How much to charge for cleaning: a US pricing guide for operators

Most US cleaners charge between 25 and 50 dollars an hour, with solo operators clustered around 30 to 40 dollars and companies higher at 45 to 75 dollars. Flat job prices run from roughly 110 dollars for a small maintenance clean to 450 dollars plus for a deep or move-out clean. Set yours from your costs, your market 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 US cleaners actually charge in 2026

Here are the rate bands operators are quoting across the country. Use them to see where you sit, not as a fixed price list. Major metros and high-cost coastal markets run at the top of each band; smaller towns sit lower.

The spread inside each band is real. A solo cleaner in a Midwest town charging 30 dollars an hour and a company in San Francisco charging 70 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-foot

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

• Hourly is simplest and safest for one-time jobs 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 home 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 move-out work.
• Per-square-foot suits offices and large commercial spaces where rooms are not a sensible unit. Many US companies also use it to price homes, often around 10 to 20 cents a square foot for a standard clean.

A worked example. Say your target is 40 dollars an hour. A regular three-bedroom takes you two and a half hours, so the flat price is 100 dollars. Quote that as a flat fee, not "40 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 biweekly visits at 25 to 50 dollars an hour, or a 110 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: 35 to 60 dollars an hour, or 200 to 450 dollars flat depending on size and condition. Always walk the property or get photos first.

Move-out cleans are the highest-stakes residential job. The clean has to satisfy a landlord or property manager so the tenant gets the deposit back, so price for that standard: 250 to 550 dollars for a typical apartment 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 25 to 45 dollars an hour equivalent. These jobs come by direct outreach and bidding, and they are won on reliability, not the lowest price.

Airbnb and short-term rental turnovers are quick, repeat, time-pressured jobs: 90 to 180 dollars a turnover, often with a same-day checkout-to-checkin 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-time jobs 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. Move-out, post-construction 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 overhead. Gas, insurance, supplies, phone, admin and your own unpaid time all come out of that hourly rate before you earn a dime.
• 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 inquiries 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 call 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 inquiry is a job you priced at nothing.

That is why getting paid well starts before the quote. It starts with answering the inquiry. 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.