MaidBossPro Blog — Quotes & Pricing

Square Feet, Hourly or Flat Rate: Choosing a House Cleaning Pricing Method

Ask ten cleaning company owners how they price and you will hear at least three answers. Some quote by the square foot, some charge by the hour, and some give a flat price based on the home. Each method has fans, and each one fails in a predictable way. Knowing where each works lets you pick a main method and use the others where they fit.

Three Ways to Put a Number on a House

Room-count pricing, the most common flat-rate approach, is covered in Pricing House Cleaning by Bedrooms and Bathrooms. This article compares it with square-foot and hourly pricing.

All three methods are trying to answer the same question: how long will this home take my team, and what does that time cost me? They just use different measurements to get there.

• Flat rate uses the home's description, usually bedrooms and bathrooms, to set a fixed price.
• Square feet uses the home's size, often with a rate per square foot or price bands by size.
• Hourly charges for the time actually spent, usually per cleaner per hour.

Square-Foot Pricing

Square-foot pricing works well when room counts mislead. A 3 bed / 2 bath home can be 1,300 sq ft or 3,600 sq ft, and the bigger one takes far longer even with the same room count. Price bands make it easy to quote:

• Up to 1,500 sq ft, every-two-weeks clean: $130
• 1,501–2,500 sq ft: $160
• 2,501–3,500 sq ft: $195
• Over 3,500 sq ft: quote after a walkthrough

These are only examples. The weakness of square-foot pricing is that customers do not always know their square footage, and a large home with one bathroom is less work than a small one with three. Many companies use square feet for deep cleans, move-outs and post-construction, where size drives the work most, and room counts for recurring cleans.

Hourly Pricing

Hourly pricing protects the company on jobs nobody can predict: heavy post-construction dust, a home that has not been cleaned in a year, or a customer who wants “whatever you can get done in three hours.” You never lose money on a job that runs long.

The downside is on the customer's side. A homeowner comparing three quotes cannot easily compare “$50 per cleaner per hour” with “$155 per visit.” They also worry about paying for a slow team. If you price hourly, give an estimated range of hours with the quote so the customer has a number to plan around, and explain what happens if it runs over.

Flat-Rate Pricing

Flat rates are what most recurring residential customers want. They know the price before the team arrives, the invoice is the same every visit, and there is nothing to argue about. For the company, a flat rate rewards efficient teams: a team that gets faster at a home keeps the benefit.

The risk is a flat rate set too low, or a home that turns out bigger or dirtier than described. That is why a flat rate should be based on clear inputs, such as bedrooms, bathrooms and square feet, and why the first visit to a new home is often priced as a deep clean.

Mixing Methods Sensibly

Most well-run cleaning companies end up with a mix:

• Recurring cleans: flat rate by bedrooms and bathrooms, adjusted for very large homes.
• First-time deep clean and move-outs: by square feet, or by room counts with a size adjustment.
• Post-construction and unusual jobs: hourly, or a flat price after a walkthrough.
• Add-ons: flat prices.

The key is to decide in advance which method goes with which service, write it down, and apply it every time. Mixing on the fly, quote by quote, is how two neighbors end up paying different prices for the same clean.

Setting It Up in MaidBossPro

MaidBossPro lets prices on your service list tie to bedrooms, bathrooms or square feet, or stay flat. You choose for each service. When the office enters the home's details on the estimate, the price comes from your setup.

Whichever method produced the price, the home's details stay on the estimate: cleaning type, bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, pets and extras. They carry onto the job when it is approved, so the team sees the same information the price was based on. If the house turns out to be different, the team's note gives the office what it needs to adjust. For hourly jobs, the team's time clock records when they clocked in and out, which helps you check how long a job really took.

Whichever method you choose for recurring visits, the first visit to a new home usually deserves its own price, because it is almost always the longest one. That is covered in Pricing the First-Time Deep Clean Before Recurring Service Starts. Getting both numbers right, the first visit and the recurring visit, matters more than which measuring stick you use to get there.

Pick One and Stick With It

There is no perfect method, only one you apply consistently and review now and then against how long jobs actually take. Pick a main method for each service, set it up on your service list, and let every estimate follow it. For how pricing fits with the rest of the quoting process, visit the house cleaning estimate software page.