How Much Should a Cleaning Business Charge Per Hour?
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Short answer: work backwards from your target take-home, not from what the cleaner down the road charges. The formula is (what you want to earn + self-employment tax + yearly overhead) ÷ billable hours per year. For a solo cleaner wanting $50,000 in the bank, that lands near $55 an hour — well above what most people guess, because the calculation counts the hours you work but cannot bill. Run your own numbers in the free break-even calculator.
The calculation, worked all the way through
Take a solo cleaner who wants $50,000 of actual personal income.
Step 1 — add self-employment tax. On $50,000 of net earnings, self-employment tax works out to roughly $50,000 × 0.9235 × 15.3% ≈ $7,065. That is before any income tax. Rates and thresholds change and depend on your situation, so treat this as the shape of the calculation rather than your actual bill.
Step 2 — add real overhead. A realistic solo year:
| Cost | Per year |
|---|---|
| Liability insurance | $600 |
| Supplies and consumables | $2,400 |
| Vehicle — fuel and maintenance | $4,200 |
| Phone, software, marketing | $600 |
| Total overhead | $7,800 |
Step 3 — total the revenue you need. $50,000 + $7,065 + $7,800 = $64,865.
Step 4 — divide by BILLABLE hours, not working hours. This is the step almost everyone gets wrong. At 25 billable hours a week across 48 working weeks you have 1,200 billable hours. $64,865 ÷ 1,200 = $54.05 an hour, so you quote $55.
Why 25 billable hours, not 40
You are paid for time inside a customer's home. You are not paid for driving between jobs, quoting new work, buying supplies, chasing invoices, answering messages, or doing your books. On a full 40-hour week, 25 billable hours is 62% utilisation — and that is a normal, achievable figure for a solo operator with jobs spread across a town, not a pessimistic one.
Utilisation moves your rate more than almost anything else you can control:
| Billable hours/week | Hours/year | Rate needed |
|---|---|---|
| 20 (50% utilisation) | 960 | $67.57 |
| 25 (62%) | 1,200 | $54.05 |
| 30 (75%) | 1,440 | $45.04 |
| 35 (88%) | 1,680 | $38.61 |
Read that table twice. Tightening your route so jobs cluster geographically can cut the rate you need by ten dollars an hour without touching your income — which is often easier to sell to customers than a price rise.
The mistakes that keep cleaners underpaid
- Pricing from competitors. Their rate reflects their costs, their utilisation and their tolerance for a bad year. It tells you what the market bears; it cannot tell you what you need.
- Dividing by 2,080 hours. Using full-time hours as if every one were billable understates the rate by roughly 40%. It is the single most common error in this calculation.
- Forgetting self-employment tax. Employees see tax withheld automatically. Self-employed cleaners quote a number, spend it, and meet the bill later.
- Quoting hourly on jobs you have already learned. Once you can clean a house in two hours that used to take three, hourly billing punishes you for getting good. That is the moment to move that customer to a flat per-visit price built on your hourly rate.
- Never raising it. An extra $5 an hour on 1,200 hours is $6,000 a year — usually more than any efficiency you could grind out instead.
What changes when you hire
Employing a cleaner at $18 an hour costs roughly $20.70 once payroll taxes and burden are added. Billing that hour at $55 leaves $34.30 of gross margin, about 62% — which then has to cover the overhead above plus your time supervising. That margin is the number that decides whether a second cleaner makes you money or simply makes you busier, and it is why undercharging solo becomes impossible to grow out of. See contractor profit margin for the same maths in a trades context.
Quick FAQ
Should I charge per hour or per house?
Per hour is honest while a property is unfamiliar and its condition is unknown. Once you have cleaned it twice and know it takes 2.5 hours, quote a flat per-visit price at your hourly rate — the customer gets certainty, and you keep the benefit of getting faster. Our per-house pricing guide covers that side.
Is $55 an hour too expensive for house cleaning?
It sounds high next to an employee wage, and that comparison is the trap: an employee's $22 an hour comes with an employer paying tax, insurance, equipment and paid holiday. $55 as a self-employed cleaner nets closer to $30 once tax and overhead come out. Ranges vary widely by region, so use the calculation rather than the figure.
How often should I raise my rates?
Review annually, and re-run the calculation whenever insurance, fuel or supply costs move. A modest yearly increase applied to new customers first is far easier than a large correction after three static years.
What if my area cannot support the rate I calculate?
That is real information, not a reason to work below cost. It means one of three things has to change: your target income, your utilisation, or your customer type — commercial and move-out cleans usually support higher rates than routine domestic work.
Related: break-even calculator · job estimate calculator · pricing per house · how to price a job