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17 Common Mistakes To Avoid Making As a Maid Service

November 7, 2020 in Business, Grow your Maid Service, Mindset

Last Updated on August 24, 2023 by The ZenMaid Team

Have you ever found yourself staring at the phone, client on the line, sweating over what number to say? You’re not alone. One of the most common questions among residential cleaning business owners is how much should I charge for my services?

Charge too high, and you might scare clients away. Too low, and you’re undercutting your value. It’s enough to make anyone second-guess their math skills. In this article, weโ€™re breaking down industry standards and how to calculate the best price to charge for your maid service. 

Now, letโ€™s get to it. 

Hourly vs. flat rate pricing:

The debate between hourly vs. flat rate is as old as the industry itself. Many seasoned experts advocate for flat-rate pricing as the golden ticket to scaling your business. It offers predictability for your clients and ensures you’re compensated for the value you provide, not just the time you spend.

However, don’t toss the idea of knowing your hourly rate out the window just yet. Understanding your approximate hourly rate is crucial for accurately setting your flat rates. It serves as the foundation upon which you build your pricing structure, ensuring that you’re not only competitive but also profitable.

The trick is to calculate your hourly rate based on your operating costs, desired profit margins, and the market rates, and then transition to a flat-rate model that reflects the value and efficiency of your services. In this article, weโ€™re giving you step-by-step instructions on how to determine this rate. But first, letโ€™s cover some industry averages:

Industry average prices for cleaning services

The standard flat rate for cleaning services can vary widely depending on the location, the size and condition of the space, the type of cleaning required, and the cleaning company itself. Here’s a quick breakdown of standard cleaning rates based on averages from HomeAdvisor and Angi.

1. Hourly Rates:

  • Standard cleaning prices also range from $35 to $60 per hour for each cleaner. 
  • The national average cost of house cleaning is noted to be $40-$50 per hour, per cleaner.

2. Per Room Rates:

  • The rate is about $30 to $50 per room.

3. Square Footage Rates:

  • Cleaning a 2,000-square-foot home can cost about $0.06 to $0.16 per square foot, which would total $110 to $320.

4. Flat Fee Rates:

  • For a typical three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home, the cleaning cost usually ranges from $160 to $200. 
  • A one-bedroom apartment is priced at around $80 to $110.
Cleaning typeHourly rateFlat rateSq Ft Rate
Residential Cleaning
Standard Cleaning$25 – $50 per cleaner$100 – $200$0.05 – $0.16
Deep Cleaning$40 – $100 per cleaner$200 – $400$0.13 – $0.17
Move-In/Out Cleaning$40 – $100 per cleaner$300 – $400$0.13 – $0.20
Commercial Cleaning
Standard Cleaning$25 to $90 per cleanerVaries by size$0.10 to $0.25
Deep Cleaning$40 to $150 per cleaner$200 to $500N/A
Special ServicesVaries by serviceVaries by serviceVaries by service

Additional Services You Can Charge: For residential cleaning, add-on services such as changing bed sheets, laundry, interior and exterior window cleaning, fridge cleaning, oven cleaning, etc., come with additional costs ranging from $4 to $50 per serviceโ€‹. In ZenMaid, you can easily add these extra charges to your cleaning job. 

The pricing strategy formula

Now that weโ€™ve covered some average industry rates, letโ€™s break down a bit more. Everyone likes a good roadmap, right? Here are the four steps for how to find your cleaning service rate: 

  • Step One: Find your target hourly rate
  • Step Two: Calculate how much square footage you can clean in an hour
  • Step Three: Develop a pricing strategy
  • Step Four: Use the pricing formula

How to find the hourly rate for your business

The first step to finding an hourly rate for your business starts with doing local market research. When conducting your market research, consider these targeted questions: 

  • What are other businesses charging? More specifically, what are businesses the same size as yours charging? 
  • How often do they offer services?

The easiest way to find out what your competitors are charging is when prices are listed on their website. Unfortunately, that’s not very common. So, pick up the phone and call up your competitors to ask. 

Once you know what your competition is charging, try to understand how much you can get for what you offer. 

  • Will the demographic in your area pay for a premium service? 
  • Do you want to charge the same as a franchise’s cleaning business?

Facebook groups, client surveys, and competitors are great places to find these answers. 

After you’ve done your market research, you’ll need to figure out how to position your company in the marketplace. Are you just another residential cleaning service? Or, do you offer a premium, specialized product? 

