Residential
What should you pay a house cleaner?
Quotes range from $25 to $65 an hour and nobody explains why. Here is where the money actually goes, from someone who runs the payroll.
Ask three cleaners what they charge and you can get $25 an hour, $50 an hour and $65 an hour for what sounds like the same job. Nobody explains the gap, so most people assume the expensive one is padding the price.
It is usually the opposite. The gap is almost entirely made up of things that never appear on a quote: insurance, workers’ compensation, bonding, and whether the person letting themselves into your home has been background-checked.
Where your money actually goes
We run payroll every month, so this is not a guess.
Cleaners in this industry are paid anywhere from minimum wage up to about $24 an hour. We sit at the higher end of that. A number of franchise operations locally pay minimum wage and no more.
On top of the wage sits employer taxes, and then workers’ compensation. Here is the part almost nobody outside the trade knows: cleaning is classified as a high-risk industry, and workers’ comp works out at around 10% of payroll. That is before a single bottle of anything has been bought.
Then come general liability insurance, bonding, and equipment. A commercial vacuum is around $500 and it does not last forever. Our cleaners are also paid for travel time between jobs, which many operators simply do not pay at all.
After that there is the business itself. Storage for materials, office staff, scheduling software. And only then, right at the end, a margin. In this industry that is realistically somewhere between 5% and 20%.
Cleaning is classified as a high-risk industry, so workers’ compensation costs around 10% of payroll before a single bottle of anything has been bought.
The cost nobody mentions
There is one more expense that never occurs to customers, and it is worth knowing about because it is baked into every quote you receive.
When you find a cleaning company through Google, Thumbtack or Angi, that company has usually paid around $30 simply for you to make contact. Not to win the job. To be allowed to quote for it.
Lose the job and that money is gone. It has to be recovered somewhere, and it is recovered across the jobs that are won.
So is $50 an hour good?
Yes, $50 an hour is fair. It is roughly where a properly run, fully insured operation needs to be.
Below that, start asking questions. Are they insured? Are they bonded? Is there workers’ compensation? Because if there is not, and someone is injured in your home, that liability does not disappear. It lands on you.
At around $65 an hour you are paying for reliability rather than just labour. More staff, so a single illness does not cancel your clean. Actual systems and software, so you get updates rather than silence. Better communication throughout. When someone is in your home around your belongings, that certainty is most of what you are buying.
| Rate | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| $25 to $30 / hour | Almost always cash or Zelle, income undeclared. No insurance, no workers' comp, not bonded. One person, so no cover if they are unavailable. Liability sits with you. |
| $50 / hour | A fair market rate for an insured, bonded business paying its people properly and covering its own equipment and supplies. |
| $65 / hour | Established team with backup cover, scheduling software, proactive communication and full insurance documentation available on request. |
What real jobs actually cost
We quote flat rates on about 95% of jobs. You know the number before we arrive, so you can budget, and nobody is watching a clock run.
Three real examples, priced the way any customer would be quoted:
| Property | Service | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 3 bed, 2 bath, 2,000 to 3,000 sq ft | One-time standard clean, plus inside the refrigerator | $350 |
| 2 bed, 2 bath, 1 half bath, under 2,000 sq ft | Standard clean with all add-ons included | $395 |
| 4 bed, 2 bath, 1 half bath, 3,000 to 4,000 sq ft | Deep clean (oven and refrigerator included), plus interior windows | $646 |
Add-ons are priced openly rather than buried: inside the refrigerator and freezer is $35, inside the oven $40, inside the kitchen cabinets $50, and interior windows and tracks are $7 per window. On a deep clean, the oven and refrigerator are already included.
Why the first clean costs more
This is the one that makes people suspicious, so it is worth being direct about it.
Most people clean their kitchen and their bathrooms. Almost nobody routinely cleans baseboards, woodwork, window tracks or vents. That is not criticism, it is simply not what household cleaning means to most people.
