The only pricing formula you need
Strip away every rule of thumb and cleaning pricing reduces to four steps:
- 1. Estimate the hours. How long will this genuinely take, including travel and setup?
- 2. Cost the hours. Your true cost per delivered hour, not the wage on a payslip.
- 3. Add materials. Typically 3–5% of job value for domestic, more if washroom consumables are in scope.
- 4. Divide by (1 − your target margin). Not "add 30%": dividing gets you the margin you actually asked for.
That last point trips up more cleaning businesses than any other. If your cost is £100 and you add 30%, you charge £130 and make 23% margin, not 30%. Dividing £100 by 0.7 gives £143, which is a genuine 30% margin. Over a year of quotes, that gap is significant.
The quote calculator runs this maths for you and shows each line, so you can see which assumption is driving the price.
What UK cleaning businesses charge in 2026
London and the South East run £3–£6 an hour above these figures for labour-based work. Parts of the North East, Wales and Northern Ireland run below them.
If you employ cleaners rather than doing the work yourself, your rate needs to sit £4–£7 an hour above a sole trader rate for the same job. That gap is not profit. It is employer National Insurance, pension, holiday accrual, absence cover and supervision.
| Service | Typical rate | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Regular domestic cleaning | £18–£28 | Per hour |
| One-off deep clean | £25–£40 | Per hour |
| End of tenancy | £165–£460 | Fixed by property size |
| Office / contract cleaning | £16–£26 | Per hour |
| Commercial by area | £1.20–£3.20 | Per m² per month |
| Carpet cleaning | £30–£60 | Per room |
| Oven deep clean | £55–£95 | Per oven |
| Jet washing | £4–£9 | Per m² |
| Window cleaning (domestic) | £15–£35 | Per visit |
Hourly or fixed price?
Both are correct in different situations, and using the wrong one is expensive.
| Situation | Price it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Regular domestic round | Fixed per visit | Clients want certainty; you keep the gain as you get faster |
| End of tenancy | Fixed | Competing against fixed quotes; agents need a number |
| Property you have not seen | Banded fixed | Quote a range, confirm on arrival |
| Builders clean / post-renovation | Hourly | Scope genuinely cannot be seen in advance |
| Heavily neglected property | Hourly or day rate | Fixed pricing here is a bet you will lose |
| Commercial contract | Fixed per visit, written spec | The specification protects you, not the rate |
Fixed pricing rewards efficiency. If better equipment and a tighter routine cut a four-hour job to three, that hour is yours. Hourly pricing quietly punishes you for getting better at your job.
The exception is any job where the scope is unknown. Quoting fixed on a property you have not seen, without a band and without written exclusions, is the single most reliable way to lose money in cleaning.
How to estimate hours you can defend
Two methods, depending on the job.
Room-based works for domestic. Roughly 15 minutes per bedroom, 21 per bathroom, 32 for a kitchen and 20 per reception room for a regular maintenance clean. Multiply by about 2.2 for a deep clean and 3 for an end of tenancy.
Area-based works for commercial. Productivity is measured in square metres per cleaner-hour: roughly 250–350 for open-plan carpeted office, 180–250 for cellular offices, 100 for canteens and just 35–60 for washrooms.
- Clutter is the biggest domestic variable: a busy property takes 25–50% longer for identical square metres. Ask about it when quoting.
- The first clean takes 1.5–2.5× a regular visit. Quote it separately at your one-off rate, always.
- Two cleaners deliver about 1.8× one, not 2×. Plan on the coordination overhead.
- Travel is paid time. A two-hour job 25 minutes away is a three-hour job.
The time estimator builds this room by room and shows both the cleaner-hours to cost and the on-site duration to schedule.
The four mistakes that destroy margin
- Costing the cleaner at their wage. Employer National Insurance, pension, holiday accrual and absence cover add 25–32% on top. A cleaner on £12.50 costs you around £16 per delivered hour. Quote against that figure: the true cost calculator works it out.
- Ignoring travel. Unpaid to the client, very much paid by you. On a scattered domestic round this alone can be 20% of the working day.
- Treating VAT as income. Cross the threshold and a £20/hour domestic price becomes £16.67/hour to you overnight unless you can raise prices. Watch your rolling 12-month turnover monthly, not annually.
- Absorbing the first clean. A neglected property on its first visit takes double the time. Charging the regular rate for it means the client is unprofitable before the relationship starts.
What to put in writing on every quote
A quote is not a price, it is a scope. Most disputes in cleaning are about what was included, not about the number.
- Exactly which rooms and areas are covered
- What is explicitly excluded: oven interiors, carpets, exterior windows, inside cupboards
- Whether the property must be empty or clear of belongings
- How long you expect to be on site, and with how many cleaners
- Whether the price is per visit, per month or fixed for the job
- Whether VAT is included or will be added
- How long the quote is valid for
For end of tenancy work, add a re-clean guarantee: 48 to 72 hours is standard, and price 3–5% into every quote to cover it. It is the most common reason a tenant chooses one quote over a cheaper one.
Raising prices without losing the round
Every cleaning business needs to do this roughly annually, and almost every one puts it off. The businesses that handle it well do four things.
- Give notice in writing, four to six weeks ahead. A dated email reads as a business decision. A mention on the doorstep reads as an opening offer.
- Raise everybody on the same date. Staggering it means having the conversation eleven more times, and clients talk to each other.
- Anchor it to something real. National Living Wage, insurance and fuel have all moved. You are not apologising, you are explaining arithmetic.
- Expect to lose 5–10% of clients. If nobody leaves, the increase was too small. Losing one client in ten on a 12% rise leaves you better off with more capacity.
One practical detail: raise the rate on your existing clients and your quoted rate for new enquiries at the same time. Businesses that only raise new-client pricing end up with a two-tier book that is impossible to manage and unfair to their most loyal customers.