The right price for window cleaning is the visit's cost, divided by one minus the margin you want to keep, then checked against a rate per window. Cost is your hours on site and on the road, plus supplies and equipment, plus your share of overhead. For a reference point, Housecall Pro's October 2026 guide lists $8 to $16 for a standard residential window cleaned inside and out and $4 to $8 for a pane (Housecall Pro), and Thumbtack puts the national average for a job at $184 to $387, with most people paying about $266 (Thumbtack). Those are what customers pay, not what your visits cost you, so this guide builds the price from your own costs and treats the market as a check. Our free markup calculator turns a cost into a price once you have one.
What the market charges, and why it is only a check
Published window cleaning prices come from software companies and marketplaces, and they overlap without agreeing.
- By the window. Housecall Pro lists $8 to $16 for a standard window inside and out, $4 to $8 for the outside only, $10 to $25 for a large picture window and $15 to $30 for a bay or bow (Housecall Pro).
- By the pane. Housecall Pro lists $4 to $8 a pane (Housecall Pro). Jobber lists $4 to $8 a pane or $8 to $16 a window for residential work (Jobber).
- By the job. Housecall Pro's price book data puts a whole property, inside and out, at $115 to $395 with a median of $228, and the outside only at $96 to $285 with a median of $180 (Housecall Pro). Thumbtack lists $99 to $194 for 1 to 5 windows, $127 to $249 for 6 to 10, $168 to $330 for 11 to 15 and $187 to $368 for 16 to 20 (Thumbtack).
- By the hour. Housecall Pro lists $45 to $75 per cleaner and a minimum service charge of $75 to $250, both as third-party estimates (Housecall Pro). Thumbtack puts the national average at $50 an hour (Thumbtack).
Across the sources above, a standard window runs from 8 to 16 dollars inside and out, and a whole house from 96 to 395 dollars. No number on a web page is yours. Your price comes from how fast you work and what it costs to send you.
Three ways to quote
- By the window. You count the windows and multiply by your own rate. It is easy to say on the phone and to put on a price sheet. It needs a rule for big, small and odd windows.
- By the pane. The same arithmetic, counted in panes. It is fairer on French doors and windows split into many small panes, and slower to count.
- By the hour or the visit. You charge for time, or you give one flat price for the whole house. Housecall Pro says hourly pricing suits heavy buildup and unclear scope (Housecall Pro). Customers cannot budget for it, but it protects you when you cannot see the glass first.
A workable setup is a rate per window built from your costs, shown to the customer as one flat price for the house, with hourly for the jobs you cannot size up from the street.
Step 1: count and classify the windows
Count the windows and the panes before you quote. Note which are on the second floor, which are big or hard to reach, and which have screens, tracks or sills to do. Ask whether the job is inside and out or the outside only, because the time is not the same. Note the condition: paint, construction dust and hard-water stains slow you down. Ask for photos if you quote by phone.
Step 2: time your own speed
Time a few real jobs. Note the windows you clear in an hour, outside only and inside and out, and separately for ground-level windows and windows that need a ladder. Use your own speed, on houses like the ones you serve. Add the fixed time that does not shrink with the size of the job: unloading, laying down towels, setting ladders, a walk-through with the customer and loading back up.
Step 3: labor cost
Take the cleaners on the job, their hours on site plus the drive, and each person's hourly pay including employer payroll taxes and workers' compensation. Our labor rate calculator works out that fully loaded rate. For a reference point only, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for janitors and building cleaners, whose duties include washing windows, at $17.71 an hour in 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). That is what employees are paid, not what you charge. If you work alone, pay yourself a wage here too.
Step 4: supplies, equipment and insurance
Put a cost per on-site hour on squeegees, scrapers, solution, towels, poles, ladders and the vehicle: a season of blades, pads and repairs, divided by the hours that gear runs. Ladder and pole work raises what liability insurance and workers' compensation cost you, and both go into overhead.
Step 5: overhead and margin
Overhead is the cost of being in business on a day you clean nothing: insurance, phone, software, your website, and the time you spend quoting and billing. Add up a year of it, divide by your expected on-site hours, and put that amount on every one. Our guide to what a service hour really costs covers each cost line.
Then divide the total cost by one minus your target margin. Housecall Pro does the same: final price is break-even cost divided by one minus the profit target (Housecall Pro). A 30% margin means dividing by 0.7. Margin is profit as a share of the price and markup is profit as a share of the cost, so a 30% margin needs about a 43% markup.
A window cleaning price calculator in five lines
You can run the whole calculation on paper.
- Hours on site = windows divided by your windows per hour, plus setup and cleanup time.
- Labor = (hours on site plus drive hours) times loaded hourly pay.
- Supplies and equipment = hours on site times your cost per on-site hour.
- Overhead = hours on site times your overhead per on-site hour.
- Price = (labor plus supplies and equipment plus overhead) divided by (1 minus margin).
Divide the price by the number of windows to get your rate per window, and run the same five lines for the smallest job you take to find your minimum charge.
