How much should I charge for house cleaning?

Common pricing is $0.05 to $0.20 per square foot, or $25 to $50 per hour per cleaner. A standard 2,000 sq ft home often runs $120 to $250 for a regular clean. Deep cleans and move-outs cost 1.5 to 2.5 times a standard clean.

Should I charge hourly or flat rate for cleaning?

Hourly is safest when you're new and don't know your speed. Switch to flat per-job pricing once you can estimate accurately — it rewards efficiency, reassures the customer with a known price, and protects you from being punished for working fast.

What add-ons should a house cleaner charge for?

Inside the oven and fridge, interior windows, baseboards, blinds, inside cabinets, laundry, and post-construction dust. These take real time, so list them as priced add-ons rather than absorbing them into a base quote and quietly losing money.

How do I raise my cleaning prices without losing clients?

Give notice, raise modestly, and frame it around reliability and quality. Most loyal recurring clients accept a small annual increase. If a few leave, your stronger reviews and steady demand replace them at the higher rate, so the math usually wins.

House cleaning pricing guide for owners

Most house cleaning jobs price out at $0.05 to $0.20 per square foot, or $25 to $50 an hour per cleaner — which puts a standard 2,000 sq ft home around $120 to $250 for a regular clean. The single most common mistake new cleaners make is underbidding: quoting an hourly rate, then getting faster, and effectively giving themselves a pay cut for being good at the job.

We run a cleaning company in Tucson, so this is the pricing we actually use, not a guess. Here is how to price for profit, what add-ons to charge for, and how to raise rates without losing your best clients.

The three ways to price, and when to use each

Hourly

$25–$50/hr per cleaner

Safest when you are new and still learning your speed. The catch: as you get faster, you earn less per home. Treat hourly as training wheels, not a long-term model.

Per square foot

$0.05–$0.20/sq ft

A fast, consistent way to quote sight-unseen and compare homes fairly. Use the higher end for first-time and deep cleans, the lower end for recurring maintenance on a home you know.

Flat rate per job

Best once you know your speed

The goal. A known price reassures the customer and rewards your efficiency — finish in 90 minutes instead of two hours and you keep the difference. Build it from your square-foot estimate, then hold it.

Clean types and the add-ons you forget to charge for

→ Standard clean — your base rate, for an already-maintained home on a recurring schedule.
→ Deep clean — 1.5–2x standard. The first visit to a new home almost always needs one; quote it that way so you are not punished for their backlog.
→ Move-in / move-out — 2–2.5x standard. Empty homes hide more work, not less. Price for the inside of every cabinet and the construction dust.
→ Add-ons — inside the oven and fridge, interior windows, baseboards, blinds, laundry. List them with prices instead of absorbing them and quietly losing money on every job.

When you don't need to discount

The instinct to compete on price is the fastest way to a business that exhausts you and barely pays. Resist it when:

• A prospect leads with "what's your cheapest." Price shoppers churn fast and complain most. Quote your real rate and let them go.
• You have steady reviews and a full-ish calendar. Demand is permission to raise prices, not lower them.
• A competitor underbids you. They are buying the customer at a loss. Win on reliability and reviews, not on being the cheapest.

The cleaners who last are the ones who charge what the work is worth and back it with reviews. Discounting is a tax you pay on weak demand — fix the demand instead.

The part we help with — demand that lets you charge more

Pricing is half the battle; the other half is enough demand that you never feel forced to discount. We build that side: a hand-built site with your reviews, online booking, instant quotes, and 24/7 AI lead capture, from $249/month, month-to-month, and you own it. When your phone stays busy, holding your rate gets a lot easier.

See websites for cleaning companies for what that looks like, and home-services SEO for how clients find you. The AI receptionist books jobs while you are mid-clean, and this page explains why local SEO is worth it once you are established.

We don't post stock testimonials. On a 15-minute call we screen-share the real dashboards behind our own businesses — live leads, rankings, and the exact page that produced each one. See the proof →

Common questions

How do I price a recurring client vs. a one-time clean?

A maintained home on a weekly or biweekly schedule takes less time, so a recurring rate sits below a one-time clean — but never below your cost. Reward the commitment with a modest recurring discount, not a money-losing one.

Should I show prices on my website?

A "starting at" range or an instant quote tool filters out price shoppers and pre-qualifies serious leads before they ever reach you. It saves you from estimating jobs that were never going to book at your real rate.

How do I raise prices on existing clients?

Give a few weeks' notice, keep the increase modest, and frame it around reliability and quality. Most loyal clients stay. The handful who leave over a small increase are usually the ones who cost you the most anyway.

Charge what you're worth

Send your company name and city — we'll build a working website demo within 48 hours with instant quotes and online booking so you stop competing on price. Free, no card, no commitment.

Prefer email? [email protected]