House cleaning pricing guide
- Flat rate to quote for this clean
- $300
- What you keep from the visit after costs and fees
- $105
- Price per square foot of the home
- $0.17
- What this customer is worth over a year on this schedule
- $7,800
The constants in these sheets are the IRS employer payroll-tax rates: Topic 751 sets Social Security at 6.2% and Medicare at 1.45% on the employer side, and Topic 759 sets FUTA at 6.0% on the first $7,000 paid to each employee in the year, 0.6% once the maximum state credit applies. Where a sheet costs a trip, the figure is the IRS standard mileage rate. Every other number in the sheets is one you type in, because your wage, your supplies and your drive time are not ours to guess.
The figures above are one house worked as an example ($300). Put your own hours, wage and supplies in and the price moves as you type.
Download the House cleaning pricing guide worked example (CSV)
This sheet turns the cost of a clean into the flat rate you quote. Give it what the clean costs you, the gross margin you want to keep and what your card processor takes, and it grosses the price up so the margin survives the fee rather than being eaten by it. It also prints the price per square foot, which is the number a customer comparing quotes will ask about, and what the house is worth over a year on the schedule you put it on.
What owners ask before they price a clean with the House cleaning pricing guide
Why divide by the margin instead of adding it on?
Because a 35% markup on cost is not a 35% margin on price. Adding 35% to a $186 cost gives $251, which is a 26% margin. Dividing by 0.65 gives $286, which actually leaves 35% of the price. The sheet divides, and it takes the card fee out of the same side so the margin you asked for is the margin you keep.
Where does the cost figure come from?
From the house cleaning cost calculator on this site: paid hours, the wage with employer payroll tax on it, supplies, the van and overhead. Putting a guessed cost in here gives a confidently wrong price.
Is price per square foot a good way to quote?
It is a good way to sanity-check a quote and a bad way to build one. Two 1,800 square foot houses can take an hour apart depending on clutter, pets and how long since the last visit; price the hours, then look at the per-square-foot figure to see whether you are in the range your market accepts.
Where the constants in this tool come from
IRS Topic 751: Social Security and Medicare withholding rates.