Should I charge hourly or a flat rate?

Flat rate for homes in ordinary condition you can describe accurately, because it rewards you for working efficiently. Hourly, with a stated range, when the condition is unknown. Work out your hourly floor either way — it is what tells you whether a flat rate is sound.

How do I know if my rate is too low?

Do the arithmetic above. If your rate does not cover costs plus tax plus the take-home you need, divided by the hours you can genuinely bill, it is too low regardless of what anyone else charges.

Should I charge more for a first clean?

Usually yes. A first visit to a home that has not been professionally cleaned is catch-up work and takes substantially longer than the recurring visits that follow. Most cleaners quote the first clean separately, then drop to the recurring rate.

What about travel time?

It is unpaid time that still consumes your working day, so it belongs in your cost base rather than being absorbed. Either build it into your rate or keep a service area tight enough that it stays small.

How often should I raise my rates?

Review annually at minimum, and whenever your costs move. A rate never revisited is cut a little every year by inflation, and the longer it is left the larger the increase has to be.

Does HouseGlow set or take a cut of my prices?

No. Cleaners listed on HouseGlow set their own prices and quote customers directly. We publish no rate card and take no commission on the work.

Should I give a price over the phone?

Give a range and say what it depends on, rather than a firm number you will regret. A figure quoted before you know when the home was last cleaned is a guess, and the customer will remember it as a commitment.

What do I do when the home is much worse than described?

Say so before you start, not afterwards. Explain what you found, what it adds, and offer the choice of a revised price or a reduced scope at the original one. Both of those are easier conversations than an invoice nobody expected.

Should I charge a minimum?

Most established cleaners do, because a small job still costs a slot, the travel either side, and the setup. A minimum that covers those is not a premium, it is the point below which the work costs you money to accept.

Business guide

What should I charge for house cleaning?

Every answer to this question online is a range someone else earns somewhere else. Those ranges are not useless, but they cannot tell you the thing that matters: whether that price covers your costs and pays you properly for the hours you actually work. This is the arithmetic instead, and it takes about twenty minutes with a calculator.

Published July 19, 2026, last updated September 9, 2026. No prices on this page are quotes — request one from cleaners serving your exact ZIP code.

Short answer

Start from your own costs, not a national average. Add up supplies, travel, insurance, self-employment tax and unpaid admin time, decide what you need to earn per working hour, then divide by the hours you can actually bill in a week. A published range tells you what other people charge in other places; it cannot tell you whether that price leaves you anything.

Why a published range is the wrong starting point

A rate that works for a two-person crew in a dense city with back-to-back jobs will not work for one person driving twenty minutes between houses. The number is the same; the business underneath it is not. Copying a range you found online means inheriting somebody else's costs, density and drive time, and hoping yours match.

Ranges are useful for one thing: a sanity check at the end. Work out your own number first, then compare. If yours lands far below what others charge, the question is what they know about their costs that you have not counted yet.

The costs a rate has to cover

Most underpricing comes from counting only the hours spent cleaning. These are the costs that exist whether or not you count them.

Cost	Easy to forget because
Supplies and consumables	They are bought in bulk occasionally, not per job
Equipment wear and replacement	A vacuum feels free until the week it dies
Travel time and fuel	It is unpaid time that still fills the working day
Liability insurance	An annual figure, invisible on any single job
Self-employment tax	Nobody withholds it for you, so it feels like income until it is due
Admin, quoting and messaging	Real hours that no client is billed for
Cancellations and gaps	A booked week is rarely a full week
Unpaid leave	Nobody pays you for the days you are ill or away

These are cost categories, not amounts. The amounts are yours, and finding them is the exercise.

From cost to price, in four steps

The arithmetic is simple once the inputs are honest. What makes it hard is being honest about billable hours.

Add your monthly business costs — supplies, insurance, fuel, equipment set aside for replacement, software, any fees.
Count the hours you can genuinely bill in a normal week, not the hours you are available. Travel, quoting and admin are not billable, and most solo cleaners bill far fewer hours than they work.
Decide what you need to take home per month, then add the tax you will owe on it rather than discovering it later.
Divide the total by your billable hours. That is your floor — the number below which you are paying to work.

Then decide how to present it

Your floor is an hourly figure, but you do not have to sell hours. Most established cleaners quote a flat rate for a defined scope and keep the hourly number private as the check that the flat rate holds up. A flat rate rewards you for getting faster; an hourly rate quietly penalises it.

Quote hourly when the condition is unknown — first cleans, deep cleans, and post-construction work. Quote flat when you can see what you are taking on and describe it accurately.

