Pricing and quoting for house cleaning: recurring, one-time and move-out
How to price by frequency, present good-better-best, quote a move-out clean without losing money, take deposits, and why prices decide which marketing works.
Pricing is a marketing decision in this business more than in any other trade. A plumber's price affects margin. A cleaning company's price affects which clients call, whether they stay, whether you can pay cleaners enough to keep them, and therefore whether you can advertise at all. Get it wrong and no amount of ad spend fixes it, because you will be buying clients you cannot afford to serve.
Price by frequency, and show the gap
The core structure is simple and most companies undersell it. The same home, cleaned at different intervals, should carry visibly different prices:
- Weekly: $135
- Biweekly: $155
- Every four weeks: $185
- One-time: $230
The spread is not arbitrary. A home cleaned weekly takes less time than the same home cleaned monthly, so the per-visit cost tracks labor honestly. Showing all four prices together does the selling for you. The prospect sees that biweekly costs $30 more than weekly and $75 less than one-time, and a meaningful share choose more frequency than they called about.
Never quote only the number they asked for. Quote the ladder.
Charge by the job, not the hour
Hourly pricing punishes you for getting faster and invites arguments about the clock. Flat pricing per visit, based on bedrooms, bathrooms and condition, is standard now and it is better for both sides.
Build your rate card from your real numbers. If a two-person team cleans a 3 bed 2 bath in 2.5 hours, that is 5 labor hours. At a $22 all-in labor cost per hour that is $110. Add supplies, drive time and overhead at roughly 20%, so $132. Target a 40% to 50% gross margin and you land at $185 to $220 for a monthly clean.
If that number feels too high for your market, the problem is either your speed or your market, and finding that out on a spreadsheet is cheaper than finding it out after twelve months of underpriced clients.
Good, better, best
Give every prospect three options on the same page. Naming matters less than the structure.
Standard ($155 biweekly): kitchen, bathrooms, floors, dusting, trash, beds made.
Standard plus ($195 biweekly): everything above plus inside microwave, interior windows within reach, baseboards, one interior appliance rotated each visit.
Premium ($245 biweekly): everything above plus inside oven and fridge, blinds, cabinet fronts, laundry folded, and a priority rescheduling slot.
Most people pick the middle. That is the point, and the top tier exists mostly to make the middle look reasonable. It also gives you an honest upsell for the client who says the deep clean was better than the regular clean, since it was, and now there is something to sell them.
Move-out cleans are a different business
Treat move-out as a separate product with separate rules.
- Quote a range, not a number, until you have seen photos. A 3 bed empty home is typically $340 to $450, and a poorly maintained one with a filthy oven is $600.
- Require the home to be empty. Cleaning around furniture and boxes doubles the time and triggers most of the disputes.
- Get 50% up front. Move-out clients are leaving town, and collecting after the fact is the most common bad debt in this industry.
- Put the exclusions in writing: exterior windows, garage, wall washing, carpet shampoo, paint removal. Name them or you will be asked to do them free.
- Photograph the finished home. Deposit disputes with landlords land on your desk otherwise.
The one-time nature of move-out work is exactly why paying $50 a lead for it through a marketplace rarely works, a point covered in the Google Ads guide and again in the agency versus DIY guide.
The first clean and the conversion moment
Almost every new recurring client should start with a deep clean or an initial clean at a higher rate, typically 1.6 to 2 times a standard visit. Skipping it means your crew does deep-clean work for standard money on visit one, and the client's impression of "regular" gets set by a house that is now spotless.
Then use the doorstep moment. When the initial clean is done and the house looks its best, the cleaner or the owner asks: "Do you want me to put you on the calendar for two weeks from today? It stays this way for about $155 a visit." Booking the second visit before you leave converts far better than an email a week later. This single habit is worth more than most ad budgets.
Deposits, cards on file and cancellations
Keep a card on file for all recurring clients through your booking software. Charge on the day of service. This removes chasing payment, which for a company running 200 cleans a month is a part-time job by itself.
Cancellation policy in writing, on the booking confirmation: 48 hours notice, otherwise 50% of the visit. Enforce it in month one with a friendly message and it almost never comes up again. Not enforcing it teaches clients that your calendar is free to hold, and an empty slot on Tuesday is a cleaner you still pay.
How pricing decides your marketing
A company charging $110 per visit cannot pay cleaners $20 an hour, cannot afford $35 leads, and turns over staff constantly, which caps growth regardless of marketing. A company at $165 can pay well, keep people, absorb a real ad budget and buy clients profitably.
There is a visibility side to this too. Across 45,428 house cleaning listings the median company has 6 reviews, and companies at that level compete almost entirely on price because they have nothing else showing. Reviews and a real website are what let you charge more than the cheapest bid in the thread.
If you want to run ads, raise prices first. Raise existing clients 5% to 8% annually with 30 days notice in a short, unapologetic email. Expect to lose 3% to 8% of clients and to come out ahead within a month. The clients you lose to an 8% increase are almost always the ones costing you the most to serve.
Frequently asked
Should I put prices on my website? Yes, as ranges with the variables named. It shortens quote calls, filters out bargain hunters, and it is one of the most quoted pages by AI assistants. Details in the website guide.
Do I quote over the phone or in person? Phone or online for standard recurring work, using square footage, bedrooms and bathrooms. In person or by photo for deep cleans, move-outs and post-construction, where condition drives the number.
What about a discount for the first clean? Discount the first visit, not the ongoing rate. A $60 first-clean discount costs you once. A $20 per visit discount costs you 26 times a year forever.
Pricing pages, quote flows and follow-up are part of the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.