So the first visit is not a maintenance clean. It is bringing a home up to a standard it has probably never been held to, and that takes considerably longer. Once it is there, keeping it there is far easier, which is why ongoing visits cost less.
What takes longer than you would think
Baseboards, windows and woodwork are the big ones. When buildup has been left, it beds into the surface and no longer wipes off.
Sinks, tiles and shower screens are the other. These are not a single pass. They often have to be worked several times over to come back properly, which is exactly why a deep clean is priced at around one and a half times a standard one.
Why homes here take longer
Two things are specific to this part of California.
Hard water. It leaves calcium on counters, sinks, taps, tiles and shower screens. Left alone it hardens, and removing it is slow work. If you have moved here from a soft-water area, this will be new to you.
Dust. It settles heavily on vents and baseboards, and around properties it stains. That is the Central Valley, and it means an identical house here genuinely takes longer to clean than the same house elsewhere.
Questions worth asking before you book
Most people ask about price and availability, and nothing else. These four reveal far more:
- Are you insured and bonded? Ask for documentation. A real business will send it without hesitation.
- Do you background-check the people entering my home? Someone will be alone in your house.
- What products do you use? Harsh chemicals can strip a surface to get a result quickly. That is not the same as cleaning it.
- How will you communicate with me? If a company is vague before taking your money, it will not improve afterwards.
When a cheaper clean is genuinely fine
Not everyone needs a full service, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
If you already maintain your home well, you may not need a whole-property clean at all. What you probably want is someone to handle the things that never get attention: windows, vents, baseboards. That is a focused visit of a few hours on the areas you choose, and it is one of the situations where we will quote hourly rather than flat.
Common mistakes when comparing quotes
Comparing headline prices rather than scope. One quote includes the oven interior, another charges $40 for it. The cheaper one may not be cheaper.
Assuming the lowest quote is the same job. At $25 an hour something is missing, and it is usually insurance.
Not asking what happens if the cleaner is unavailable. A solo operator who is ill means no clean, with nobody to send instead.
Expecting a first clean to cost the same as a maintenance clean. It is a different job.
Booking on price alone for a move-out. A deposit is usually worth considerably more than the difference between two quotes. Our move-out cleaning checklist covers what landlords actually inspect.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Is $50 an hour too much for house cleaning?
No. It is a fair rate for an insured, bonded company that pays its cleaners properly and covers workers' compensation, which in this industry runs at around 10% of payroll. Rates well below that usually mean one or more of those things is missing.
Should I pay hourly or a flat rate?
Flat rate in almost every case. You know the cost before anyone arrives and there is no incentive to work slowly. We quote flat on around 95% of jobs. Hourly makes sense when a well-maintained home only needs a few specific areas covered.
Do I need to tip my house cleaner?
We do not ask for tips and our cleaners are paid a fair wage rather than minimum wage. Tipping is entirely at your discretion and is always appreciated, but it is not expected and it is not built into our pricing.
Why is one quote half the price of another?
Usually insurance, workers' compensation and bonding, or the absence of them. Sometimes it is scope, where one quote includes appliance interiors that another charges extra for. Compare what is included before comparing the totals.
Do prices go up when you are busy?
Ours do not. Summer is our busiest period and availability tightens, but the price of a job does not change because demand is high. If we cannot fit you in quickly we will tell you rather than charge more.
What does a deep clean include that a standard clean does not?
Appliance interiors, tile grout, baseboards, woodwork, vents and light fittings, plus the surfaces that need working several times rather than once. It typically takes around one and a half times as long, which is reflected in the price. We compare both in [deep clean versus standard clean](/blog/deep-vs-standard-cleaning/).
Working out your own number
Every home is different, which is why we quote on the property rather than a generic hourly rate. If you want to see what your own home would cost, our house cleaning price calculator gives you a figure in about thirty seconds without asking for an email address.
For local context on what people pay around here, see our guide to house cleaning costs in Fresno, or read more about our standard house cleaning and deep cleaning services. We work across Clovis, Fresno and the surrounding area.
