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Most House Cleaners Underprice by $30 a Job. Here's the Fix.

May 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Most cleaners price by feel — they glance at the house, name a number, and hope it works out. Sometimes it does. Often it doesn't, and they don't even realize the job lost money. Here's how to quote a cleaning job so the math always works in your favor.

Short answer: Price from your own costs, not the competition's: true labor cost (an $18/hour cleaner really costs $27+ per working hour), honest hours, supplies and travel, overhead, then a deliberate 25–40% profit margin. A standard 3-hour clean with $100 in real costs should be priced around $154.

Why "what everyone else charges" is a trap

The most common way cleaners set prices is by copying the competition — $35 an hour because that's what the last person charged, or $150 for a standard home because it sounds about right. The problem is you have no idea what their costs are. Maybe they're running themselves into the ground. Maybe they pay their staff less, or skip insurance, or are quietly going out of business. Pricing off someone else's number means inheriting someone else's mistakes.

Your price should be built from your costs and the profit you need. Here's how to get there.

Step 1: Know your true labor cost

This is where most cleaners go wrong before they even start. If you pay a cleaner $18/hour, your cost is not $18/hour. On top of the wage you pay payroll taxes, workers' comp, insurance, and possibly benefits. That extra load — your labor burden — typically adds 20–40% to the wage.

So an $18/hour cleaner really costs you somewhere around $23–25/hour. Then factor in time that isn't billable — driving between homes, restocking the car, paperwork. After all that, your real cost per working hour might be $27 or more. That's the number every quote has to clear before you've made a dime.

Step 2: Estimate the hours honestly

How long will the job actually take — not how long you wish it took? A standard clean of a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home usually runs 2.5–4 hours for one cleaner, depending on condition. A first-time or deep clean can take 50–100% longer. Be honest here; optimistic time estimates are the second-biggest way cleaners underprice.

Step 3: Add your supplies and travel

Cleaning products, fresh microfiber, bags, equipment wear — it adds up over a month. Build a small materials figure into every quote. If the home is far outside your normal area, add travel or mileage too. These are real costs; don't absorb them out of politeness.

Step 4: Cover your overhead

Your car, phone, scheduling app, advertising, and insurance roll on whether you book one job or twenty. Every quote needs to carry a slice of that — usually expressed as a percentage on top of the job's direct cost. Skip this and those costs quietly eat your profit across the year.

Step 5: Add your profit — on purpose

Once labor, supplies, travel, and overhead are covered, you're at break-even. Profit is what you add on top — and it should be a deliberate number, not whatever's left over. A healthy cleaning business targets a 25–40% margin. Remember: margin and markup aren't the same thing (a 30% markup is only about a 23% margin), so be clear about which you're using.

A quick example

Standard clean, one cleaner, 3 hours:

• True labor cost: 3 hrs × $27 = $81
• Supplies: $8
• Overhead at 12%: ~$11
• Subtotal (break-even): $100
• Profit at 35% margin: the price becomes ~$154

That $154 isn't a number you guessed — it's a number you can defend, because every dollar of it is doing a job.

Set a minimum, always

Tiny jobs still cost you a trip, setup, and admin. A 1-hour touch-up that "only" earns $40 might actually lose money once you account for drive time. Set a minimum job fee — say $120 — and apply it no matter how small the job. It protects you on the work that looks easy but isn't worth the gas.