When you know the direction you’re headed, the road to your pricing strategy is easier to find. Some cleaning services like to specialize in large homes or luxury homes. Others just want the โ€˜meat and potatoes’ of a basic cleaning service. The good news is that there’s plenty of business for everybody. 

Employee pay

The next factor that influences your hourly rate is how much you pay your employees. If you want to pay the bare minimum needed to hire people, that’s going to put you on the lower end of the hourly rate. 

If you aim to offer a livable wage with benefits, you’re going to need to charge more. There are no correct answers here, but you need to understand these factors when developing your hourly rate.

The average employee pay range for cleaners is $15.30/hour. You can use this for calculating your hourly cleaning rate. 

Consider your marketing strategy

The final factor for your hourly rate is your marketing strategy. 

Are you trying to grow your business? 

Your rate will need to be competitive if you’re hoping to grow at a fast pace. 

If you need to grow rapidly but don’t want to lower prices, read this article three ways to get more cleaning customers without lowering your prices.ย 

If your business has grown to a place you’re comfortable with, or if you’re well-known in the area, you can probably charge a higher hourly rate. And you can definitely charge a higher rate if you have a waiting list of clients! 

How many square feet can you clean per hour?

After you’ve found your hourly rate, understand how many square feet you can clean per hour. Now, at first, this can seem hard to find, but you likely already have the information you need โ€“ it’s just a matter of finding it! 

It’s important to know your square footage per hour because you will use it as a baseline for all your prices.

Use data from past cleaning jobs to learn how fast you can clean 500 square feet. You’ll want to calculate an average from your recent jobs. 

  • How long did the last ten *typical jobs take you? 
  • How many employees were on the cleaning job? 
  • How many square feet were the homes?

Don’t have any recent data? 

No worries! Start recording this data for the next week and then use it to find your average.

*Several variables can affect your average cleaning rate, so use only typical homes when calculating your average cleaning pace. Your typical homes are the predictable ones that are simple to clean, requiring only your basic cleaning services. (We’ll touch on how to avoid pricing disasters in these kinds of homes at the end of this article!)

How to find your pricing strategy

The next step to nail down your pricing system is to identify your pricing strategy. 

In other words, how frequently do you hope to charge for services? We’re going to use your pricing strategy to calculate our prices based on frequency. 

Do you want your main revenue to come from weekly cleans, bi-weekly, or monthly with extra fees?

Many residential cleaning companies push for bi-weekly cleans. Offering a small discount of around 5% is a great option to incentivize clients to choose these more frequent cleans. 

On the other hand, charging more for monthly cleans is a good way to help clients choose more frequent cleans. It’s often reasonable to charge an additional 50% for a monthly clean. 

We see too many cleaning business owners charge the same rate for bi-weekly and monthly cleans. When this happens, your client has no reason to choose bi-weekly over monthly. 

Determining an effective pricing strategy is crucial and should align with your current business standing and long-term goals. Assessing your booking rates and understanding your clientele’s price sensitivity are pivotal steps.

More factors to consider:

  • If you find that your services are in high demand, with a fully booked schedule being the norm, it might be an indication that your clientele values your services highly. In such a scenario, adopting a premium pricing strategy could be beneficial. This approach reflects the high quality and demand for your services and provides additional revenue that can be reinvested into growing and enhancing your business further.
  • On the flip side, a different approach is warranted if your booking rate is lower than desired and you’re struggling to cover your operational costs. Penetration pricing, where you initially set a lower price to gain market share and cover your fixed expenses, might be a viable strategy. This can help attract a customer base and establish a foothold in the market. Once a loyal clientele is built and market recognition is achieved, prices can be gradually adjusted to a higher point.
  • Alternatively, crafting custom packages could be a smart move. By offering tailored cleaning packages, you encourage customers to engage with your services over a longer term. This not only helps cover your fixed costs but also enhances each customer’s lifetime value, thereby boosting your overall profitability. Structuring packages that provide value while ensuring profitability will create a win-win scenario for your business and clientele.

To learn more about building a pricing strategy for your cleaning business, check out this article!

How to calculate your pricing

We’ve made it to the pricing formula. After you’ve gone through all the steps above, this next step is pretty simple.

First, take the square footage of your client’s home and divide it by your rate of square feet cleaned per hour. Then, multiply it by your hourly rate. The total number is how much you’ll charge for a single job in that client’s home. 

