling together pricing information and a business model for your new house cleaning company, you’ll have to think about not only how much you’ll charge but also how you’ll charge. That is, what kind of pricing model are you going to adopt?

Below, we’ll explore some of the most common pricing models that house cleaning organizations charge:

Hourly rates 

An hourly rate is a simple way to present pricing. It also aligns closely with the work that the place requires. Bigger, more labor-intensive jobs take longer, so they cost more.

However, hourly rates don’t encapsulate the cost of cleaning materials or equipment, so it’s usually a better fit for basic cleaning than for deep cleans or specialized services like carpet cleaning.

Most house cleaners charge in the range of $25 to $90 per hour.

Per-room pricing

Per-room pricing is another common model, though you need to be clear about what constitutes a room.

Bedrooms, office spaces, and living rooms might be obvious, but architects often combine kitchens and dining rooms into an open-plan living space. You’ll need to establish whether that counts as one or two rooms.

This pricing model is best used for standardized house sizes, such as when working in apartment buildings or townhouse condominiums.

Flat rate pricing 

Flat rate pricing is a way to standardize house cleaning estimates. You can offer pre-determined prices for studio apartments, two-bedroom houses, four-bedroom houses, and so on. 

This makes your pricing easy to adjust for customers but doesn’t take size into account. For instance, two different houses might have the same number of bedrooms but a vastly different floor plan and square footage. For example, a three-bedroom house could be as small as 1,200 square feet or as large as 2,500 square feet, on average.

This is a good pricing model if your primary goal is to keep things simple for your customers to make it easier to get them to sign off on a proposal.

Square footage-based pricing

Another way to charge for home cleaning services is to adopt a per-square-foot model. It’s kind of like an hourly rate, but instead of the customer paying based on how long it takes you to complete the job, they pay based on how big their home is.

This is a good option for providing fixed, up-front quotes and helps customers avoid unwanted surprises. It does, however, open you up to vulnerabilities—most notably that it doesn’t consider the condition of the property.

For this reason, it may be wise to use square footage-based pricing for regular cleans and charge an additional deep cleaning fee for especially dirty properties.

Package pricing

Presenting your cleaning services as packages is another way to improve communication and help potential customers quickly understand how much you’ll charge them. You’ll put together a range of packages that include basic cleaning and specialized services like carpet or curtain cleaning.

Here are a few examples of services you might choose to package together:

• Standard move-out clean, curtains, carpet, and pet hair removal
• Deep cleaning, yard cleaning, and carpet cleaning 
• Standard cleaning and windows 

Package pricing is a good strategy for businesses that offer a variety of different house cleaning services and are looking for an easier way to upsell additional services.

Task-based pricing

With a task-based pricing model, you charge for each cleaning task you complete. For example, you’ll offer a fixed price for floor cleaning, curtain cleaning, vacuuming, kitchen cupboards, and so on.

This can be a little confusing for customers, though, especially if you offer many different services—so this may not be the best way to present pricing. But it can be helpful for customers who don’t need everything. For instance, they might just want a cleaner to mop the floor but don’t want to pay for vacuuming because they have a robotic vacuum cleaner.

Membership or subscription model

Some cleaning companies also offer a membership or subscription model where customers pay a fixed monthly fee for access to cleaning services. This might look like a limited number of hours, visits, or services per month, depending on how you wish to structure the subscription.

This pricing model can be a good fit for cleaning businesses that are looking to build recurring revenue.

Types of house cleaning services and their costs 

Let’s now turn our attention to some of the most common kinds of house cleaning services and what they typically cost:

Standard cleaning 

A standard clean is a basic recurring service that includes routine tasks like vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and cleaning surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom.

Standard home cleaning costs range from $120 to $280.

Deep cleaning 

A deep clean is a more thorough service than a standard clean. It targets tasks that cleaners usually neglect during regular cleanings, such as:

• Scrubbing grout
• Cleaning baseboards
• Vacuuming and mopping behind appliances 
• Cleaning underneath furniture
• Removing limescale from bathroom surfaces

A typical deep clean costs between $200 and $400.

Move-out cleaning 

A move-out clean sits somewhere between a standard clean and a deep clean but is done to prepare a house for the next tenant. It might include services like cleaning carpets and curtains, removing marks from walls, and dusting off chandeliers.

Cleaning companies typically charge between $150 and $500 for move-out cleaning services.

Post-construction cleaning 

Post-construction cleaning happens after a construction company finishes a building or renovation project. It’s essential for removing dust, debris, and construction materials to return the property to its original state.

The cost depends on the level of detail and specific tasks that the job needs—it will cost more if you need to clean the carpets, for example—but you can expect to charge between $500 and $800 for a 2,000-square-foot space. 

Post-event cleaning 

Post-event cleaning is a service that restores a home after an event like a party or wedding. It involves standard tasks like cleaning floors and wiping down surfaces. However, it’s usually a little more intensive than a standard cleaning, especially if the house needs a lot of trash cleanup and removal.

Average post-event cleaning services fall in the $500 to $2,000 range.

Add-ons 

Many cleaning agencies offer add-on services that customers can request on top of standard cleaning packages.

Common examples and price estimates include:

• Window cleaning: $10 to $15 per window
• Carpet cleaning: $145 to $300
• Eco-friendly cleaning: $40 to $100 per hour (compared to $25 to $90 for a standard clean)
• Pet hair and odor cleaning: $125 to $250 per room

Produce more accurate house cleaning estimates with GorillaDesk 

Many different factors impact the average cost of house cleaning. The number of bedrooms to clean, the type and amount of cleaning supplies you need, the amount of time the job will take, and the additional services the customer requests all impact the total cost.

That can be a lot to take into account when creating a house cleaning estimate, which puts a large administrative strain on professional house cleaning companies.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. With GorillaDesk’s powerful estimating software, you can quickly pull together custom estimates using historical job data and automatically import customer data from your customer relationship management platform to speed up quote creation.

Our Dynamic Estimates feature makes it easy to take advantage of up-sell opportunities by suggesting additional services and allowing customers to dynamically interact with your quote. They can simply click to add services and see the total price change automatically in our cost calculator.

GorillaDesk’s Dynamic Estimates feature (Source)

With a Dynamic Estimate, you simply provide the core estimate as a required service, and then include a variety of recommended and optional services. The customer just checks the box to add the services to their quote and see how it impacts their total cost.

Or you can pull together Estimate Packages, which allow potential customers to simply choose between multiple options such as monthly or bi-weekly cleaning packages.

GorillaDesk’s Estimate Packages feature (Source)

With Estimate Packages, you bundle services together into a comprehensive package. The customer chooses the package they like best, then accepts the estimate and pays a deposit via GorillaDesk to confirm.

Start your 14-day free trial of GorillaDesk’s intuitive cleaning business software today.