Price the clean from your own pace.
Square feet only means something next to how fast your team cleans. Put in the home size, your pace, your rate and the extras, and see the price, the labor hours and how long you'll be in the house.
Redline remembers your rates and add-on prices from the chat, and the calendar's repeat control books a recurring clean as one series.
Try Redline freeHow the math works
Home size divided by the square feet one cleaner covers in an hour gives total labor hours. Labor hours times your rate per cleaner-hour, plus supplies, plus add-ons, is the one-time price.
Time on site is labor hours divided by the number of cleaners. Two cleaners on a 4 labor-hour home are in and out in about 2 hours, but the customer pays for 4 hours of work either way. That's the line to show a customer who asks why two people cost more per hour.
The recurring price takes your discount off the whole one-time price. If you only discount labor, set the discount to 0 and lower your rate for recurring homes instead.
Worked example
Two cleaners, an example rate of $30 per cleaner-hour, $15 in supplies, no add-ons:
| Clean | Sq ft | Pace (sq ft per labor hour) | Labor hours | On site | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard, condo | 1,200 | 500 | 2.40 | 1.20 hrs | $87.00 |
| Standard, house | 2,000 | 500 | 4.00 | 2.00 hrs | $135.00 |
| Deep clean, house | 2,000 | 300 | 6.67 | 3.33 hrs | $215.00 |
The paces and rate are examples, not industry averages. Time your own team on a few homes to get yours.
What to watch for
- Your pace changes with the job type. A first-time deep clean, a move-out and a weekly maintenance clean of the same house are three different paces. Keep a number for each.
- Bathrooms and kitchens eat time; carpeted bedrooms don't. Two homes of the same size with different bathroom counts won't clean at the same speed.
- Pets, clutter and how long since the last clean matter more than square footage. Ask before you quote a one-time clean.
- Lockouts and same-day cancellations cost you the slot. Some cleaners put a fee for both in their terms up front.
- Price the first visit of a recurring customer as a deep clean, then switch to the recurring price.
Questions contractors ask
Should I charge by the hour or a flat price?
A flat price is easier for a customer to say yes to, and this calculator gives you one built from your hours. If a home keeps running long, the flat price was built on the wrong pace, so fix the pace for that home rather than eating the time.
What goes in add-ons?
Anything you only do on request: inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows, cabinet interiors, a load of linens. Put each one in at your own price.
How does Redline help a cleaning business?
Tell Redline your rates and add-on prices once ("inside fridge is $35") and memory keeps them. New clients get a quote by chat, saved as a draft you send from your Gmail or present yourself, on every plan including Free. The calendar's repeat control books a weekly or every-other-week clean as one series, and gate codes and entry notes live on the contact. Invoicing with card pay links is on Solo ($29 a month).
Related
Keep reading
- Cleaning business softwareRecurring cleans, skips, team assignments and move-out quotes by bed and bath.
- Recurring jobs and repeat presetsBook a whole season of visits in one save, and reuse the cadence as a preset.
- Burdened labor rate calculatorSee what an employee really costs per paid hour and per billable hour.
- Markup vs margin calculatorSee profit, markup and margin on any job, or price for a target margin.