So let’s use an easy number as an example: If a client with a 2,000 square-foot home calls you looking for a quote, divide 2,000 by 500 (rate of square feet cleaned per hour) multiplied by $50 (an hourly rate.) The total one-time clean for that client is $200.

Bi-weekly rate

Offering a 5% discount for bi-weekly cleans is a great incentive for clients. Using the $200 example above, this would mean a client can have a 2,000-square-foot home cleaned twice a month for $380 (after the 5% is applied.) This is an example of a baseline bi-weekly rate. 

Monthly rate

Your monthly cleans can have an additional 50% charge to encourage more frequent cleans and account for the extra dust and dirt the home will accumulate between cleans. Using the $200 example, a monthly clean would cost a 2,000-square-foot client $300 (after an extra 50% is added.) This is an example of a baseline monthly rate. 

You can use this formula to calculate any specialty service in your business. Just play around with different percentages and values until you come to a reasonable and profitable baseline. 

Minimum rate

No matter what kind of service you’re offering, it’s important to set a minimum rate to avoid losing money on out-of-scope services. This will save you the headache of negotiating with a client who might only want a certain room in their home clean. Or perhaps, if they have a smaller home that would only require an hour of cleaning based on your square footage cleaning rate. Set this minimum rate using the pricing calculator and the base amount required to make a profit per clean. 

Factors affecting cleaning service pricing

Sometimes, you will find people reaching out to you for a quote, but once you get to the location, you find out there are a lot of factors at play that affect pricing.

Other than the factors mentioned earlier, here are some factors to be aware of:

  • Size of the Area to be Cleaned: The total square footage or the number of rooms and bathrooms can greatly affect the time, effort, and resources required to complete the cleaning task.
  • Level of Clutter: A cluttered space can take longer to clean as it might require decluttering before the actual cleaning can commence.
  • Type of Cleaning Required: Whether it’s a standard cleaning, deep cleaning, or a specialized service like carpet cleaning or window washing, different types of cleaning have different pricing structures.
  • Frequency of Cleaning: Regularly scheduled cleanings may be priced differently than one-time or less frequent cleanings.
  • Accessibility: If certain areas are hard to reach or the location is in a high-traffic urban area, it may add to the cleaning time and cost.
  • Special Requests or Preferences: Clients may have special requests such as using eco-friendly cleaning products or working outside standard hours, which can also affect costs.
  • Pet Situation: Homes with pets may require additional cleaning efforts like fur removal, which could influence the price.
  • Parking Facilities: In urban areas, the availability of parking near the location can be a factor as it may affect the ease with which cleaning crews can access the site.
  • Additional Services: Services like laundry, dishwashing, or organizing could be additional and would affect the overall pricing.
  • Supplies Provided: Whether the cleaning company needs to provide all cleaning supplies or some are provided by the client can also impact the cost.
  • Lifestyle Factors: Does the client smoke indoors? Does the client keep surfaces clean during the week? Do they host a lot of guests?
  • Urgency: Urgent or last-minute cleaning requests may carry premium pricing.

Protecting yourself from pricing disasters

With flat-rate pricing, you need to protect yourself from pricing disasters. We’ve all been there: after quoting a home, we walk into a cleaning job that takes way longer than estimated. There are mountains of clutter, piles of dust, and floors in need of a little too much love. So what do you do?

When taking any new job, set the precedent that you may need to overcharge if any visit takes longer than planned. An example line you can add to your contracts is, โ€œquoted prices assume average-sized rooms in average condition. Extra hours needed to clean will be priced with an additional $50 per hour.โ€ When a client agrees to this ahead of time, you’ve protected yourself from being underpaid. 

Then, when you find yourself in a job taking longer than expected (which is bound to happen at some point), take a break from cleaning to notify the client that an extra fee will be added to keep cleaning. If they give you the go-ahead, you can proceed and charge extra as needed. 

If the client declines moving forward, then you can wrap up the job without any penalty. Don’t wait until you’re at the end of a job to notify the client of an extra charge. 

Wrapping up

Your cleaning business’ success starts with finding the right rates to charge. 

Luckily, finding the perfect pricing strategy for your cleaning business doesn’t have to feel like solving a complex puzzle. With ZenMaid, you can take the guesswork out of quoting and make the process as clean and simple as the services you offer. Our software comes equipped with an instant booking form feature, making it effortless for your clients to get accurate quotes online directly from your website.

Say goodbye to pricing woes and hello to a smoother, more professional booking experience with ZenMaid.

