What should a cleaning business charge per hour
Start with your own cost floor per paid crew hour, not someone else's advertised rate. Multiply it by the crew hours each visit needs to find a target price. Then check whether your existing clients clear that same floor.
There is no single hourly rate that fits every residential cleaning business. Your wages, payroll burden, supplies, overhead and target margin determine what you need to charge. Use the free cost-per-hour calculator to estimate your own floor.
Per cleaner, per team and per visit are different prices
A rate per cleaner-hour pays for 1 cleaner working for 1 hour. A whole-team hourly rate covers everyone on the team for that hour. A flat visit price covers the agreed job, regardless of how long it takes.
For example, $40 per cleaner-hour becomes $80 per team-hour when 2 cleaners work together. A 2-hour visit would cost $160 before any separate travel charge. That is billing arithmetic, not a recommended rate.
ZenMaid's pricing calculator labels its hourly result per cleaner-hour, then converts it to a flat job price. Check that unit before comparing any published rate with your own.
Earned rate: what each client actually pays per crew hour
Divide the visit price by all the paid crew hours it consumes. Include paid drive time for every cleaner, not just once for the vehicle.
earned rate = price per visit ÷ ((hours on site + drive hours per cleaner) × crew size)
These illustrative visits all pay $150. Assume everyone travels together and each cleaner is paid for the stated drive time. The final column uses an illustrative $36/hour cost floor, including target margin.
| Arrangement | Paid crew hours | Earned rate | Price at $36/hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cleaner, 3 hours, 20 min drive each | 3.33 | $45/hour | $120 |
| 2 cleaners, 2 hours, 20 min drive each | 4.67 | $32/hour | $168 |
| 2 cleaners, 3 hours, 30 min drive each | 7.00 | $21/hour | $252 |
Crew hours and earned rates are rounded for display; target prices use the unrounded hours. The first visit clears the floor; the second is $18 below target; the third is $102 below target. These shortfalls are estimates against your target, not accounting losses.
Check every recurring client against your own floor with a free Leak Report. Paste or upload your book; no account or card is needed. We discard client addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Compare it to your floor, not to the market
Your cost floor is what each paid crew hour must earn, including your target margin. The cost-per-crew-hour guide shows each input and the formula behind the $36/hour example. Replace its illustrative inputs with your own before quoting a client.
A competitor's price cannot tell you whether your wages and overhead are covered. It also cannot tell you whether your crew needs more time for the same scope.
What a shortfall means per month
Use the visit-price shortfall, not the rounded hourly rate, to calculate the estimated monthly margin gap. For the third client, assume 26 biweekly visits per year:
7 crew hours × $36/hour = $252 target price
$252 − $150 = $102 below target per visit
$102 × 26 ÷ 12 = $221 estimated monthly margin gap
That is $2,652 below target across the year, assuming the same duration and costs throughout. The $221 is a monthly average, not the bill for every calendar month. Closing it depends on your inputs and what the client accepts.
Short visits may need a minimum charge
An hourly rate alone can underprice a short visit when travel and setup consume paid time. Calculate its target price, then compare it with your minimum visit charge. The minimum-charge guide works through a 1-hour visit without relying on market averages.
Setting the rate for new work
- Quote the job, price from crew hours. Estimate paid time, multiply by your floor, then choose a visit price. The floor is your target threshold, not a promise that the market will accept it.
- Price the scope, not just square feet. Access, pets and the agreed tasks can change the time required. Measure completed visits and correct your estimates.
- Price the first clean separately. If it needs more crew hours than a recurring visit, calculate its price separately.
Check the clients already on your schedule
If wages rise or a visit takes longer, an unchanged price earns less against your floor. Compare every recurring client, then rank the ones below target by their estimated monthly margin gap. The client-book audit guide shows how to do that comparison by hand.
RateRescue is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp; its reports calculate the gap from your own inputs.
Paste or upload the client list you already keep. RateRescue compares each client's earned rate per crew hour with your own cost floor. It names the clients below target.
The Leak Report is free and takes about 4 minutes. No account, no card.
- How to work out your cost per crew hour
The one number every price should be measured against: what an hour of crew time costs you before any profit.
- How to price recurring cleaning clients
Price each frequency from crew hours, compare biweekly and monthly bills, and find existing clients below your floor.
- How to raise prices with existing clients
The notice, the timing, the two objections you will hear, and what to do when someone says no.
- Cleaning price increase letter: three templates
The standard notice, the long-overdue increase, and the reply when a client asks for the old price back.
- How to find the underpriced clients in your book
The audit by hand: the five columns you need, the earned-rate formula, and how to rank a whole client list against your floor.
- What a cleaning employee actually costs per hour
Burden multiplies the wage, unbillable hours shrink what you can sell it across. Both, from your own figures.
- How to set a minimum cleaning visit charge
Price short visits from paid crew hours, travel and your own floor, then compare with a minimum charge.
- How much should I raise my cleaning prices
The amount is a price, not a percentage: floor times crew hours per visit, the split when it is too big to send, and what a refusal costs.
- What to do when a cleaning client is not profitable
Keep, reprice or release: the arithmetic for the client at the bottom of the audit, and what a refusal really costs.