Residential and commercial cleaning services: how to do both

Residential and commercial cleaning services: how to do both

Last Updated on August 21, 2023 by The ZenMaid Team

When Ricky Regalado first started his cleaning business, he cleaned both residential and commercial properties. He and his wife quickly realized that they needed to streamline their systems to run the business efficiently. As a result, they developed two different cleaning approaches for each style of cleaning: residential and commercial cleaning services.

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.

Whether you want to offer only one service or are looking to expand into both sectors, weโ€™ll share the best tools and tips weโ€™ve learned along the way. To start off, hereโ€™s a list of common service offerings for residential and commercial cleaning businesses:

(Pro Tip: Save this list to refer back to when youโ€™re deciding what services to focus on!)

Residential: House Focused Cleaning Services

  • Carpet & hard floor cleaning
  • Blinds cleaning
  • Window washing
  • Upholstery cleaning
  • Kitchen & equipment steam cleaning
  • Pressure washing
  • Laundry service
  • Post-construction cleaning
  • Handyman services

Commercial Property Focused Cleaning Services

  • Carpet cleaning
  • Tile & grout cleaning
  • Upholstery cleaning
  • VCT strip and wax
  • LVT scrub
  • Hardwood sanding and refinish
  • Epoxy floor cleaning
  • Warehouse floor scrub
  • Virucide disinfectant
  • Pest construction cleaning
  • Window washing
  • Supply ordering
  • Day porter services
  • Pressure washing
  • Maintenance services

Commercial Property Frequency 

Since commercial properties are larger, varied, and host more foot traffic than residential homes, cleaning opportunities are more frequent. You can offer services from a range of once a week, seven times a week, on-demand, or on a project-based contract.

Residential Cleaning Frequency

Depending on which objectives the residential owner hires you for, you have the opportunity to clean homes weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Another option is to offer an on-call service where a homeowner can hire you for special occasions. 

Scaling your cleaning services

Based on cleaning opportunities and frequency of work, commercial cleaning can be the fastest way to grow your business. However, if youโ€™re turning a profit and building great relationships with residential clients, stick with it! There are other ways to start scaling a residential cleaning business. 

Cleaning with subcontractors

Working with subcontractors is a great way to offer full services to clients when youโ€™re working with limited equipment. For instance, if you have a machine to clean carpet, tile, and grout but no equipment to offer maintenance services, contract out a local handyperson under your business. 

Building these partnerships is worth it to become a clientโ€™s go-to company for all things cleaning, washing, and maintenance. Ultimately, subcontracting can help you scale your services.

Specialized cleaning services

Special services โ€“ both residential and commercial โ€“ are a great way to start scaling. In fact, many large cleaning companies adopt this model of service. 

One way to specialize is to focus on a service you can offer to any cleaning sector. For example, if you have a machine to clean carpet, tile, and grout, offer this niche service to both residential and commercial. 

Specializing in a service empowers your business to get extremely proficient in a specific skill. You can build a reputation in your community to be the go-to service provider. Additionally, it lowers the learning curve for new employees and reduces the need to buy extensive equipment.

Technologies to embrace for your cleaning business

Technology is hands-down the best solution to streamline your business. Scheduling, booking, billing, payments, communication, marketing โ€“ you name it! Although some technology requires learning a new system, which many busy business owners dread, a technology that simplifies your life is always worth the time and effort. 

Technology for booking and scheduling

ZenMaid has highly-ranked instant booking features to set up client bookings for you. Not only does it book client appointments for you, but ZenMaid also sends reminders to your clients, sends ‘on the way’ texts to let your clients know that the cleaner is coming, and sends a follow-up message after the appointment. 

Finding an intuitive automation system for your booking process helps prevent double booking, increases client retention, and serves as a great API tool to track your businessโ€™ growth. 

To try it out, start with ZenMaid for free!

Technology for Financial Management

Thereโ€™s a quick turnaround for cleaning services, particularly among residential cleaning jobs. The quicker you can bill a client in a clean, professional manner, ask for an easy review, and then submit payments, the easier your working relationship will be. 

The solution? Automate!  Automate your financial management with technology. ZenMaid includes features for streamlining invoices, payments, and follow-up. While there are many options for financial management systems, ZenMaid offers the benefit of being designed for cleaning businesses. 

Other technologies that are not specialized but still effective for financial management are QuickBooks Online, Wave, and Housecall Pro.

Technology to communicate with your team

First, weโ€™ll start with technology for team communication. Itโ€™s important to have efficient communication with your staff, whether in the office or out in the field. 