17 Common Mistakes To Avoid Making As a Maid Service

Growing your own maid service business from the ground up requires a lot of hard work, and trial and error. Many cleaning business owners spend years figuring out the right ways to manage their business and end up trying a lot of strategies before figuring out the keys to success. 

On the road to growth and profitability, it’s normal to make mistakes, learn from them, and try new things. But wouldn’t it be helpful if you could skip a few steps? In this post, we’ll break down 17 common mistakes that maid services business owners make, and how you can avoid them. 

1. Not having policies or procedures in place

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) can be the difference between chaos and your business running smoothly. Without SOPs, itโ€™s hard to know exactly how your business operates, so you end up winging it. 

Having SOPs will help your team know how to handle special requests and ensure that every client gets the same treatment. It will also save you time from having to answer the same question over and over and make sure your staff has proper training material to handle customer requests on their own. 

2. Allowing customers to book every three weeks

Booking customers every three weeks creates a gap in your schedule, which can prevent you from booking more weekly or biweekly customers. This is exactly why ZenMaid only allows customers to book cleanings on a 1, 2, or 4 week basis. 

Even though some customers might want to book a cleaning every three weeks, create a policy that incentivizes customers to book weekly or biweekly. Treat any other bookings as a one-off appointment that can only be fulfilled if there is a cancellation in your calendar. 

3. Not setting expectations on the outcome of a job 

You might not always agree with your customers on what needs to be done, but you can avoid having difficult and awkward conversations by creating a service agreement for every cleaning you do. This agreement lets your customer know exactly what to expect from a cleaning with your maid service. 

Before each cleaning, do a walkthrough to clarify with the customer what is included in the cleaning. If the customer has something they want to add, you can add it to the scope and let them know of any additional fees. 

4. Entering into partnerships without assessing the risk 

In some cases, business partnerships can be a match made in heaven. However, before you enter into a partnership in your maid service, make sure you have many detailed discussions with your potential partner before making any decisions. 

Oftentimes, weโ€™ve seen that the person who starts the business will feel more attached to it and end up doing more work. Always make sure you have a legal contract in place that outlines what each person is expected to bring to the table, as well as how much each partner will earn from the business. 

5. Hiring anyone who shows up for an interview

Most maid services have been in a position where they urgently need more cleaners. This can make you desperate to hire new talent, despite whether they are qualified. 

Avoid making impulsive hires by having a strict hiring process in place. Stick to this process and don’t hire anyone that does not meet all of your criteria. After all, your employees are an extension of your business. It’s important to have a tight screening process to avoid high turnover and make sure you’re only hiring people who embody your brand. 

Here are more tips on how to always find high-quality cleaners for your maid service. 

6. Taking complaints personally instead of tactfully 

You want to give high-quality service every time. So when a customer has a complaint, it’s hard not to take things personally. When you receive a negative comment, itโ€™s important to remain professional and try your best not to see it as a reflection of you as a business owner. 

For these situations, check out our complete guide on how to remain zen during tough conversations. 

7. Giving discounts to attract customers

A lot of business owners think they won’t get new customers without coupons or discounts. We want to debunk this myth. Giving discounts not only devalues your service, but it sets a precedent with your customers that they should wait until you’re having a sale or offering another discount. Rather than selling a low price, sell excellent service and value. You’ll attract customers who are willing to pay for what they want and who see the value in what you offer. 

8. Not planning for taxes 

No matter what you earn, you should always put away at least 30% of your earnings for taxes. Learn about your state’s taxes to get an exact number of how much you can expect to pay in taxes every year. 

It’s crucial to figure out your taxes from day one and start putting money aside after your very first sale. If you don’t, your amount owed can easily sneak up on you, causing a lot more problems for you and your business in the future. Make it part of your business plan to put away money for taxes into a separate business account. This way, you won’t even see it and won’t be tempted to touch it until tax time. Consider implementing a system like Profit First to make sure youโ€™re always prepared for tax time, and still paying yourself appropriately. 

9. Not tracking expenses

As your business grows and you gain more customers, your expenses will increase as well. As a maid service, it’s crucial to track all of your costs. You need to know how much you’re spending to understand how much you can budget for next year. Knowing your numbers can help you determine how much you can spend on hiring, payroll, marketing, and other expenses. 

10. Not asking for ratings or reviews. 

Get in the habit of asking every customer for a rating or review. Choose one or two platforms to start and ask every customer to leave an honest review. These reviews are extremely valuable in helping you attract new customers. 

