How to Set Your House Cleaning Hourly Rate From Your Costs

Searching for house cleaning rates per hour gives you numbers from other markets, other services, and other businesses. None of them know your costs. This guide shows how to build your hourly rate from the bottom up, so you know what each hour has to cover before you pick a price. This page is general information, not tax or legal advice.

Hourly vs flat pricing: when each fits

You can quote a clean by the hour or as one flat price. Each has a place.

• Hourly fits first visits, homes you have not seen, homes in rough condition, and open-ended jobs like organizing or a long list of extras. The client pays for the time it takes.
• Flat fits recurring cleans you have timed a few times, standard room counts, and clients who want one steady number. You carry the risk if the job runs long.

Either way, the hourly rate is the base. A flat price is just your hourly rate times the hours you expect, plus supplies and travel. The guide on how much to charge for house cleaning walks through the flat price per job.

What goes into a loaded hourly cost

Your loaded cost is everything an hour of cleaning costs you, not only the wage. Here is what to count.

Wages, or your own pay target

If you pay cleaners, start with their hourly wage. If it is just you, pick a pay target for yourself per hour worked. Treat it like a wage. If you leave yourself out, your rate only covers expenses.

Payroll taxes or self-employment tax

With employees, you owe employer payroll taxes and possibly other costs on top of wages. If you work for yourself, you generally pay self-employment tax on your net income from the business. The IRS page on self-employment tax explains how it works. Count a tax set-aside in your hourly cost, and ask an accountant what amount fits you.

Whether a helper is an employee or an independent contractor changes what you owe. The IRS page on independent contractor or employee explains that it depends on the facts of the working relationship. Check with an accountant before you decide.

Supplies

Chemicals, cloths, mop heads, gloves, trash bags, and vacuum parts. Add up a month of supplies and divide by billable hours, or track supplies per job.

Travel time and gas

Driving between homes is time you pay for and cannot bill by the hour unless you say so. Add fuel, wear on the vehicle, parking, and tolls.

Insurance, software, and phone

Monthly costs you pay whether you clean or not: insurance, a phone, scheduling or quoting software, a website, and marketing. These are overhead, and each billable hour carries a share.

Unpaid admin time

Quoting, texting clients, scheduling, buying supplies, bookkeeping, and walkthroughs all take time nobody pays for directly. If you want that time paid, it has to be spread over the hours you do bill.

Billable vs non-billable hours

This split is where many hourly rates go wrong. You may work a full week and only bill part of it. Your rate has to cover the whole week from the billable part.

Billable hours (the client pays for these):

• Time cleaning in the home
• Extra tasks the client asked for and agreed to
• Time on site you agreed to bill, such as a paid walkthrough

Non-billable hours (you still pay for these):

• Driving between jobs and to the supply store
• Quoting, messages, and phone calls
• Scheduling and rescheduling
• Free walkthroughs
• Bookkeeping, invoicing, and paperwork
• Loading, unloading, and restocking the kit
• Washing cloths and mop heads
• Gaps from cancellations

Track a few normal weeks. Write down every hour worked and mark which ones were billed. That ratio is yours, and it changes as your schedule fills up.

The formula

1. Total weekly pay (your pay target times hours worked, or wages paid) divided by billable hours.
2. Plus payroll taxes or your self-employment tax set-aside, per billable hour.
3. Plus monthly overhead divided by billable hours per month.
4. Plus supplies and travel per billable hour.
5. That is your loaded cost per billable hour, your break-even rate.
6. Then add the margin you choose. That is your call.

If you think of margin as a share of the price, the hourly rate is your loaded cost divided by one minus your margin. The guide on cleaning business profit margin explains margin on price and why it is not the same as markup on cost.

Example: one hourly rate

Example only, placeholder numbers, not market data or a suggested price.

Swap in your own numbers. The line that surprises most owners is the second one: paying yourself for admin and drive time raises the cost of every billable hour. The house cleaning price calculator runs the same steps with your inputs.

From an hourly rate to a price list

Once you know your rate, you can turn it into flat prices. Time each service a few times, multiply by your rate, and add supplies for that job. The guide to building a cleaning service price list shows how. Longer jobs like a first-time deep clean use the same rate with more hours; see how to price deep cleaning.

When to raise your rate

Your rate should move when the inputs move. Look again when:

• A cost goes up. Insurance renews higher, fuel rises, supplies cost more, or you raise wages.
• Your billable share drops. More driving between homes or more admin time means each billable hour carries more.
• Scope creeps. A client keeps adding tasks inside the same visit. Either the time goes up or the price does.
• You add help. A first hire adds payroll costs and changes the math.
• It has been a while. A check once or twice a year keeps old numbers from hiding.

How much to raise it and when is your call. Give clients notice in writing, with the date the new rate starts.

How to explain an hourly rate to clients

Keep it short and plain. Clients want to know what they pay and what they get. You do not need to show your costs.

• Say what the rate covers: the cleaner's time in the home, your supplies, and your insurance if you carry it.
• Give the expected hours for their home, so the rate turns into a total they can plan for.
• Say how you handle extra time: you will ask before going over, or the job stops at an agreed number of hours.
• Say whether there is a minimum visit length.
• Put it in the quote, so there is no surprise on the day.

A simple line works: "Your clean is billed at [rate] per cleaner hour. For your home I expect about [hours] hours. I will check with you before going past that."

Run your hourly rate with your numbers

Binderlane organizes this math: answer a few questions about your wage, hours, and overhead, and it shows your loaded rate, your break-even per job, and the price at the margin you pick. Then you can text the client a branded quote with your logo. It does not set or recommend rates. First 3 quotes are free to send, no card.