How Much to Charge for a Cleaning Service

How much to charge for a cleaning service is the first question almost every owner asks, and the one most people get wrong by guessing low. The honest answer is that your price has to cover your time, your team, your supplies, your overhead, and a real profit on top. This guide gives you the actual ranges other US cleaners use and a simple method to set a number you can defend without flinching.

The three ways cleaners price

Almost every residential clean is priced one of three ways. Each one fits a different situation, and most established owners use a blend.

• Hourly: you charge for time, usually 25 to 50 dollars per cleaner per hour. Easy to start with, but it punishes you for getting faster and scares clients who want a fixed number.
• Flat rate: one price for the whole job, the most common model for recurring homes. Clients love the certainty and you keep the upside when your team speeds up.
• Per square foot: 0.05 to 0.15 dollars per square foot for standard cleaning, higher for deep cleans. Useful for large or unfamiliar homes where time is hard to guess.

Real price ranges in 2026

These are typical US residential ranges. Cost of living swings them hard: a clean in rural Ohio and the same clean in San Diego are not the same price.

• Standard recurring clean of a 1,500 square foot home: 120 to 180 dollars.
• First-time deep clean of that same home: 250 to 400 dollars, because the first visit always takes longer.
• Move-out or move-in clean: 300 to 600 dollars depending on size and condition.
• Hourly per cleaner: 30 to 50 dollars in most metros, 25 to 35 dollars in lower-cost areas.

How to set your own number

Do not copy a competitor and hope. Build your price from your costs so you know it works. Here is the order to do it in.

1. 1Start with your target hourly pay, what you actually want to earn per working hour, say 35 dollars.
2. 2Add your loaded cost: payroll taxes, supplies, fuel, insurance, and software. A safe rule is to multiply your wage by about 1.4 to cover it.
3. 3Estimate the hours the job takes. A 1,500 square foot standard clean runs roughly 2 to 3 cleaner-hours.
4. 4Multiply hours by your loaded cost, then add your profit margin on top, usually 20 to 30 percent.
5. 5Round to a clean, confident number and quote it as a flat rate.

If you would rather not do the math by hand, the free house cleaning price calculator builds a quote from square footage and job type in under a minute, and the cleaning estimate generator turns it into something you can send.

Common pricing mistakes

• Pricing on what you think clients will pay instead of what the work costs you.
• Forgetting drive time, supplies, and taxes, so the margin quietly disappears.
• Never raising prices, so a clean you priced three years ago now loses money.
• Competing only on being the cheapest, which attracts the clients who leave first.

Let Eva price and quote for you

Once you know your numbers, the slow part is building and sending every quote by hand. Eva, your AI general manager, quotes new leads in your pricing within minutes and sends a clean, professional estimate that converts. When the job is done she invoices automatically and chases anything unpaid, so a fair price actually turns into money in your account. Read hourly rate vs. flat rate next to pick the model that fits you.