How to Price Cleaning Jobs for Profit
One of the fastest ways to build a busy cleaning business that still struggles financially is to price every job based on what competitors charge.
If another cleaner charges £20 an hour, you charge £20.
If somebody offers a three-bedroom deep clean for £120, you try to beat them at £110.
The diary starts filling — but once you pay for travel, products, equipment, insurance, administration and the hours you spend quoting rather than cleaning, there is surprisingly little left.
Pricing cleaning jobs properly is not about charging as much as possible. It is about making sure every job contributes enough to cover the real cost of running the business and leave a sustainable profit.
That means understanding your labour cost, overheads, productive hours, job complexity and target margin before deciding what the customer should pay.
For context, current UK consumer pricing in 2026 puts regular independent domestic cleaning at around £25 per hour, with cleaning agencies around £25–£30 per hour. Deep cleaning currently averages closer to £31 per hour, while after-builders cleaning is commonly around £30–£35 per hour.
Those figures are useful benchmarks.
They are not your pricing formula.
Here is how to build one.
Start With Your True Hourly Cost — Not Your Desired Hourly Rate
Suppose you are self-employed and decide:
“I want to earn £20 an hour, so I’ll charge £25.”
That calculation ignores almost everything involved in running the business.
Your customer-facing rate has to cover more than the hour physically spent cleaning.
Potential business costs include:
- cleaning products;
- cloths, mop heads and consumables;
- vacuum and equipment replacement;
- vehicle costs;
- fuel;
- business insurance;
- phone;
- software;
- advertising;
- accounting;
- payment-processing fees;
- uniforms;
- laundry;
- travelling between customers;
- quoting;
- cancellations;
- time spent messaging customers;
- holidays and time off;
- tax.
If you employ cleaners, the calculation becomes even more important because wages are only part of the employment cost.
From 1 April 2026, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 per hour. Employers can also face employer National Insurance and other employment costs depending on the worker and circumstances.
So paying somebody £12.71 per hour and charging the customer £15 per hour would clearly not leave £2.29 of clean profit.
The business needs room for all the costs surrounding that cleaner too.
The Basic Cleaning Pricing Formula
At its simplest, profitable pricing can be thought of as:
Direct labour + overhead allocation + job-specific costs + profit = selling price
Suppose a domestic clean requires three hours.
Your numbers might look like this:
Labour cost allocated to job: £45
Travel and products: £10
Share of business overheads: £12
Your real cost is:
£67
If you quote the customer £70, the job technically produces revenue above cost — but only £3.
One problem, cancellation, damaged tool or underestimated cleaning time can wipe that out.
If instead the selling price is £90:
£90 revenue – £67 cost = £23 contribution/profit before tax and any costs not yet captured
That gives the business some breathing room.
The exact numbers will differ for every business.
The principle does not.
Price From Productive Hours, Not Every Hour You Work
This is where many self-employed cleaners underprice themselves.
Suppose you work 40 hours during the week.
That does not necessarily mean you can invoice customers for 40 hours.
Your week might actually contain:
| Activity | Hours |
|---|---|
| Cleaning customers | 27 |
| Driving | 5 |
| Quotes/admin | 3 |
| Buying supplies | 1 |
| Marketing/messages | 2 |
| Gaps/cancellations | 2 |
| Total working time | 40 |
Only 27 hours produced cleaning revenue.
If your business needs to generate £750 that week to pay you appropriately and cover overheads, your required average billable rate is not:
£750 ÷ 40 = £18.75
It is:
£750 ÷ 27 = £27.78
That is a completely different business.
This is one reason apparently high cleaning rates can make sense once you understand the amount of unpaid time surrounding the work.
Know the Market — But Don’t Let It Set Your Price Blindly
You absolutely should understand what customers in your market are paying.
Current national 2026 guides put an independent cleaner at around £25 per hour and agency cleaning around £25–£30 per hour. Weekly cleaning of three hours is commonly benchmarked around £75.
You can compare this with our detailed guide to how much a cleaner costs per hour in the UK.
But knowing the market means understanding where you sit within it — not automatically matching the cheapest quote.