What legitimately moves your price up

These are not upsells. They are hours, and a price that ignores them is a discount you did not decide to give.

Condition — a home that has not been cleaned professionally in a year is catch-up work, not maintenance.
Pets — extra vacuuming passes, hair on upholstery, litter areas.
Bathrooms — the most labour-intensive room, and the count matters more than the square footage.
Access — stairs-only walk-ups, parking that costs you fifteen minutes, buildings with sign-in procedures.
Timing — same-day, weekend and month-end move-out work is scarce capacity, and scarce capacity is worth more.
Add-ons — oven and fridge interiors, interior windows, laundry. Price them separately or they become free.

Raising a rate you already set too low

Almost every cleaner starts too cheap, because the first price is set when you most need the work and know least about your costs. Raising it is a normal part of running the business rather than an apology.

Give existing clients notice, apply it to new quotes immediately, and expect to lose a few of the ones who were only ever paying for cheapness. A schedule of clients at a sustainable rate is worth more than a full one at a rate that does not cover the van.

Quoting a home you have not seen

Most underpriced jobs are not priced wrongly, they are quoted blind. A customer describes three bedrooms and two bathrooms, which tells you almost nothing about how long the work will take, and the number you give becomes the number you are held to.

The variables that actually move the hours are ones people rarely volunteer, because they do not know they matter. Ask about them explicitly and the same question set every time, so your quotes get more accurate rather than just more numerous.

When it was last cleaned properly, which is the single biggest predictor of a first visit running long.
How many people and pets live there, and whether anyone sheds heavily.
Whether surfaces are clear or whether clearing them is part of the job.
Bathrooms in real use versus a guest bathroom nobody touches.
Stairs, and how many levels the work spans.
Hard water, which turns a routine bathroom into a long one.
Parking, access and how far the kit has to travel from the vehicle.

Quoting on photographs, and holding the quote

Photographs are the cheapest way to close the gap between what was described and what is there. Ask for the kitchen, each bathroom, and one wide shot per living space, and quote from those rather than from adjectives.

Then say what the quote assumes, in one line: this price assumes the home is broadly as shown and surfaces are clear. That sentence is what lets you have a reasonable conversation on the doorstep if it is not, and it is far easier to say in advance than to invent on the day.

When it is not as described, the honest move is to say so before starting rather than to absorb it silently and resent the job. Most customers accept a revised number offered calmly with a reason. Almost none accept a surprise on the invoice.

The traps that keep rates too low

Quoting a whole house sight unseen, then discovering it is a five-hour job.
Counting drive time as free because you are not cleaning during it.
Treating gross income as take-home and meeting the tax bill as a surprise.
Matching the cheapest local advert, which is usually somebody who has not done this arithmetic either.
Never revisiting the rate, so inflation quietly cuts it every year.

Frequently asked questions

Should I charge hourly or a flat rate?: Flat rate for homes in ordinary condition you can describe accurately, because it rewards you for working efficiently. Hourly, with a stated range, when the condition is unknown. Work out your hourly floor either way — it is what tells you whether a flat rate is sound.
How do I know if my rate is too low?: Do the arithmetic above. If your rate does not cover costs plus tax plus the take-home you need, divided by the hours you can genuinely bill, it is too low regardless of what anyone else charges.
Should I charge more for a first clean?: Usually yes. A first visit to a home that has not been professionally cleaned is catch-up work and takes substantially longer than the recurring visits that follow. Most cleaners quote the first clean separately, then drop to the recurring rate.
What about travel time?: It is unpaid time that still consumes your working day, so it belongs in your cost base rather than being absorbed. Either build it into your rate or keep a service area tight enough that it stays small.
How often should I raise my rates?: Review annually at minimum, and whenever your costs move. A rate never revisited is cut a little every year by inflation, and the longer it is left the larger the increase has to be.
Does HouseGlow set or take a cut of my prices?: No. Cleaners listed on HouseGlow set their own prices and quote customers directly. We publish no rate card and take no commission on the work.
Should I give a price over the phone?: Give a range and say what it depends on, rather than a firm number you will regret. A figure quoted before you know when the home was last cleaned is a guess, and the customer will remember it as a commitment.
What do I do when the home is much worse than described?: Say so before you start, not afterwards. Explain what you found, what it adds, and offer the choice of a revised price or a reduced scope at the original one. Both of those are easier conversations than an invoice nobody expected.
Should I charge a minimum?: Most established cleaners do, because a small job still costs a slot, the travel either side, and the setup. A minimum that covers those is not a premium, it is the point below which the work costs you money to accept.

Sources

Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes) — Internal Revenue Service
Manage your finances — U.S. Small Business Administration