Start with person-hours
A three-hour visit with two cleaners uses six hours of labor. Include your own time. Estimate from the agreed tasks and property condition.
3 hours × 2 people = 6 hoursFree cleaning-business pricing worksheet
House Cleaning Cost Calculator
Price a cleaning visit from your crew’s time and costs. Add your target margin to see a suggested quote, check another price and keep a useful worksheet.
Make the price work for you
Know what a visit should earn.
Add your crew’s time, visit costs and target margin. See a quote that covers the numbers you entered.
- Count every cleaner’s timePerson-hours keep team jobs clear.
- Protect your target marginCheck the fee and rounded price together.
- Keep a useful worksheetDownload inputs, quote and comparison.
Keep the calculation with your job notes.
Your entries stay in this tab. No upload, account or autosave.
Count the work before choosing the price
How to calculate a house cleaning price
Start with the time each cleaner spends on site. Multiply it by the crew size and your fully loaded cost per person-hour. Add supplies, travel and the share of overhead assigned to this visit. Your target margin is the portion of the selling price left after these costs and the entered fee allowance. Choose the margin that fits your business; the tool does not set it for you.
Build the visit cost
Multiply labor hours by your loaded hourly cost. Add supplies, travel and overhead for this visit. Keep that cost separate from the customer’s price.
$150 labor + $50 costs = $200Check the final quote
Set your margin, include an applicable fee, and round the price up. The worksheet checks the exact margin after rounding, so a display percentage cannot hide a missed target.
$300 quote → $91 profitStarting price = included cost ÷ (1 − margin − percentage fee)Use fractions: 30% is 0.30. The worksheet then checks the cent-rounded fee, minimum charge and quote increment.
Follow a visit from cost to quote
House cleaning pricing examples
The same job shows how crew time changes the price. These use synthetic costs and chosen targets.
A two-person, three-hour cleaning visit
- Person-hours
- 6
- Included cost
- $200.00
- Suggested quote
- $300.00
- Profit after fee
- $91.00
Two cleaners work three hours each at a fully loaded cost of $25 per person-hour. Labor costs $150. Add $15 for supplies, $10 for travel and $25 for overhead: the included cost is $200. With a 30% target margin, a 3% fee allowance and rounding up to the next $5, the suggested quote is $300. The $9 fee leaves $91 after included costs, a margin of 30.33%. These are synthetic choices, not market rates.
The same visit takes one extra hour
- New person-hours
- 8
- New included cost
- $250.00
- Profit at $300
- $41.00
- Revised quote
- $375.00
Both cleaners stay an extra hour. Labor now costs $200 and the included visit cost rises to $250. If the price stays at $300, the $9 fee leaves $41, a 13.67% margin. With the same target, fee and $5 rounding, a revised $375 quote leaves $113.75, a 30.33% margin. Other visit costs are held fixed in this comparison; extra supplies or travel would need their own update.
Download the five checked pricing examples as CSV ↓Includes the one-cent boundary where a displayed 30.00% still misses the exact target.
A quote starts with a clear scope
Before you price a residential cleaning job
List the rooms, surfaces and tasks, the condition you expect, and any add-ons. Separate a first deep clean from an ongoing maintenance visit. Check access, travel time and what the customer provides. Estimate crew time from that scope instead of treating every home of the same size as the same job.
Use completed-job experience
Compare estimated person-hours with time your team actually needed on similar visits. If a job regularly runs long, update the estimate before the next quote. The extra-hour result makes that price risk visible.
Check a discount first
A lower recurring price can work when the visit takes less time. Update costs, or enter the discounted price in Another quoted price to see the achieved margin. A discount is a business choice, not an automatic saving in labor.
Keep internal costs separate
The CSV is for your job records. A customer quote needs the selling price, included work, exclusions and payment terms. Use the linked Quote Generator to create that document.
Price the actual checklist
Deep cleaning, move-out cleaning or a recurring visit?
The label alone does not tell you how many hours a job needs. Agree on the tasks first, estimate the time for the crew doing them, then enter those hours and costs. This keeps the quote tied to work you can explain.
