How to price cleaning jobs?
Short answerPrice cleaning jobs with a cost-plus method: work out your cost per labor hour including payroll costs and supplies, estimate the hours for the specific job, add travel, then add margin. Set a minimum charge for small jobs and publish a short add-on list so extras are never a surprise.
The explanation
Find your real cost per labor hour first. It includes wages, payroll taxes, insurance, supplies, equipment and your own admin time spread over the hours you actually sell. If you sell only part of the hours you pay, the cost per sold hour is higher than the wage.
Then estimate hours for the job from your own records. A good test is to time three recent jobs of the same size and take the average, not the best one.
Set a minimum so a short job still covers the trip. List add-ons with a price each, such as windows or inside appliances. After a month, compare quoted to actual hours. If you consistently run over, raise the price or shorten the scope. Do not guess your way back.
In residential cleaning (maid service)
Cleaning customers compare prices by phone, so a clear starting description of what is included helps you avoid being compared on a number alone. All residential cleaning (maid service) scheduling questions.
How Apex does it
In progress
Part of this is built. The rest is not. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex's service menu and estimate templates by service are being built, and learning job duration from history is in progress. A request stays pending until the owner confirms the price.
- BK08Service menu with durations and prices(Built)
- ES15Estimate templates by service(Rolling out)
- SC43Job duration learned from history(In progress)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: owners type it, or a close variant, into search boxes. It was returned by public search suggestions (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo) when we collected them on 2026-10-06. We do not have search volumes.