How much to charge for cleaning: a New Zealand pricing guide for operators

Most New Zealand cleaners charge between 30 and 55 dollars an hour, with sole traders clustered around 35 to 45 dollars and companies higher at 45 to 70 dollars. Flat job prices run from roughly 100 dollars for a small maintenance clean to 450 dollars plus for a deep or end-of-tenancy clean. Set yours from your costs, your area and the job type, not a guess.

That is the short version. The longer answer is that the rate you can name depends on how you price, what the job actually involves, and whether you quote in a way that wins the work. Get that wrong and you are either too cheap to make money or too slow to land the booking.

What New Zealand cleaners actually charge in 2026

Here are the rate bands operators are quoting around the country. Use them to see where you sit, not as a fixed price list. Auckland and Wellington run at the top of each band; smaller centres sit lower.

The spread inside each band is real. A sole trader in a provincial town charging 35 dollars an hour and a company in central Auckland charging 65 are both pricing correctly for their costs. Your job is to know your own numbers and quote to them.

Hourly vs flat vs per-room vs per-square-metre

There are four ways to price a clean, and the right one depends on the job.

• Hourly is simplest and safest for one-offs and anything unpredictable. You get paid for the time it actually takes. The downside is it caps your earnings and makes clients watch the clock.
• Flat / per-job is what most regular clients prefer because they know the cost up front. It only works once you can estimate the property accurately, or you will keep underquoting.
• Per-room is a quick way to build a flat quote: a set price per bedroom and bathroom, plus the kitchen and living areas. Handy for end-of-tenancy work.
• Per-square-metre suits offices and large commercial spaces where rooms are not a sensible unit.

A worked example. Say your target is 45 dollars an hour. A regular three-bed takes you two and a half hours, so the flat price is roughly 115 dollars. Quote that as a flat fee, not "45 an hour for about two and a half hours", and you look more professional and you protect your rate if you get faster.

Rate bands by job type

The four methods above set the mechanism. The job type sets the band.

Regular maintenance cleans are your bread and butter: recurring weekly or fortnightly visits at 30 to 55 dollars an hour, or a 100 to 180 dollar flat fee once you know the home. Price these to keep the slot, because the repeat value is the whole point.

Deep cleans are slower and dirtier, so charge a premium: 40 to 65 dollars an hour, or 200 to 400 dollars flat depending on size and condition. Always see the property or get photos first.

End-of-tenancy cleans are the highest-stakes domestic job. The clean has to pass the landlord's final inspection so the tenant gets the bond back, so price for that standard: 220 to 450 dollars for a typical unit to family home. Per-room pricing makes these easy to quote.

Office and commercial cleaning is usually contracted: a fixed price per visit or per month rather than per hour, often at 30 to 50 dollars an hour equivalent. These jobs come by direct approach and tender, and they are won on reliability, not the lowest price.

Airbnb and holiday-let turnarounds are quick, repeat, time-pressured jobs: 80 to 160 dollars a changeover, often with a same-day window. Charge for the urgency and the laundry.

What drives your price up or down

Two cleaners can quote the same house and land 30 dollars apart, both correctly. The difference is the factors they load into the price:

• Frequency. Recurring work earns a small discount; one-offs carry a premium.
• Access and condition. Stairs, no parking, heavy clutter and pets all add time.
• Supplies. If you provide products and equipment, build that into the rate.
• Travel. Unpaid driving between jobs is a real cost, so charge more outside your core area.
• Specialty. End-of-tenancy, after-builders and Airbnb work command more than a standard maintenance clean.

Decide which of these apply before you name a number, and the quote stops being a guess.

Common pricing mistakes that kill profit

The fastest way to stay broke while staying busy is to make one of these:

• Underpricing the first job to win it. A cheap client is cheap forever and expects the next quote to match.
• Forgetting your overheads. Petrol, insurance, supplies, phone, admin and your own unpaid time all come out of that hourly rate before you earn a cent.
• No minimum charge. Tiny jobs at a per-hour rate lose money once you count travel.
• Never raising prices. Costs go up every year. If your rate has not moved in two years, you have taken a pay cut.

The quote you never send earns nothing

Here is the part the pricing guides skip. You can have the sharpest rate card in your town and still lose the job to a cleaner who simply answered the phone.

Most cleaning enquiries still come by call, and they come while you are mid-clean, gloves on, vacuum running, phone in the other room. The caller does not leave a voicemail. They ring the next cleaner on Google and book with whoever picks up. A perfect price quoted an hour too late is worth exactly the same as no price at all: zero. Every missed enquiry is a job you priced at nothing.

That is why getting paid well starts before the quote. It starts with answering the enquiry. The same logic runs through everything in how to get more cleaning clients: winning the lead is wasted if you cannot convert the call.

So work out your real costs, pick the method that fits each job, and price to the bands above with confidence. Then make sure the phone gets answered every time, because that is where the money is actually won or lost. See how that works for a cleaning business in our overview of call answering for cleaning services.