What should you charge for house cleaning?

House cleaning looks simple to price and quietly isn't. The same square footage can take two hours or five depending on condition, pets, and clutter. The cleaners who make money estimate by time or size, then present a confident flat rate — and they price the first clean differently from the fiftieth.

Three ways to price — and when to use each

You have three tools. Good operators use all three for different situations:

• Per hour ($25–$60/cleaner). The safety net. Use it for first-time cleans, deep cleans, post-construction, and any home where you genuinely can't predict the time. You never lose money on hourly — but customers dislike the open-ended meter, so don't make it your default.
• Per square foot ($0.08–$0.20 for standard). The fast estimator. Multiply the home's size by your rate to get a quick number, then adjust for condition. Lower per-foot rates apply to large homes; small homes carry a higher effective rate because of fixed setup time.
• Flat rate per visit. What you actually quote. It's what customers want — a known price — and it rewards your efficiency. Build it from an hourly or per-foot estimate, walk or photo the home first, and stand behind it.

The pro move: estimate privately by the hour or square foot, present publicly as a flat per-visit price. Always set a minimum charge (often $100–$150) so a tiny condo doesn't cost you a drive for nothing.

Standard, deep, and move-out — price the difference honestly

These are three different products, and underpricing the heavy ones is the most common rookie mistake:

• Standard / maintenance clean: your base. Surfaces, floors, bathrooms, kitchen, dusting, trash — a home that's already being kept up.
• Deep clean (1.5×–2× standard): adds baseboards, inside the oven and fridge, detailed grout and fixtures, blinds, and built-up grime. Slower and harder.
• Move-out / move-in (2×–2.5× standard): the priciest. The home is empty, so every cabinet interior, appliance, wall mark, and corner gets cleaned, often against a landlord's checklist.

And the rule that protects your margin: a first-time clean of a home that hasn't been professionally maintained is a deep clean, not a standard one. Price it that way, then drop to the maintenance rate once the home is dialed in.

Recurring discounts: reward loyalty, not your hourly value

Recurring clients are the heart of a cleaning business — predictable income, and a maintained home takes less time each visit. A modest discount off the one-time rate is fair and smart:

• Weekly: the deepest discount, often 10–15%. The home stays easy, your route is dense.
• Biweekly: a middle discount, often 5–10%. The most common cadence.
• Monthly: little to no discount — a month of dust makes each visit closer to a light deep clean.

Discount the commitment, not your worth. The goal is steady route density and reliable cash flow, not being the cheapest name in the neighborhood.

Solo vs team: do the per-cleaner math

Whether you clean alone or send a crew, price by labor hours, not wall-clock hours. A two-person team that finishes a four-hour job in two hours still delivers four labor-hours of work — bill for four. Solo operators have lower overhead but a hard ceiling on homes per day; teams cost more in wages but turn more jobs and finish faster, which customers value.

When you grow from solo to a team, your flat rates usually shouldn't drop just because you're faster — the speed is the product. What changes is your capacity, not your value per home.

Supplies, products, and add-ons

Most professional cleaners include standard supplies and equipment in the price and bake that cost into the rate. It guarantees consistency and quality, and supplies are a real but modest line — often just a few percent of revenue. Bring your own vacuum, cloths, and chemistry and you control the result.

Price these as clearly labeled add-ons rather than absorbing them: inside the fridge or oven, interior windows, laundry, wall washing, and pet-heavy homes. And always confirm in the quote whether the client provides anything — there's nothing worse than arriving to a first job assuming they have a working vacuum.

Quote it, schedule it, get paid for it

Cleaning runs on rhythm — recurring visits, the right crew at the right address, payment that just happens. Claver for cleaning lets you save standard, deep, and move-out packages, quote a flat rate in a tap, set recurring schedules with the loyalty discount built in, and collect card or auto-pay so you're not chasing checks. See it on the cleaning page or the feature tour.