The right price for a house cleaning is your cost for that visit, divided by one minus the margin you want to keep. Cost is what you pay the people in the house and on the road, plus supplies, the vehicle, insurance and your share of overhead. For a reference point, Housecall Pro's October 2026 guide says house cleaners typically charge $30 to $80 an hour per cleaner (Housecall Pro), and Thumbtack's national estimates run from $150 for a one-bedroom, one-bath home to $240 for three bedrooms and three baths (Thumbtack). Those are prices homeowners pay, not your costs, so this guide builds your number from your own and uses the market only as a check. Our free cleaning price calculator does the math as you read.
What the market charges, and why it is only a check
Published house cleaning prices come from marketplaces and software companies, and they do not agree with each other.
- Per cleaner per hour. Housecall Pro says $30 to $80 (Housecall Pro). Jobber puts the average house cleaner at $40 to $55 an hour and says most cleaners charge $20 to $100 (Jobber).
- Per visit. Thumbtack lists $150 for one bedroom and one bath, $220 for three bedrooms and two baths, and $240 for three and three (Thumbtack). Housecall Pro lists $140 to $220 for a standard clean (Housecall Pro).
- Per square foot. Housecall Pro lists $0.10 to $0.20 for a standard clean (Housecall Pro). Jobber lists $0.05 to $0.16 (Jobber).
A spread that wide says the market has room for a profitable cleaner and for one who loses money on every visit. It cannot say which you are. Only your costs can. If you are still setting the business up, how to start a cleaning business covers licenses, insurance and the first clients.
Three ways to quote a house
- Hourly. The customer pays for time in the house. It protects you on a dirty first visit, but the customer cannot budget for it, and a slower crew earns more than a faster one.
- Flat price per visit. One number for each recurring clean. It is the easiest to sell and it rewards a fast crew. The risk is a house that takes longer than you guessed, visit after visit.
- By size or by room. You price by bedrooms, bathrooms or square feet, using your own speed. It is easy to explain and to put on a price sheet. It is only honest if the rate comes from your own stopwatch.
A workable setup is to build a flat price from your costs, show it as a price by home size, and keep hourly for a first deep clean or a house you have not seen.
Step 1: time in the house
Time is the biggest cost in a clean, and there are two ways to get it.
- Time it. Clock every cleaner from the door opening to the door locking, for the first month of a new customer. Write down the home's size, the number of bathrooms and what was dirty.
- Work it out from speed. Divide the square feet by your crew's speed in square feet per hour, then add time for each bathroom and the kitchen. Jobber's worked example assumes a crew cleans 250 square feet an hour (Jobber). Your crew may be faster or slower, so time your own.
The first clean of a new home always takes longer than the cleans that follow. Price it as its own visit.
Step 2: labor cost
Multiply the number of cleaners by their hours in the house plus the drive, then by each cleaner's hourly pay. If you have employees, add employer payroll taxes and workers' compensation on top of the wage. Jobber puts taxes, insurance, training and travel at 25% to 40% added to cleaner wages (Jobber). Our labor rate calculator works out your own loaded rate.
For a reference point only, the Bureau of Labor Statistics median wage for maids and housekeeping cleaners was $17.07 an hour in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, series OEUN000000000000037201208). That is what cleaners are paid, not what you charge a customer.
Step 3: supplies and equipment
Add what each visit uses in sprays, cloths, liners and vacuum bags, plus a share of your vacuums, mops and caddies. Decide who brings the products and write it on the estimate, so the price and the customer's expectations match.
Step 4: drive time and overhead
Drive time is paid time with no cleaning in it, so count the minutes from your last stop. Then add overhead: insurance, phone, software, your website, and the hours you spend quoting and invoicing. Add up a year of it, divide by the visits you expect, and put that amount on every visit. Our guide on what a service hour really costs walks through every cost line behind an hour of crew time.
Step 5: margin, not markup
Add labor, supplies, vehicle and overhead to get the cost of one visit. Then divide by one minus your target margin. A 25% margin means dividing by 0.75. Markup is a different number: it is profit as a share of cost. A 25% margin needs a 33% markup, and a 25% markup gives you only a 20% margin.
Example: one house, with invented numbers
This is an illustration with invented figures, not an average for any city or crew. Swap in your own.
