The three secrets to growing your six-figure cleaning service

Last Updated on August 21, 2023 by The ZenMaid Team

A sneak peak of the three secrets to grow your business

  • Digitally organize your business
  • Build a team that delivers knock-your-socks-off service
  • Build with the end in mind

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, we’re breaking down industry standards and how to calculate the best price to charge for your maid service. 

Now, let’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, we’re giving you step-by-step instructions on how to determine this rate. But first, let’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 service​. In ZenMaid, you can easily add these extra charges to your cleaning job. 

The pricing strategy formula

Now that we’ve covered some average industry rates, let’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 ‘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. 

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 – 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, “quoted prices assume average-sized rooms in average condition. Extra hours needed to clean will be priced with an additional $50 per hour.” 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.

Myths you might believe in your cleaning service

There are four common myths we see many cleaning business owners get stuck on. Are you one of them? Check to see if you’ve fallen into any of these myths:

#1: Your cleaning business needs to slow down to take a vacation

If you ever take a vacation (which sometimes feels like a far-off dream), your business slows down or takes a hit. At the very least, you have to work overtime the weeks leading up to vacation to make it happen. 

Truth: You didn’t start a business so it could run you. The benefit of owning a business is to experience both time and money freedom. It’s possible to build a business that runs itself, even when you’re gone. 

#2: Hiring quality staff is impossible these days

It seems impossible to hire quality workers. No one wants to work, let alone show up and do a good job.

Truth: When employees are both trained and treated well, they want to do a great job.

#3: You can wait to digitally organize when your business gets big enough

Your business is small, so you don’t need to worry about going digital yet… right?

Truth: You need to start digitally organizing before your business grows, not the other way around.

#4: Your team can be efficient without digitalization organization

Even though you’re not digitally organized, you still manage to get everything done.

Truth: Sure, everything might get done. But it’s often at the expense of your limited time. Your team will be more efficient when you’re digitally organized. It empowers them to do their jobs without needing your help all day long. 

Do any of these myths feel a bit too familiar to you? If they do, don’t panic! The three secrets to growing your six-figure cleaning business will help. Let’s dive right into the first one. 

Digitally organize your cleaning business

We’ve said it already; we’ll say it again: you need to get your business digitally organized! Growing your business to six figures without getting digitally organized is harder than it should be, and frankly, isn’t a business you’ll be happy to run. 

Onboarding

Whether it’s client onboarding or new employees orientation, be sure to digitize the process. 

The way to digitize your client onboarding experience is to focus on the sales call, your follow-up, client resources, contracts, invoicing, customer surveys, and reviews. 

For your sales calls with potential clients, type out a script that your team can use as a go-to resource. Share your script digitally with every member of your team who takes sales calls.

Similar to your client onboarding, there are steps you can automate when hiring new employees. These include the application, scheduling the interview, conducting the interview, orientation checklists, and training.

We’ve got a great resource to learn how to automate every step of your employee onboarding process — read about it right here!

Evaluation

Evaluations in every area of your businesses help you continue to grow and improve services. Digitally record every customer survey and review you receive. Save all of this information in one location for easy reference.

Also, you’ll want to digitally organize your employee evaluations to know when to reward and when there are areas for improvement.

Workflows

If one of your team members left unexpectedly, are you prepared to have someone fill in right away? Record the workflows that every position in your business uses. This will give you the ability to delegate tasks to new team members as needed.

Sales and marketing 

A clear and repeatable marketing plan is the key to keeping leads coming through the door. If you’ve been throwing ideas at the wind, hoping they land, it’s time to digitize your sales and marketing. 

Start collecting data from your marketing campaigns so you can start measuring the results. Take note of what works and what hasn’t worked — there’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time you set out to get new clients. 

If you need help finding ideas for your marketing plan, check out our 22 content ideas for your maid service. 

