How Much Does House Cleaning Cost?

Almost universally, the very first question we get asked at Town & Country is “how much does a cleaning service cost?” or “how much will it cost to clean my house?” The cost of a professional cleaning service depends on a number of factors. At the end of the day, the price is based on how much time it will take to clean the home and what the cleaning service charges as their hourly rate.

Depending on where you live the hourly bill rate for professional house cleaning services can range from $35 to over $70 per labor hour. The time it takes to clean your home can vary greatly too, as we will discuss in this article.

How Long Should it Take to Clean My Home?

The way a cleaning service estimates the time needed requires us to get answers to several questions. How you answer these questions will give a professional cleaning company a good basis to determine the time it will take to clean your house.

How Big is Your House? What Is Your House Made of?

The size of the house is the most obvious factor in pricing. The larger your house is, the more time it will take to clean. This is pretty basic. Yet, it should also be noted that a smaller house might cost more per square foot, as the space is more “lived in”.

How many bathrooms do you have?

Bathrooms take longer to clean than bedrooms, as there are more details and surface varieties. Between two homes with the same square footage, the one with more bathrooms will take longer to clean.

What kind of flooring do you have in your home?

Carpeted floors only need to be vacuumed. Hard flooring materials must be vacuumed and then mopped. Adding the extra step takes more time. Rugs on the hard floor require special attention to get under edges.

What kinds of surfaces are in your home?

The types of fixtures or surfaces a home has also affect time in the home and thus price. Some surfaces, like tile, take longer to clean because you must concentrate on the tile and grout separately, especially if there is a lot of discoloration or mold.

How Much Stuff is in your Home?

The “density” of your home is an important consideration. The more stuff in the house, the higher the density. The higher the density, the more time it takes to clean. A home with lots of furniture or collectables will take much more time than a stark, minimalist home of the same size. More care and time will be required if you have lots of valuable, fragile items.

How Many People and Pets Live in Your Home?

The number of people who live in the home and their ages affects price, as does the number of pets. A couple who tidies up a bit after themselves is a lot easier to clean for than a young, busy family. Houses with children tend to be the most challenging.

How many pets do you have? We love our furry friends, but they do leave a bit more behind that needs to be cleaned up.

What kind of cleaning work do you need? How often do you need it?

What is the scope of work? The type of work being done in the home has a lot to do with pricing. A Move In/Move Out cleaning is different than a Deep Cleaning in an occupied home. A First Time Cleaning will be different than Reoccurring Cleanings. The focus of each is different.

Move In or Move Out Cleaning

Assuming the house is empty, a Move In or Move Out cleaning primarily focuses on cleaning woodwork, shelves, inside cabinets and drawers, and appliances. We might charge extra if the house is particularly dirty.

Deep Cleaning

A Deep Cleaning is for homes that, due to any number of understandable reasons, have been neglected for awhile. They need a bit of extra work to get back into the kind of shape where people feel good living in them.

Recurring or Regular Cleanings

Recurring Cleanings are regularly scheduled cleanings on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly (every 4 weeks) basis. Depending on your needs, we may clean every room every time. Or, we can work with you to plan a rotation, where cleanings are planned so that over a stretch of time, every room gets a thorough cleaning.

Rotations are beneficial in larger homes, or in homes where some rooms don’t see as much use, like a guest room, or the room of a child who is away in college. Having a rotation may allow you to bring your cost per clean down a bit.

First Time Cleans

To begin service for Recurring Cleaning Clients, we often need to perform a First Time Clean.  A First Time Clean gives us a chance to get the home into the condition that we are hoping to keep it in. We need a little extra time to get them back into shape.

How Often?

For Regular, Recurring Cleaning, your cost per clean goes down as your frequency increases. If we are cleaning in your home every week, it has less time to get dirty before we come back. If we are only there once a month (every 4 weeks), your cost per clean will be a bit higher, as we need to put in more work to get it clean again. However, if you are not home much, you might not need someone every single week. If you are home a lot, have a busy family, or children in the home, more frequent cleanings might be a wise investment.

Cleaning the interiors of ovens, refrigerators, and freezers is an extra charge of $35 per appliance.

How Dirty is Your Home?

On a scale of one to ten, with one being immaculate and ten being Franklin Street after UNC wins the Final Four, how dirty is your house?  This seems obvious, but the dirtier your home, the longer it will take to clean it.

Are You Flexible?

Where are you located? How easily can we get into your home? Do you really need us there at 9 o clock sharp on Wednesday, or are you not married to a specific time?

Where do you live?

A home that takes a while to travel to might be charged a higher rate unless the owner is flexible and willing to go on a day when we already have teams working in their area. A professional house cleaning company needs to factor in how long it takes to drive to your home.

A cleaning team may spend a third of their day or more in a car. A team might not be doing anything productive in the car, but they still need to be paid for this time.

How are the cleaners getting in?

If the cleaners don’t have a key to the home, a house cleaning service may charge more because they will need to wait for the homeowner to open the house.

Do you need to reschedule or cancel frequently?

A homeowner who cancels or reschedules a lot may find their next service costs a little more because we have missed so many cleanings it will take us longer to clean than if they had stayed on their regular schedule.

How Much Does A Cleaning Company Charge For Their Time?

An individual cleaner will definitely cost less than a professional cleaning service. An individual cleaner might charge as little as $9 per hour. Typically, an individual can be more flexible with scheduling. Most likely they do not require any kind of contract. Many individual cleaners are able to provide references to vouch for their character and quality of their work. There are numerous websites for finding individual cleaners in your area. An individual cleaner may not carry insurance, or be licensed.

A professional cleaning company, like Town & Country Cleaning Services, will charge more. At Town & Country, we charge $40 per labor hour.

Insurance

A professional cleaning service will be licensed, bonded, and insured. This protects your home, in case something is broken or damaged. This also protects you from liability if there is an accident in your home with a cleaner.

Town & Country and most professional cleaning companies pay for Worker’s Compensation Insurance, to cover our employees if an accident occurs on the job. With an individual cleaner, the home owner could be held liable for an accident in their home.

Professional cleaning companies will also pay to have background checks for their employees. You do not have to rely on word of mouth to know that the cleaners entering your home are safe.

Training

Another consideration is training. Professional cleaners are trained to deal with different surfaces safely. They understand safe handling of cleaning chemicals, to protect your health and theirs. Professional companies often have other, equally qualified cleaners that can be called on if someone is out sick, or on vacation. Those employees are capable of delivering consistent quality in the absence of the usual team.

Town & Country Cleaning is an IICRC Certified Firm, with numerous employees carrying certifications as well. Bruce & Sarah Vance, the owners of Town & Country, are IICRC Instructors, who travel nationally to teach the House Cleaning Technician course.

Staffing

Professional Cleaning Companies also need to pay their employees decent, living wages. The cleaners are professionals, and deserve to be paid as such. A professional cleaning company may also have office staff handling duties such as dispatching teams, scheduling cleans, handling customer service, payroll; etc.

There are other, important, overhead costs that a professional cleaning company has that an individual cleaner does not have. These expenses all are aimed at helping the clients. And, of course, a company needs to be profitable to survive. A company that can’t be profitable will not be around to help their clients for very long. Town & Country has been servicing clients in central North Carolina since 1991.