House cleaning prices 2026: what cleaners charge, by size, type and state

House cleaning prices in 2026 at a glance

A house cleaning visit costs about $120 to $280 in 2026, depending on which cost guide you read, and house cleaners charge about $40 to $55 an hour on average. Deep and move-out cleans cost more, usually $190 to $400.

We read four public cost guides and wrote down only the numbers each page states. They do not agree to the dollar, because each one draws on different data: quotes on a marketplace, prices from cleaning companies, or rates cleaners post for themselves. Read them as ranges, not a single price.

Two notes on reading the table. Fixr’s $221 average is for a standard one-time clean of a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home, so it sits near the top of its own range. Care.com is a marketplace where cleaners list their own hourly rates, so its figure is closer to what a cleaner working alone asks than to what a cleaning company charges. We cover that gap in the hourly section below.

We also tried Angi and Forbes Home, but both pages blocked our requests, so we left them out rather than repeat their numbers second-hand.

How much does house cleaning cost by home size?

A standard clean of a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home costs about $110 to $250, depending on the source: Thumbtack’s average is $220. Each extra bedroom or bathroom adds time, so the price climbs with the room count.

The table puts the three guides that publish prices by bedrooms and bathrooms side by side. Thumbtack gives one average per home. HomeGuide and Fixr give ranges for a standard (or basic) clean.

Thumbtack also lists national prices by bedrooms alone:

Price per square foot

Few cleaners price by square foot alone, but the guides that convert prices this way land in a narrow band. HomeGuide gives $0.10 to $0.17 per square foot for regular cleaning, and Fixr gives $0.08 to $0.10 for a basic clean. The rate per square foot usually falls as homes get bigger, because bathrooms and kitchens, not open floor, take most of the time.

Deep cleaning prices and move-out cleaning cost

A deep clean costs about $190 to $400 and a move-out clean about $200 to $400 in most of the guides we read, with HomeGuide’s ranges running wider. Both cost more than a standard clean because they take more hours, not because the hourly rate is higher.

A deep clean covers everything in a standard clean plus the build-up a regular visit skips: baseboards, door frames, vents, cabinet fronts, behind furniture and heavy scale in showers. Many companies require one as the first visit for a new recurring client. Our deep cleaning checklist lists what is usually included.

A move-out clean is a deep clean of an empty home, plus the inside of cabinets, drawers and closets, and usually the oven and fridge. Price depends heavily on size and condition. HomeGuide, for example, lists $150 to $250 for 1,000 square feet and $300 to $500 for 2,000 square feet. The move-out cleaning checklist shows what landlords usually check.

In our own house cleaning pricing guide, a worked example built from costs rather than survey data, a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom deep clean takes 6 cleaner-hours and comes to $255, and a move-out clean takes 7 cleaner-hours and comes to $300. That is in line with Thumbtack’s national ranges.

How much do house cleaners charge per hour?

House cleaners charge about $40 to $55 an hour on average, according to Thumbtack, while the median employed cleaner earned $17.07 an hour in May 2025. The gap pays for payroll taxes, drive time, supplies, insurance, the office and a profit.

Each line measures something different. The BLS wage is what an employed cleaner is paid, and the occupation includes hotel and hospital housekeepers as well as home cleaners. Care.com’s figure is closer to what a cleaner working alone asks a household. The rates on Thumbtack, HomeGuide and Fixr are what clients pay, and they have to cover the business’s costs as well as the cleaner’s pay.

Our floor sits between the two. A business paying the national median wage of $17.07 has a loaded labor cost of about $21.34 an hour once payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and drive time are added. To cover 20% overhead and keep 15% profit, it has to charge at least $32.83 per cleaner-hour, before supplies. Thumbtack’s $40 to $55 average leaves room above that floor for higher pay, better routes or a bigger margin.

For the cleaner’s side of the numbers, including pay by state and what owners take home, see what house cleaners earn.

House cleaning prices by state: the 2026 price floor

The least a cleaning business can charge for a standard 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom clean, while paying the state’s median cleaner wage and covering its costs, ranges from $100 in Mississippi to $185 in Hawaii. At the national median wage it is $135.

Hawaii has the highest floor because its median cleaner wage, $24.81 an hour, is the highest in the country, which puts its floor at $47.71 per cleaner-hour. Mississippi has the lowest median wage, $12.19, and a floor of $23.44 per cleaner-hour. Nevada, California, the District of Columbia, Washington and New York follow Hawaii with floors of $155 or more. Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia and Oklahoma sit just above Mississippi, at $110 or less.

This is a floor, not a market price. It is what a business paying the median wage needs to break even on pay, payroll costs, supplies and overhead and still keep a 15% profit. Most cost-guide prices sit above it: Thumbtack’s $220 average for a 3 bed, 2 bath home is well over the national floor. If your price is below your state’s floor, you are either paying less than the median wage or giving up margin.

Each state name links to our guide to starting a cleaning business there. The District of Columbia has no guide yet.

Wages are state medians for all of a state, so cities usually sit above them and rural areas below. How we calculated every column, and what the floor leaves out, is in the methodology section below.

What raises or lowers the price of a house cleaning?

Time drives the price. Anything that makes the job take longer, such as more bathrooms, pets, clutter or a home that has not been cleaned in months, raises it, and anything that saves time, such as frequent visits, lowers it.

