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Every cleaning business owner has an incentive to set competitive rates for recurring house cleaning services. You want to reward loyal clients and attract new ones with competitive prices, without risking your bottom line.
The challenge here is not letting prices get so far that you barely break even at the end of the month.
We’ll cover the importance of knowing your costs, understanding your market, and pricing in a way that rewards recurring clients without leaving money on the table.
Table of contents
Start With Your Costs, Not Your Competitors
The best way to grow your business is to focus on your business, not your competitors’. Knowing your business inside and out will be your biggest advantage over other cleaning business owners.
Before you look at what anyone else charges, you need to know your floor — the minimum you can charge and still make a profit. Add up your labor cost per job, including:
- Cleaner wages
- Payroll taxes
- Supply costs
- Overhead costs (software, insurance, fuel, marketing)
- Your target profit margin
In our full guide on how to charge for cleaning services, we break down how to find the numbers you need to calculate the minimum job price in more detail. You may need materials like profit and loss statements to get the full picture.
Most healthy cleaning businesses aim for this price breakdown:
- 20% profit
- 55% labor
- 25% operating costs
Let’s say you charge $50 for a recurring cleaning. $27.50 goes to your cleaner, $12.50 goes toward your operating expenses, and you keep $10 as profit.
Keep in mind that your profit margin should more than cover your personal expenses. If 20% per job doesn’t yield what you need, raise your price rather than cutting labor or operating costs.
Don’t price below your floor, or lower your price to match a competitor. Either way, you lose money on every job.
Discount Recurring Jobs From Your One-Time Rate
If you’re following along, you may have already figured out what comes next: your recurring job price should be your floor price. This is the foundation on which the rest of your pricing is built.
Recurring clients require the least overhead to maintain — beyond supplies and labor, they don’t demand much of your operating budget compared to what you’ll spend acquiring new clients. That’s what makes them your ideal client from a financial standpoint.
But because recurring clients will fill your calendar predictably, they need to be worth it for you and your business. Getting recurring prices right is crucial — your business needs to stay profitable even if your entire calendar is booked with recurring clients.
To ensure this, price every other service higher. Continuing with our earlier example, if a recurring weekly clean is $50, your other services should be priced as follows:
- One-time or first cleaning: $62.50 (add 20–25% premium)
- Monthly: $57.50 (add 10–15% premium)
- Bi-weekly: $52.50
The discount reflects both the reduced cleaning time and the value of their long-term commitment to you.
Know Your Production Rates Before Setting Flat Rates
If you’re moving to flat-rate pricing for recurring jobs, which most scaling businesses do, you need real data on how long your team actually takes per job, not estimates. This is called your production rate.
Calculating your production rate helps you understand how long it takes your average cleaner to complete a job. This becomes useful as you scale — you’ll know how to price most custom or complex jobs quickly.
Let’s say you book a job that takes two cleaners three hours to complete. With your production rate locked in, you can easily work that formula to figure out what to charge based on the team and time needed. Or you can use ZenMaid’s pricing calculator.
Flat-rate pricing exposes you to more frequent job underpricing. Track time by home size and frequency for at least a few weeks before locking in flat rates.
Always reference your floor rate as you build flat-rate structures. Underpricing a recurring client costs much more than underpricing a one-time job; the mistake compounds with every visit.
Research Your Local Market the Right Way
Get quotes from local competitors and cleaning businesses larger than yours to get a full picture of your market. You can research quotes online or call two or three local competitors as a potential client to see exactly what clients see in your market.
Compare the quote you get to what’s listed on their website to see how their pricing strategy works. If their price is higher than yours, can you figure out why?
If this feels uncomfortable, remember: you’re not trying to undercut them, especially if that means cutting into your own revenue. You’re making sure you’re in a range clients will take seriously.
In most US markets, recurring biweekly cleaning runs between $120 and $200 for a standard three-bedroom home, but this varies significantly by region and service level. If your business is in a high-cost-of-living area, charge accordingly. Don’t rely on national averages from a quick Google search.
Schedule a Regular Rate Review
The regular rate review (your triple-R) is what keeps you profitable and makes growth possible. Put a rate review on your calendar now, monthly or quarterly, and include key team members who can help you evaluate the numbers.
You may have set recurring rates expecting them to last a while, but reviewing them annually helps you stay ahead of inflation and overhead increases. The more houses you clean, the more staff you need, and the more supplies you need. Costs compound; so should your prices.
Let new clients know in welcome emails that you adjust rates yearly. Long-term clients trust your team and love their results — they rarely leave over a reasonable increase.
Clients who only chose you because you were the cheapest option tend to churn anyway, the moment a cheaper option appears. That’s business worth letting go. It makes room for higher-value clients.
Know Your Worth: Don’t Compete with Low-Cost Cleaners
If someone is quoting $80 for a three-bedroom home, let them have it. You know what you’re worth because you know your production rates, your expenses, and your profit margins. You know that price isn’t sustainable.
Beyond that, the clients’ low-cost cleaners are often the hardest to retain. Don’t raise your acquisition costs by competing for them. Compete on reliability, communication, and consistency instead — that’s what attracts recurring clients who will pay $150–$180 without hesitation.
Price With Confidence
Get started with ZenMaid’s Free Pricing Calculator and gain confidence in your pricing strategy. Strong pricing gives you flexibility, and you need that to grow your business.
