# How much should I charge for house cleaning?

Price each clean from your time and costs, not a guess. ProfitDrawer's cleaning business guide works an example: a 3-hour recurring clean of a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home at $30 an hour is $90, plus $6 of supplies, $8.40 of driving and $10 of overhead, for $114.40. Adding 20% for taxes and slow weeks gives $137.28, rounded to $140 per visit. These are example numbers, not local market rates.

How to build your own flat rate:

1. **Time:** time a real clean of that home size, including setup.
2. **Your pay:** multiply hours by the hourly pay you want.
3. **Supplies and driving:** the guide uses 12 miles round trip at a rough running cost of $0.70 a mile.
4. **Overhead share:** insurance, phone and marketing spread across your visits.
5. **Margin:** the guide adds 20% on top of cost.

Price a first deep clean separately, because it takes longer (the guide uses 5 hours instead of 3). The free price per job calculator divides cost by (1 minus margin) instead, so the same $114.40 at a 20% margin comes to $143.

Before you publish a price, look at what local cleaners advertise so you land in a sensible range. Competing only on being the cheapest rarely lasts; reliable, on-time cleaners tend to keep clients longer.

- Source: [How to Start a Cleaning Business (Step by Step for Beginners)](https://profitdrawer.com/guides/how-to-start-a-cleaning-business.html)
- Updated: 2026-10-29
- Published: 2026-10-29
- Category: Pricing and profit
- Canonical: https://profitdrawer.com/answers/how-much-should-i-charge-for-house-cleaning.html
- Publisher: ProfitDrawer (https://profitdrawer.com)