• Size and room count. Bathrooms and kitchens take the most time, so a home with more bathrooms costs more than one of the same size with fewer.
• Type of clean. Standard, deep and move-out cleans of the same home can differ by $100 or more, as the tables above show.
• Condition. A first visit, a home after a party or a home that has gone months without a clean often gets priced as a deep clean or by the hour.
• Frequency. Weekly and every-two-weeks clients usually pay less per visit than one-time clients. See the next section.
• Add-ons. HomeGuide lists inside the fridge at $12 to $50, inside the oven at $15 to $35, changing bedsheets at $10 per bed and interior windows at $4 to $7 per window.
• Supplies. Both Thumbtack and HomeGuide say clients can save $5 to $10 per visit by providing their own cleaning supplies.
• Company or independent cleaner. HomeGuide lists $75 to $100 an hour for a company sending two workers, and $20 to $50 an hour per worker for independent cleaners. Companies usually carry insurance, bonding and backup staff, which is part of what the higher rate pays for.
• Where you live. Local wages are the biggest single cost in a clean, which is why the state price floor above ranges so widely.

Commercial work is priced differently, usually by square foot and production rate. For offices, see our guide to office cleaning prices.

Recurring vs one-time cleaning: which costs less?

Recurring cleaning costs less per visit. Thumbtack puts a one-time visit at $174 to $256 on average, a monthly clean at $162 to $228 and a clean every two weeks at $160 to $220.

By our arithmetic on Thumbtack’s figures, every-two-weeks clients pay about 8% to 14% less per visit than one-time clients. The reason is time: a home cleaned every week or two has less build-up, so each visit is shorter. Fixr notes the same thing, that regular cleaners tend to charge a bit less per visit because the more they clean, the less dirt they have to remove.

For a cleaning business, the discount should match the time saved. In our pricing guide’s worked example, the same 3 bed, 2 bath home takes 4 hours monthly, 3.5 hours every two weeks and 3 hours weekly, which works out to about 12% and 21% off the monthly price with the margin unchanged.

For cleaning business owners: use this data to set your rates

Use the market ranges as a sanity check and the state floor as your lower limit, but build your actual prices from your own pay rate, timed jobs and costs. A price that matches a national average can still lose money if your cleaners take longer or earn more than the assumptions behind it.

1. Find your floor. Look up your state in the table. If you pay more than the median wage, your floor is higher too.
2. Time your jobs. Time ten standard, deep and move-out cleans in homes of each size. Hours, not room counts, set the price.
3. Run the formula. Price = (cleaner-hours × loaded hourly cost + supplies) ÷ (1 − overhead % − profit %), rounded up to the next $5. Our pricing guide explains each step, and the house cleaning price calculator runs it for seven home sizes with your own numbers.
4. Compare with the market. If your result is far below the ranges above, you may be leaving money on the table. If it is far above, check your times and make sure your service shows why.
5. Check the whole month. The cleaning business profit calculator shows what your mix of weekly, every-two-weeks and one-time clients means for monthly profit.

For jobs you have not seen, send a written quote with what is included. The free cleaning estimate template makes one you can print or send as a PDF.

Methodology and data: how we built the price floor

The floor applies our pricing guide’s cost formula to each state’s median wage for maids and housekeeping cleaners from the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. It is the least a business paying that wage needs to charge, not what clients pay.

Data

We pulled the May 2025 median hourly wage for occupation code 37-2012, all industries, for the 50 states and the District of Columbia from the BLS public data API on October 11, 2026. BLS published a median for all 51, so no state is missing. We checked Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Mississippi, New York and Texas against the BLS OEWS query system, and every figure matched. The national median of $17.07 matches the BLS occupation profile.

Assumptions

• Loaded labor cost: the median wage × 1.25, for employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and paid drive time.
• Overhead: 20% of the price, for insurance, software, phone, fuel, marketing and admin.
• Profit: 15% of the price. So price = direct cost ÷ 0.65.
• Standard clean: a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom recurring clean taking 3.5 cleaner-hours, with $10 of supplies.
• Floor per cleaner-hour: loaded labor cost ÷ 0.65, before supplies, to the cent.
• Floor for the clean: (3.5 × loaded labor cost + $10) ÷ 0.65, rounded up to the next $5, as in the pricing guide.

Fed the pricing guide’s example pay of $20 an hour, the formula gives exactly the guide’s $150 for this clean. At the national median of $17.07, the loaded cost is $21.34, the floor per cleaner-hour is $32.83, and the clean comes to $130.28, rounded up to $135.

Limits

• City vs rural. State medians blend high-wage cities with lower-wage rural areas. A business in a large city will usually face a higher floor, and rural routes add drive time the 1.25 multiplier may not cover.
• Who is counted. The BLS occupation includes hotel, hospital and other housekeepers, not only home cleaners, and it covers employees, not self-employed cleaners.
• Solo owners. An owner who cleans alone may pay themselves more or less than the median wage, and may not carry the same payroll costs. Put your own pay into the formula instead.
• Sales tax. Some states and cities tax cleaning services. The floor does not include any tax you must add to the client’s bill.
• One home, one set of times. Real times vary with condition, pets and crew speed, so time your own jobs.

Use this data

You are free to cite, chart or republish the state table, with a link to this page as the source. The cost-guide figures belong to the sites quoted, so cite them directly: Thumbtack, HomeGuide, Fixr and Care.com, as read on October 11, 2026.

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