Pricing guide
How much to charge for house cleaning: the real formula
Most answers to this question are a table of other people's prices. This is the other answer: what a job costs you, from your own numbers, and what it comes to at the margin you choose. Run it below with your numbers. No account.
Your costs
Hours you bill clients. Not driving, not quoting.
Insurance, phone, ads, software, the van.
Payroll tax, workers comp, on top of the wage.
This job
An hour really costs
$27.58/hr
Break-even, this job
$99.13
Send price
$141.62
Loaded rate = wage × (1 + burden) + overhead ÷ monthly billable hours. Break-even = labor + supplies + miles × 70¢. Price = break-even ÷ (1 − margin). Example values are placeholders, not market data.
Nothing here is saved to a server. Change the examples to your numbers.
Start with what an hour really costs you
The wage you pay a cleaner is not what an hour costs you. Payroll tax and workers comp sit on top of it. Then there is everything the business pays whether or not anyone is cleaning: insurance, phone, ads, software, the van. That overhead has to be carried by the hours you actually bill, because those are the only hours that bring money in.
Loaded rate = wage × (1 + payroll burden) + monthly overhead ÷ monthly billable hours.
Example, with placeholder numbers: a $18 wage with 12% burden is $20.16 an hour before overhead. $900 of monthly overhead spread over 28 billable hours a week (about 121 a month) adds about $7.42. So one hour of cleaning costs $27.58, not $18.
That gap is the whole reason this page exists. Owners who price from the wage feel busy and short at the same time, and the loaded rate is usually why.
Then the job
A job is labor plus the things you use up getting it done. Labor is cleaners × hours on site × loaded rate. Add supplies for that job. Add the drive: miles there and back at a cost per mile for fuel and wear. That total is your break-even. Send a quote under it and the job costs you money.
Example: 1 cleaner for 3 hours at $27.58 is $82.73. Add $8 of supplies and 12 miles at 70¢, and break-even is $99.13.
Then the margin, on the price
Margin means the share of the price that is profit. It is not markup on cost, and the difference matters: 30% margin on the price is more than 30% markup on the cost. The formula is price = break-even ÷ (1 − margin).
Example: $99.13 at a 30% margin comes to $141.62, with $42.49 of profit on the job. Move the slider in the calculator and watch the dollar figure, not just the percentage. That is what a point of margin is worth to you on a real house.
Three places the math usually goes wrong
- Billable hours are counted as all hours. A 40 hour week with 28 hours in client homes is 28 billable hours. Divide overhead by 40 and every job quietly under-carries it.
- Drive time is free. It is not. It is paid time for the cleaner and miles on the van. Either it goes into the job as travel, or it comes out of the billable hours count. Not both, and never neither.
- The margin is set once and never checked. Wages go up. Insurance goes up. If the price stays put, the margin is the thing that shrank. Rerun the numbers whenever a cost changes.
From the number to the quote
Once the price is right, the client needs it in a form they can say yes to. A text with a number in it works, but a branded quote with your name, the scope and one price, plus an Accept button, works better. That is the part Binderlane does after the math: the number you saw above, texted to the client as a link, with your logo on it. The first three are free to send.
Related: what a normal margin looks like and how to check yours, and a free cleaning quote template. Also: how to start a cleaning business and how to price a move-out cleaning.
Questions owners ask
- Should I charge by the hour or by the job?
- Quote by the job, but build the number from hours. Clients want one price. You want to know the hours behind it so you can tell when a house takes longer than you priced.
- What is a loaded hourly rate?
- What one hour of cleaning actually costs you: the wage, plus payroll burden on top of it, plus your monthly overhead spread across the hours you bill. It is always higher than the wage.
- Why divide overhead by billable hours and not by all hours worked?
- Only billable hours bring in money, so only billable hours can carry the overhead. Driving, quoting and admin are real hours, but the jobs have to pay for them.
- What margin should I use?
- That is your call, and it is the one input nobody else can set for you. The calculator shows the profit in dollars beside the percentage so you can see what each point of margin is worth on a real job.
- Does this tell me what cleaners charge in my area?
- No. It tells you what a job costs you and what it comes to at your margin. Market prices are a separate question; this is the floor you should never go under.
Know your number before you send the quote.
A few quick questions. See your break-even and your price. Then text the client a quote with your logo on it. First 3 quotes free to send. No card.
Run it with my numbers