First visit or deep clean
Confirm buildup, detailed surfaces and any inside-appliance work. Add the extra time to hours per cleaner and update supplies. Do not apply a second multiplier if those hours already include the extra work.
Move-out cleaning
Check whether rooms are empty, utilities are available, and cabinets, ovens or refrigerators are included. Keep carpet cleaning, repairs and hauling separate unless they are part of your agreed service.
Recurring house cleaning
Base the estimate on a realistic maintenance visit. Shorter intervals may reduce the work, but a discount should follow lower costs or your deliberate pricing choice. Check the resulting margin before offering it.
After checking the price, write the included rooms, tasks and exclusions into a cleaning quote. Use a work order for the agreed task list. For recurring work, the Break-Even Calculator can help compare contribution per visit with your period’s fixed costs; keep the cost basis consistent.
Make the numbers useful
House cleaning cost calculator questions
Should I charge by the hour, room or square foot?
Those are ways to present a price. First check what the job costs you. Walk through the property, define the tasks and estimate crew time. You can then express a sustainable quote as a flat visit price or compare it with a rate for the agreed scope. Home size alone does not tell you the cleaning time.
How do I price deep cleaning or a move-out clean?
Estimate the extra work explicitly: inside appliances, buildup, cabinets, windows or other agreed tasks. Increase crew time and supplies to match that scope. A deep-cleaning label does not apply an automatic multiplier here. Describe included work and exclusions in the customer quote.
Can recurring cleaning have a lower price?
Yes, when the ongoing visit uses less time or cost, or you deliberately accept a different margin. Update those inputs. A discount on an unchanged job cost can put the margin below your target. Use Another quoted price to see the effect before agreeing it.
What belongs in the hourly cost and overhead?
Include the cost of a cleaner’s time and employment costs you have already established in the loaded hourly amount. Allocate insurance, equipment and administration separately if not already included. Count your own work and avoid including an expense twice. This worksheet does not calculate payroll taxes.
Is profit margin the same as markup?
No. Margin divides profit by selling price; markup divides it by cost. Before fees, adding 30% markup to a $200 cost gives a $260 quote and 23.08% margin. A 30% target margin needs a higher price. This worksheet uses margin and checks the entered fee allowance.
What about minimum charges or fixed fees?
Enter your minimum visit price in the optional controls. Add an applicable fixed fee once to an included visit cost, and enter a percentage fee separately. Confirm the actual fee basis with your provider, particularly if fees apply to sales tax or use tiers. The percentage allowance rounds up to a cent.
Can I send the worksheet to a customer?
The CSV includes your internal cost and margin assumptions. Keep it for your own records. For a customer estimate, use your selling price and agreed scope in the linked Quote Generator; you choose what information to include.
Calculation rules, input ranges & sources
- One residential cleaning visit in USD, before sales tax and income tax. Only entered costs are included. This is an operator pricing worksheet, not a local-market price survey or a promise of customer acceptance.
- Hours per cleaner: 0.01–24.00. Whole crew size: 1–30. Each cleaner works the same time at the same cost. For mixed crews, use a defensible blended hourly cost or separate work scopes.
- Fully loaded hourly cost: $0–$1,000. Supplies, travel, overhead, minimum and another quote: $0–$1,000,000 each. At least one included cost must be positive. Use plain decimals with at most two decimal places.
- Margin and percentage fee: 0–99% each, sum at most 99%. Margin is a share of price, not markup on cost. The fee is an allowance, not a complete processor settlement model.
- Labor rounds half-up once to a cent. Fee allowance rounds up to a cent. The quote is checked against the exact target after fee rounding, minimum and quote increment. Displayed margins round to two decimals.
- The extra-hour comparison adds one hour per cleaner and holds other costs fixed. It is not a duration forecast. Zero quoted price has undefined margin.
- No uploads, autosave or values in shared links. Optional usage analytics requires consent and excludes your entries and results. CSV is created locally. Edits remove old results and exports until recalculated.
US Small Business Administration — Plan your business — Official guidance on business expenses, fixed and variable costs, and cost analysis. The crew-hour model, fee rounding and examples are original BiznTools calculations.
US Small Business Administration — Break-even analysis — Relates selling price and costs to break-even planning. Use the separate Break-Even tool for period costs and sales volume.