House Cleaning Cost Calculator
| Service | Band | Mid |
|---|---|---|
| Standard clean | $90-200 | $145 |
| Deep clean | $200-400 | $300 |
| Move-out clean | $230-450 | $340 |
House cleaning prices in three honest bands: a standard maintenance visit runs $90-200 for a typical home; a deep clean - baseboards, inside the microwave, the shower you have been avoiding - runs $200-400; a move-out clean runs $230-450 because empty rooms get detailed, not tidied. The band that matters most is the fourth one: recurring plans discount the per-visit price 10-20 percent, and that is the whole business model - a full weekly schedule is worth more to a cleaner than any single visit ever is.
The wage math keeps quotes honest. The national median for building cleaners is $17.27 an hour (BLS, May 2024), so a $145 standard visit buys roughly 3 cleaner-hours of labor; everything past that is supplies, laundry, driving between jobs, insurance and the scheduling cut a company takes. A solo cleaner at $30-40 an hour is not expensive - a $90 corporate minimum for a 90-minute job is.
One legal line matters if you hire directly: pay a household employee $3,000 or more in cash wages in a year (the 2026 line) and Social Security and Medicare taxes enter the picture. Below it, cash and a checklist are the whole contract; above it, you are a household employer - which is cheaper than it sounds and still cheaper than the agency, and the IRS publishes the entire walkthrough in Publication 926.
How to use
- Pick the job honestly: standard for upkeep on a maintained home, deep for first visits and post-renovation dust, move-out for landlord-facing detail. Under-quoting the dirt is how recurring plans die at visit three.
- Price the frequency you actually want - the 10-20 percent recurring discount is real, but only weekly-to-monthly plans get it, and a missed-week cancellation policy can quietly eat the savings.
- Compare two quotes on the same checklist: rooms included, bathrooms counted, inside-fridge and inside-oven line items, and whether supplies are theirs. Identical checklists make bands comparable; different ones are different products.
- Decide the hiring lane: an agency is insured, bonded and swappable but pricier; a solo cleaner is the same person every week at the wage math above; your own Saturday is free and worth exactly what it costs.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a house cleaner cost per hour?
Per-visit bands translate to roughly $25-45 an hour of service once travel and supplies are priced in: a $145 standard visit is about 3 to 4 cleaner-hours in a typical home. The wage underneath is lower - the national median for building cleaners is $17.27 - so the spread is supplies, insurance, scheduling and the cleaner's own drive time. Solo cleaners quoting $30-40 an hour direct are priced like the agencies minus the overhead.
How much should I tip a house cleaner?
10-15 percent per visit is the customary range, or skip per-visit tipping on a recurring plan and give the equivalent as a holiday bonus - one full visit is the common move. If you hire through a company, tipping the actual crew in cash beats adding it to the invoice; agencies do not always pass card tips through to the people who did the work.
What is the difference between a standard and a deep clean?
A standard clean maintains: floors, bathrooms, kitchen surfaces, dusting at eye level - two to three hours of work. A deep clean resets: baseboards, door frames, inside appliances, shower grout, under furniture, the tops of things - 4 to 6 hours and often two cleaners. Most plans start deep and revert to standard; skipping the reset is why visit three always disappoints.
Is a weekly or biweekly cleaning plan worth it?
Biweekly is the sweet spot for most homes: 15 percent off 26 visits a year beats 20 percent off 52 unless you genuinely want weekly upkeep, and the per-visit discount only pays if the house stays most of the way clean between visits - deep-clean creep-in erases the discount fast. Weekly earns its keep with pets, kids or a home business; monthly suits the tidy-by-nature.
Do I pay taxes if I hire a cleaning lady directly?
At $3,000 or more in cash wages for the year (the 2026 threshold), you become a household employer: Social Security and Medicare taxes apply, and federal and state unemployment taxes may follow. Below the line, none of it applies. IRS Publication 926 walks the whole thing - it is shorter than it sounds, and the total usually still beats the agency rate.