Example: a two-story house, with invented numbers
This is an illustration with invented figures, not an average for any crew or city. Swap in your own.
The house has 30 windows to clean inside and out. You clear 5 windows an hour, setup and cleanup take half an hour, and the drive is half an hour. You earn 20 dollars an hour, and payroll costs add 20%, which makes 24 dollars. Cleaning takes 30 divided by 5, which is 6 hours, plus half an hour, so 6.5 hours on site and 7 paid hours with the drive.
| Cost line (one visit) | Dollars |
|---|---|
| Labor: 7 paid hours at 24 | 168.00 |
| Squeegees, solution, ladder and van: 6.5 hours at 4 | 26.00 |
| Overhead: 6.5 hours at 7.50 | 48.75 |
| Cost of the visit | 242.75 |
- At a 30% margin: 242.75 divided by 0.7 is 346.79 dollars. Profit is 104.04, and 104.04 divided by 346.79 is 30%.
- The markup trap: 242.75 times 1.3 is 315.58. Profit is 72.83, which is about a 23% margin.
- Your rate: 346.79 divided by 30 windows is about 11.56 dollars a window, which sits inside the $8 to $16 Housecall Pro lists for a standard window inside and out (Housecall Pro).
- The hourly check: 346.79 divided by 6.5 hours on site is about 53 dollars an hour, which sits inside the $45 to $75 per cleaner Housecall Pro lists (Housecall Pro).
- If the glass is worse than it looked: hard-water stains stretch the visit to 8 hours on site and 8.5 paid hours. Labor is 204, supplies 32 and overhead 60, so the cost is 296. At a flat 347 you keep 51 dollars, a margin of about 15%. Photograph the glass before you quote, and price stain removal as its own line.
Now the small job. Six windows take 1.2 hours, plus half an hour of setup, so 1.7 hours on site and 2.2 paid hours with the drive. Labor is 52.80, supplies 6.80 and overhead 12.75, so the cost is 72.35 dollars and the price is about 103.36. At your 11.56 rate, six windows would bill only about 69 dollars. That gap is why you need a minimum charge: here, 105 dollars. Housecall Pro lists minimum service charges of $75 to $250 (Housecall Pro).
Add-ons and access that belong on the quote
List the extras as separate lines. Housecall Pro lists screen cleaning at $2 to $5 a screen, track detailing at $2 to $5 a window and hard-water stain removal at $10 to $30 a window (Housecall Pro). It says to add a flat fee or a percentage for second-story access. Price your own the same way: time it, cost it, divide by one minus your margin. If you also clean gutters or wash siding, how much to charge for gutter cleaning and how much to charge for pressure washing use the same method.
Recurring customers and storefronts
Housecall Pro puts recurring discounts at 10% to 20% off the single-visit rate and says to raise the base rate first if your margin cannot absorb it (Housecall Pro). Work the discount through the five lines before you offer it. For storefronts, Housecall Pro lists $0.50 to $2.50 a square foot, $6 to $20 a window and $200 to $400 or more a month on a contract (Housecall Pro). The method does not change: time the route, cost it, divide by one minus your margin.
Mistakes to avoid
- One rate for every house. Access, glass condition and screens change the time.
- Quoting without seeing the glass. Ask for photos or look first.
- No minimum charge, and no setup or drive in the price. Small jobs lose money at a per-window rate.
- Copying a competitor's rate. Their speed, equipment and costs are not yours.
- Mixing up margin and markup. The example above shows the gap.
When to raise the price
- You win nearly every quote. Jobber says winning 100% of your bids may mean you are pricing too low (Jobber), and Housecall Pro says a close rate above 80% can be a sign of the same (Housecall Pro).
- The job took longer than you quoted for several houses in a row. Time it and requote.
- Your costs went up. Insurance, fuel and pay all move. Rerun the numbers at the start of each season.
Where your website fits
With the price set, make it easy to ask for. A website that lists the windows you clean and the towns you cover, with a way to request a quote, helps. Our guide to a Google Business Profile without a website covers getting found, and a phone that gets answered while you are up a ladder keeps the lead.
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.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for window cleaning?
Enough to cover the visit's cost and keep the margin you want: cost divided by one minus your margin, never less than your minimum charge. The cost depends on the window count, your speed, your pay, your equipment and your overhead, so it differs from one cleaner to the next.
How much should I charge per window?
Price the whole visit from your costs, then divide by the number of windows. A price per window is easiest to say on the phone, a price per pane is fairer on divided glass, and an hourly rate protects you when you cannot see the glass first. Published per-window rates differ from one source to the next, so use yours.
What is a window cleaning price calculator?
It is the same arithmetic as the five lines above: hours on site, labor, supplies and equipment, overhead, then cost divided by one minus margin. A spreadsheet or a sheet of paper does it. What matters is that the inputs are your own.
Do I need a minimum charge for window cleaning?
Yes. Setup, the walk-through and the drive take about the same time whatever the number of windows, so a small job loses money at a per-window rate. Run the five lines for the smallest job you take and set your minimum at or above that price.
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 30% margin has about a 43% markup.