How to choose the right digital platform for your cleaning business

There are plenty of online platforms designed to help you digitally streamline your business. At ZenMaid, we offer an automation solution for cleaning businesses just like yours. Replace your daily tools like Google Calendar, Excel, pen & paper and save TONS of time managing your daily tasks. Try ZenMaid for free today!

For more resources on digital tools for your cleaning business, read this article in the ZenMaid Magazine. You’ll find the complete list under the section called Technologies to embrace for your cleaning business.

Action item: This week, set up a digital folder in a free Google Drive for administration and marketing. In each folder, add a document that summarizes a workflow for the associated category. (Example: “How to create and execute each month’s marketing plan,” or “Checklist for new client onboarding.”) 

Build a team that delivers knock-your-socks-off service

We all want employees that deliver knock-your-socks-off service, right? But how do we build a team who does that 100% of the time?

Great service starts with a service promise. Forbes describes a service promise as “a complement to your company’s mission or vision statement.” If you don’t already have a service promise, consider your company’s mission and vision and find an inspiring focus point where they overlap.

Our service promise at ZenMaid is to transform your cleaning business. Transformation in 7 Days or your first month is free. Guaranteed. Every employee, client, and new customer knows our service promise; it helps keep us all moving forward with the same goal. 

With your service promise as a guiding point, build a team that can deliver knock-your-socks-off service. Establish a standard of how your team responds to clients, gives feedback, and handles challenges. 

It’s not enough to post your service promise on the wall or mention once during training. Make sure you communicate your service promise to your team clearly and often. 

Nine times out of ten, your team wants to help you reach your goals. They want to do a good job and be part of a successful business. Use your service promise as a motivating encouragement to strive for the best at all times.  

Action Item: This month, implement these five steps:

  1. Communicate your service promise to your team
  2. Outline the expectations of the service promise
  3. Have a clearly laid out process on how to meet the service expectation
  4. Assess your teams work
  5. Provide encouraging feedback

Build with the exit in mind

This one is a shocker for most people! But we’re here to tell you that you should be building your business with the exit in mind. Here’s why: Someday you’ll need to sell your business. 

Whether you want to retire, franchise, or sell your business, keeping the exit in mind is essential. Building with the exit in mind means creating a business that will be easy to sell, profitable, and successful without you there. Here are some ideas to help get you into the ‘exit in mind’ mindset: 

  • Write an operations manual
  • Record how many clients calls you get per day. (If you’re really busy, record how many you get per hour.)
  • Record many leads you get per hour when you’re offline
  • Have all your workflows laid out for each position
  • Work to build a business with trusted staff and operations that can run without you there
  • Strive to leave a legacy with your business

Yes, profitability and cash flow margins are important; but at the end of the day, building a repeatable business is the most important thing you can do. Your future potential buyer (or franchisee) needs to see that they can operate your business successfully without starting from scratch. 

This, of course, will take time. It’s not going to be an easy five-minute or even two-week task. But don’t be discouraged! Many business owners have done it and you can too. 

Action item: To start building with the end in mind, identify the gaps in your operations with these four considerations.

  1. Identify what’s working well
  2. Consider what can be improved
  3. Evaluate if your daily efforts bring in leads and close sales
  4. Ask: Are my clients happy? Is my team happy?

Recap

To recap, the three secrets to growing a six-figure cleaning service are to get yourself digitally organized, build a team based on your service promise, and build with the exit in mind. These big concepts feel overwhelming at first, but we hope our action items included with each step will help get you started!

As a bonus, Sheri-Anne Wooley created a Six Figure Asset Freebie for you to download today!

About the presenter 

Sheri-Anne Woolley is the operations and workflow strategist of Sheri-Anne Inc, a Six-Figure Business Consultancy for service-based solopreneurs. Her mission is to help business owners meet their revenue targets, delegate with ease,  and grow their business beyond six figures.  Sheri-Anne Woolley provides businesses with the tools & resources to get organized, set & scale processes, and properly take control of their business. 

This talk first aired at the 2021 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 you’re on our email list to find out how to get free tickets to the next event.

If you found this article helpful for your maid service, you may also like:

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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