The house has three bedrooms, two baths and 1,800 square feet, and it is a recurring clean. Two cleaners spend 2 hours each in the house and drive 30 minutes each to get there, so the visit uses 5 paid hours. Each cleaner earns 18 dollars an hour, and payroll tax and workers' compensation add 25%, which makes 22.50 dollars an hour.
| Cost line (one visit) | Dollars |
|---|---|
| Labor: 5 paid hours at 22.50 | 112.50 |
| Supplies | 8.00 |
| Vehicle and fuel | 9.50 |
| Share of overhead | 20.00 |
| Cost of the visit | 150.00 |
- At a 25% margin: 150 divided by 0.75 is 200 dollars. Profit is 50 dollars, and 50 divided by 200 is 25%.
- The markup trap: 150 times 1.25 is 187.50. Profit is 37.50, which is a 20% margin, so you are 12.50 dollars short on every visit.
- The hourly check: 200 divided by 4 cleaner-hours in the house is 50 dollars per cleaner per hour. That is more than twice the 22.50 wage cost, because the drive, supplies and overhead have to come out of the hours the customer sees.
- By the square foot: 200 divided by 1,800 is about 0.11 dollars a square foot, your own rate for houses like this one.
- If the clean runs long: at 3 hours per cleaner, the visit uses 7 paid hours. Labor becomes 157.50 and the cost becomes 195. At a flat 200, you keep 5 dollars, a 2.5% margin. Time any visit that runs long, then requote it.
Charge more for the first clean and the deep clean
A first visit, a move-out or a deep clean is not a recurring clean at a higher rate. It is a different job with a different time on the stopwatch. Jobber suggests adding 30% to 50% to normal rates for a deep clean (Jobber). Treat that as a prompt to time yours, then price it from the hours it took. A move-out that also needs a truck for what was left behind is a hauling job, and how much to charge for junk removal prices it.
Mistakes to avoid
- Pricing from the wage alone. The cleaner's wage leaves out the drive, payroll costs, supplies and overhead, so a full week can still lose money.
- Copying a competitor's rate. Their crew, speed and costs are not yours.
- Mixing up margin and markup. The example above shows the cost of getting it wrong.
- One price for a first clean and a recurring clean. The first one takes longer.
- No written scope. List the rooms and tasks. Inside the oven, inside the fridge, windows and laundry are extras with their own price.
- Never raising prices. Jobber suggests increases of 3% to 5% a year to protect margins (Jobber).
When to raise the price
- Visits keep running long. Three visits over your time is a requote, not bad luck.
- Your costs went up. Pay, insurance, fuel and supplies all move. Rerun the numbers once a year.
- The scope grew. More bathrooms, pets or a bigger home are new work. If you also clean offices, how to price office cleaning shows the monthly contract version.
Where your website fits
Once the price is set, the next job is making it easy to ask for. A website that lists your services and your area, with a way to book a first visit, helps. So does a phone that gets answered while you are in someone's kitchen.
Fasite is $199 a month, or $1,990 a year, for a done-for-you website, a 24/7 AI receptionist on its own new number that books free visits, online booking, recurring jobs, estimates, invoices and scheduling. The receptionist does not quote prices, so your price stays yours. The first subscription starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed to start. Our cleaning business scheduling software guide covers the tools that keep recurring visits on time.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge to clean a house?
Enough to cover the visit's cost and keep the margin you want: cost divided by one minus your margin. The cost depends on your cleaners' pay, your speed, your drive time, your supplies and your overhead, so it differs from one cleaner to the next. Our calculator works it out from your numbers.
How much should I charge per hour for house cleaning?
Build it from cost. Take the loaded hourly cost of a cleaner, add the drive, supplies and overhead that the customer's hours must carry, then divide by one minus your margin. In the example above, a 22.50 dollar wage cost becomes a 50 dollar rate per cleaner per hour in the house.
Should I charge by the hour or a flat rate for house cleaning?
Most customers prefer one price per visit, and a flat price rewards a crew that gets faster. Hourly pricing suits a first deep clean or a house you have not seen, where you cannot know the time in advance.
How do I price house cleaning by the square foot?
Divide the home's square feet by your own cleaning speed to get hours, build the price from labor, supplies, drive time and overhead, then divide the price by the square feet. Published per-square-foot rates differ from one source to the next, so use yours.
What is the difference between margin and markup?
Margin is profit as a share of the price. Markup is profit as a share of the cost. A price with a 25% margin has a 33% markup.
How often should I raise my cleaning prices?
At least once a year, and any time a clean keeps running past the time you quoted or your costs change.