Our first instinct as small business owners is to rely on basic communication channels โ€” for instance, phone calls, texting, and email. However, as your business grows with more employees, having multiple communication channels becomes ineffective and confusing. Itโ€™s also easy for important pieces of information to get lost in the shuffle.

If youโ€™re not ready to try out a full system, some free group messaging apps are Slack, Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger. However, you should consider using ZenMaid as an all-in-one communication tool for every member of your team. ZenMaid is created specifically for cleaning businesses, which means itโ€™s easy to use with features that other mainstream systems donโ€™t have. 

Technology to communicate with your customer

Weโ€™ll discuss approaches to marketing your business a little farther down, but for now, here are some great tools to consider to communicate with your customer.

  1. ZenMaid: SMS texting, automated emails, reminders, and follow-ups, invoicing, and payroll
  2. Swept: Client messaging and problem reporting
  3. Hootsuite: Social media scheduling
  4. WordPress: Website and blog hosting

Try ZenMaid for free! In under seven days, you can automate your entire business! 

What are the differences between residential and commercial cleaning services?

Weโ€™ve already covered how the services you provide are different from residential to commercial cleaning services, but itโ€™s important to discuss some additional ways the two differ. Here, weโ€™ll cover how these two services compare with your equipment, billings and payments, service charges, the scope of work, and logistics. 

Staffing

In residential cleaning, your staff needs to be detailed oriented, friendly, and personable. This is because residential cleaners interact often with clients in their homes. 

In commercial cleaning, you usually service the account after work hours when there’s nobody around. These employees still need to be trustworthy and have great attention to detail, but they can be more focused on their cleaning and less on their interpersonal skills.

Equipment

Typically, your starter kits for residential and commercial will be similar; however, commercial cleaning often requires heavier duty equipment. For instance, in a residential home, you can use a regular vacuum, while in a commercial space, itโ€™s more efficient to have an industrial-sized one.

Of course, if youโ€™re specializing in a service, youโ€™ll only need equipment to perform your specialized task.

Billing & Payments

Billings tend to be the same between residential and commercial services. For residential cleaning, you donโ€™t usually charge for services until completion. In commercial services, however, invoicing before performing the service is common. 

Service Charges

Pricing between residential and commercial cleaning is very different. With residential pricing, you likely price per home layout, such as one bedroom, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, basement, and so on. For larger homes, square footage is a factor as well. An hourly charge is a common strategy for pricing residential homes.

With commercial cleaning, you usually price per square footage, floor type density, the type of facility, your production rate, and client expectations. Charging a weekly or monthly fee is the most common way to price commercial cleaning services. 

Logistics & Scheduling

In commercial cleaning, you can schedule a team of cleaners to work in one location for several shifts at a time. On the other hand, residential cleaning has more moving pieces, You might have one to two cleaning technicians traveling to several locations in one day. 

Two different approaches to marketing your cleaning business

How to market your services will depend entirely on if youโ€™re offering residential or commercial cleaning services (or both!)

Residential Marketing

Residential cleaning is a very personal service. Homeowners need to be able to trust you to go into their home and handle their personal belongings. A great approach to gain their trust is to focus on promoting your business as a personal brand. Ultimately, your goal is to connect with potential clients on a human-to-human level.

Even if youโ€™re not always the technician cleaning inside the homes, advertise using your name and face whenever possible. Great ways to market your personal brand are using Instagram, Facebook, personalized email campaigns, and door-to-door advertising in target neighborhoods. 

Commercial Marketing

When it comes to commercial cleaning, your objective is B2B marketing (business to business.)  Your focus should be to present your business in the most credible and professional light possible. 

Market your commercial cleaning business through automated email campaigns, video advertising, and attending networking and procurement events. Having a professional online presence and website is also very important to appeal to large companies. 

For more tips to market your cleaning business, check out this blog post: 21 Way To Market Your Cleaning Business. 

To wrap up

We hope this article has been helpful to learn about the two different types of cleaning businesses! To wrap up, these are the key points we covered today:

  • Residential vs. commercial cleaning services
  • How frequently you can offer cleaning services
  • How to scale your cleaning services
  • Technologies to embrace for your business
  • The main difference between residential and commercial cleaning
  • Two approaches to marketing your services

About the presenter

Ricky Regalado built a $10M Commercial cleaning company and turned it into a business management marketplace called Route + Rozalado. Itโ€™s been named Inc 5000 Fastest company three years in a row. Ricky oversees 700 employees, spanning 25 states in over 20 facilities.ย 

To hear Ricky Regaladoโ€™s full talk from the Maid Summit, click here.ย 

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 youโ€™re on our email list to find out how to get free tickets to the next event.

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