You can also follow up with past customers and ask for feedback on their experience. You want the input to continue to improve your business, and you also benefit from the social proof that comes from new customers seeing your good reviews. 

11. Not getting insurance 

You might think that you don’t need it or that your business is not big enough to benefit from insurance, but this is a big mistake. Don’t wait until it’s too late or until it happens before you consider getting insurance for your business. 

At a minimum, make sure that you can’t be held personally liable for any property damage or if anything goes wrong when you’re on someone else’s property. 

12. Keeping emotionally abusive customers 

You might have customers who are a pain to work with, but you keep them because they give you good business or referrals. Keeping these high maintenance customers is not worth the emotional labor and tends to create more work and less profit for you in the long run. 

It’s important to set boundaries, and if a customer continues to break those boundaries, you end the relationship in a respectful and professional way. This will protect your cleaners from dealing with rude or emotionally abusive cleaners and show that you care about their well-being on the job. 

13. Believing everything you read on the internet

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of groups on Facebook tailored towards cleaning companies. (We know, we have one) But just because a group claims to be full of industry professionals doesn’t mean that you should believe everything you see in those groups. Not all of the information is relevant to your business. 

Many of the business owners in these groups are speaking from their own experience. So while something worked well for them, it doesn’t mean you should completely pivot your existing strategy to do what they did.  

14. Advertising with no game plan

The average consumer needs at least seven interactions with your brand before they decide to buy your service. So for your advertising campaigns to succeed, you need to have an intentional game plan that prioritizes long-term growth. It’s not enough to advertise one time and expect it to work. You need to be able to create consistent campaigns over and over again to build brand recognition with your customers. 

15. Hiring friends and family 

It’s very admirable to want to create job opportunities for your loved ones. However, hiring friends and family often comes at the expense of your business. These hires create blurred lines if you’re unwilling to enforce rules for employees you have close personal relationships with. If you hire friends or family, make sure you are holding them to the same standard and treating them with the same professionalism as the rest of your team. 

Here is Angela explaining why this is just a simple no-no for your maid service:

16. Giving an estimate without enough information 

If youโ€™ve been in business for a long time, you may know exactly what questions to ask to give a new customer an estimate over the phone. But if you’re newer to the business, you may likely undercut yourself because you underestimate the amount of work that needs to be done. 

Before giving an estimate, gather as much information as possible. If a customer asks for an estimate over the phone or email, feel free to give them a price range based on predetermined questions you have and then follow that up with a walkthrough for an exact price. Did you know: you can set up your ZenMaid booking form to give a solid estimate for the job.

17. Not investing enough in professional development or business education

Don’t keep making the same mistakes. Learn from people who are there to help and have been where you are. Hiring a business coach or paying for mentorship can help you get to where you need to be more quickly and without making as many mistakes. 

Luckily, there are tons of online resources aimed at helping maid service owners succeed. Even if you’re a seasoned business owner, every stage of your business also requires a new set of skills and comes with new challenges. It’s important to invest in your business every step of the way. One way to invest is to join a community of like-minded people and business owners, like the ZenMaid Mastermind Group. 

To learn more about the different ways you can invest in your cleaning business, and yourself, and check out the full replays of all of the presentations from the 2020 Maid Summit. The summit was specifically designed to help cleaning business owners take the next step in their business, and features talks from over 50 industry professionals who want to help you succeed. 

About the presenter

Angela is a cleaning industry expert with over 25 years of experience as a professional house cleaner. Now she wants to help other maid service owners learn from her expertise and mistakes by teaching them to work smarter, not harder. Check out her massive library of YouTube videos full of even more valuable tips for maid service owners. 

This talk first aired at the 2019 Maid Service Success Summit.

The Maid Summit is an annual online event that brings together the most successful leaders in the cleaning industry, like Debbie Sardone, Angela Brown, Courtney Wisely, Amy Caris, Chris Schwab and more. Get free access to masterclasses and workshops that will help you to grow, scale and automate your cleaning business so you can get more leads and create more profit. Make sure youโ€™re on our email list to find out how to get free tickets to the next event.

If you liked this article, here are some more you might enjoy:

ZenMaid

Amar is the founder and CEO of ZenMaid Software, Inc. He started and ran Fast Friendly Spotless, a maid service in Orange County, CA. With the help of customized software to automate work he successfully operated the service in under 30 minutes per day. He created ZenMaid scheduling software to help other maid service owners do the same.

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