How to price a recurring house cleaning contract

Price a recurring cleaning contract per visit, but work the price out from hours: time how long the clean takes, multiply by what an hour of cleaning costs you (wages, payroll taxes, supplies, drive and overhead), and add your margin. Quote the first deep clean as a separate job, then write down the frequency, what’s included, what isn’t, and the notice either side gives to skip, pause or cancel. Review the price once a year.

What does one recurring clean cost you?

Add up what a single visit costs before you make a dollar:

1. Time on site: how long the clean takes, per cleaner. Time real visits; don’t guess from square footage alone.
2. Labor cost per hour: the wage, plus payroll taxes and workers’ comp if it’s an employee. If it’s you, use what you’d have to pay someone to do it.
3. Drive: the round trip in time, plus miles at your cost per mile. If you don’t know yours, the IRS standard mileage rate is a reasonable stand-in (76 cents a mile from July 1, 2026).
4. Supplies: what a visit uses in products, cloths and vacuum bags.
5. Overhead per hour: insurance, phone, software, advertising, the car. Add up a year of it and divide by the hours you actually clean.

That’s your floor. Below it, every visit loses money, and a recurring contract repeats the loss every week.

How do you turn that into a price?

Decide the margin you want as a share of the price, then divide: price = cost ÷ (1 − margin). Dividing, rather than adding a percentage, is what gets you the margin you meant.

Say a biweekly clean takes one cleaner 3 hours, plus 30 minutes of driving and 10 miles. At $22 an hour all-in for labor, that’s $77 of time. Add $7.60 of miles, $6 of supplies and $35 of overhead (3.5 hours at $10), and the visit costs about $126. For a 20 percent margin, $126 ÷ 0.8 is about $157. These are example numbers; yours will differ, which is the point of running them.

Should weekly, biweekly and monthly visits cost the same?

Usually not per visit. A house cleaned every week stays cleaner, so each visit is shorter; a monthly clean starts from further behind. Time a few visits at each frequency and price each from its own time. If the times come out the same, the prices can be too.

How do you price the first clean?

As its own job. The first visit usually takes longer: built-up dust, the oven nobody has opened, the baseboards. Quote it from a walkthrough or photos, get it signed, and start the recurring price from the second visit. If the first clean runs long, you’ve lost an afternoon, not a year of margin.

What goes in the cleaning agreement?

Write it down, even if it’s one page. Cover:

• Frequency and day: weekly, every two weeks or monthly, and the usual day.
• Scope: a room-by-room checklist of what’s included, and what isn’t (inside the fridge, windows, laundry).
• Price per visit and when it’s due: after each visit, or monthly.
• Skips and cancellations: how much notice the client gives to skip a visit, and what happens if you arrive and can’t get in.
• Pauses: what happens when they travel.
• Price review: when you’ll review it and how much notice you’ll give.
• Sales tax, where it applies. Rules differ by state. Texas, for example, says tax is due on the charge to clean a home, office or other building. Check your state’s rule before you print a price.

How do you run it without a spreadsheet?

Set it up once as a repeating job. In FieldFlow, a recurring job repeats weekly, every two weeks, monthly or on any interval, on the weekdays you pick, and ends after a number of visits or on a date, or keeps going. When a client asks to move one clean, move that visit, or that visit and the ones after it. When they travel, pause the job and resume it when they’re back.

Give the job an invoice template and each completed visit drafts its own invoice for you to check and send, with a pay link. Your cleaners see their own visits on their phones, with the address, the client’s number and your notes about the client: the dog’s name, the room they asked you to skip. If you’d rather not track mileage separately, log the miles per job in FieldFlow and they land on your profit and loss report.

The short version

Time the clean, cost the hour, add the drive and supplies, divide by one minus your margin, and quote the first clean on its own. Write the scope and the skip rules down. FieldFlow runs the repeat, the per-visit invoices and the crew’s schedule at $19/month for the whole business, with a 90-day free trial; see the cleaning page or pricing. This is general information, not tax advice.

Questions owners ask

Should a recurring cleaning be priced by the hour or by the visit?

Most customers find a flat price per visit easier to say yes to, but you should work it out from hours: how long the clean takes, times what an hour costs you, plus supplies, the drive and your margin. Quote the flat price and keep the hours as your own check.

Should weekly cleanings cost less than monthly ones?

Often, per visit, because a house cleaned every week takes less time each visit than one cleaned once a month. Time a few visits at each frequency and price from those times rather than giving a discount by habit.

How do I price the first clean?

Separately. The first visit usually takes longer than the ones after it, so quote it as its own job, then start the recurring price from the second visit.

Do I have to charge sales tax on house cleaning?

It depends on your state. Texas, for example, says tax is due on the charge to clean a home or other building. Check your state's revenue department before you set your price, and put the tax on its own line on the invoice.

How do I raise the price on a recurring client?

Put a review date in the agreement, give written notice before the new price starts, and say what changed. A client who knew a yearly review was coming is less surprised by it.