House Cleaning Services Pricing Guide – How And What To Charge?
Running your cleaning service is one of the best professions with more than a decent income. If your services are up to the mark, you can build your reputation over time and enjoy a constant customer flow. But the challenging part of this business is setting your prices if you’re new or revising the prices if you’re already established.
Below, we’ll cover:
- How to Charge for House Cleaning Services?
- What to Consider When Estimating House Cleaning Prices?
- What is Included in Basic House Cleaning?
How to Charge for House Cleaning Services?
How much should I charge for my house cleaning service? That’s a question asked all too often by service providers. And it’s not something that we can answer with a fixed amount or price range, for obvious reasons such as the difference in running the business based on where you are located. Prices in London, for example, won’t be the same as in Chicago.
But the correct process of setting your rates is more or less the same, no matter where you’re from. Four factors determine the right price to charge – time, effort, expenses, and profit. Let’s have a look at each of those factors in detail.
What to Consider When Estimating House Cleaning Prices?
Here’s how you can go about estimating your house cleaning rates based on the four factors:
Time
House cleaning services usually quote the prices according to hourly rates, rates per square feet, or lump sum amount. Either way, you have to factor in the time you spend on the task. So when a customer contacts you, it’s not possible to tell them what it’s going to cost straight away.
You need to schedule a time and date for house inspection and check the size of the home yourself. Visual observation should be enough to give you an idea about how much time it will take to clean. But if you can get a thorough measurement of the house, then that’s even better.
Effort
If you have a team of workers, you need to pay them, so the cost of labor must be included in your pricing. But even if you’re working yourself as a one-person army, don’t lower the worth of your own effort.
It’s your business, and you’re doing the work, so you need to be paid accordingly. So make sure you consider the cost of labor when setting your prices – be it as a team or just by yourself.
Expenses
The house cleaning cost should cover the cost of cleaning supplies and equipment used on the job. But that’s not the only expense to be taken into account. There are a few other expenses you should think about like the ones listed below:
- If your business has an office, then the cost of running the office such as telephone and electricity bills, rent (if it’s a rented office), etc. must be considered.
- Travel expenses must be accounted for since the job requires you to visit houses at different locations.
- If you spend money on any marketing and advertising, then the marketing expenses should also be counted.
So to sum it up, think long and hard and count in all the expenses you bear to run the business because you’ll be at a loss or barely break even if your prices don’t cover up those costs.
Profit
What’s the point of a business or service that struggles to break even? Without profits, there’s nothing for you to reap. So after you have considered all the three factors above and settled down on a price range worth your time, effort, and expenses, add a certain percentage of profit on top of it.
How much profit estimation you wish to add is entirely up to you. New businesses should start with fewer profits so they can draw in more customers with slightly cheaper rates. But if you’re already up and running for some time, then aim for at least 30% profit if you want your house cleaning service to sustain itself.
What is Included in Basic House Cleaning?
Basic house cleaning doesn’t have a fixed set of rules and instructions. As a service provider, you can have your own way of doing things and ensure your customers are pleased with the result. But in general, basic house cleaning involves the following things:
- Dusting and wiping all exposed surfaces like tables and chairs, top of refrigerators and ovens, stovetops, etc.
- Vacuuming or mopping the entire floor of the house, including stairs.
- Making the beds.
- Dusting all furniture
- Cleaning light fixtures and ceiling fans
- Wiping doors and windows, cleaning the window sills
- Cleaning all mirrors in the house
This list is not the be-all and end-all for house cleaning, so you might have to work on a few more things that depend on the house that you’re cleaning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I charge for cleaning based on rates per hour or rates per square feet?
How you want to charge your customers is up to you, but it’s a good practice to quote your prices on an hourly basis for residential homes and charge per square feet for commercial buildings.
How much should I charge per hour for house cleaning?
There’s no fixed rate or a standard price range that you have to follow, so you have to fix your hourly rates based on the time and effort you spend and all expenses incurred by you during the job. Also, check the hourly rates of other cleaning services around you to know the average rates in your location.
How much should I charge per square foot?
Once again, this depends on various factors like the area where you operate and the time, effort, expense factors we explained in this guide. For the sake of generalization, $50 to $100 is a reasonable price for every 1000 square feet (5 to 10 cents per sq. ft.).
How much should a housekeeper cleaner be paid?
Statistics in the U.S. show that the average hourly rate for housekeepers ranges between $8 and $16.
We hope that this guide has given you much-needed clarity on estimating the price for your house cleaning services. Once you have calculated and fixed your rates, you’d also need a fast and efficient invoicing system for customers. At WeInvoice, you can find lots of invoice templates and invoice generators for your house cleaning business. It can help you generate invoices quickly and smoothly so you can bill your customers and get paid on time, every time.