If your calculated profitable minimum is £27 per hour and competitors are charging £20, you have several possibilities:
- their business model is cheaper to operate;
- they have different service inclusions;
- they are accepting lower earnings;
- they are underpricing;
- you need to make your operation more efficient.
The wrong response is automatically reducing your rate below the point where your numbers work.
Hourly Pricing vs Fixed-Price Cleaning
Both models can work.
They simply place the pricing risk in different places.
Hourly pricing
The customer pays for the amount of time spent cleaning.
For example:
3 hours × £27 = £81
This works particularly well for:
- regular domestic cleaning;
- jobs where priorities can change;
- customers with a defined time budget;
- maintenance cleaning.
The advantage is that if the customer wants more work, they buy more time.
The disadvantage is that your earnings remain directly connected to hours worked.
Efficiency can even work against you: if you become faster, the invoice becomes smaller.
Fixed pricing
You quote a complete price for a defined result.
For example:
3-bedroom end-of-tenancy clean: £295
The cleaner might complete it in eight labour hours.
Revenue per labour hour:
£295 ÷ 8 = £36.88
But if the property takes 12 labour hours because you underestimated the condition:
£295 ÷ 12 = £24.58
The customer pays the same.
You absorb the estimating error.
That is why fixed pricing requires better job assessment.
When Fixed Pricing Usually Makes More Sense
Fixed quotes often work particularly well for:
- deep cleaning;
- end-of-tenancy cleaning;
- after-builders cleaning;
- oven cleaning;
- one-off whole-house cleans;
- large commercial jobs;
- specialist cleaning.
Customers generally want to know what the entire project will cost.
They do not necessarily want:
“It will be somewhere between eight and fourteen hours at £30 per hour.”
Current market data illustrates why one-off work is commonly priced differently. Regular cleaning starts around £25 per hour in current national guidance, while deep cleaning averages about £31 and after-builders work around £32.50.
The higher rate reflects the greater intensity, unpredictability and specialist nature of those jobs.
Do Not Quote Deep Cleaning Like Regular Cleaning
This is one of the easiest ways to lose money.
A weekly-maintained kitchen and a kitchen that has not received a thorough clean for a year are not the same job.
Deep cleaning can involve:
- significant grease;
- detailed limescale removal;
- skirting boards;
- doors and frames;
- internal cupboards;
- detailed bathroom work;
- harder-to-reach surfaces;
- substantially more product use;
- slower work.
Current UK 2026 guidance puts professional deep cleaning around £25–£37 per hour, averaging approximately £31, compared with around £25 for ordinary independent domestic cleaning.
That price gap exists for a reason.
Do not tell a customer:
“All cleaning is £25 an hour.”
and then discover that their six-hour deep clean requires ten hours of exhausting work.
How to Price a Regular Domestic Cleaning Job
Regular domestic cleaning is comparatively predictable.
Start by estimating how many hours the property genuinely needs.
Suppose a three-bedroom house requires:
3 hours per week
Your target selling rate is:
£27 per hour
Price:
3 × £27 = £81 per visit
Average annual revenue across 48 paid visits:
£81 × 48 = £3,888
Now consider that customer in context.
If they are five minutes from your previous client, the job may be excellent.
If you drive 40 minutes each way just for that £81 appointment, the economics change.
Travel is not free simply because it does not appear on the invoice.
That is why route density is part of pricing.
You may decide that customers outside your core area require:
- a higher minimum appointment;
- travel pricing;
- a higher fixed rate;
- or are simply not commercially worthwhile.
Set a Minimum Booking
Without a minimum, small jobs can destroy your effective hourly rate.
Imagine someone wants:
one hour of cleaning for £27
You spend:
20 minutes travelling there
1 hour cleaning
20 minutes travelling onwards
That £27 occupies 1 hour 40 minutes.
Effective revenue:
£27 ÷ 1.67 hours = approximately £16.17 per working hour
before fuel and every other cost.
A two- or three-hour minimum can make much more sense.
Current cleaning services frequently use minimum bookings or call-out structures for exactly this reason.
If a customer only needs one small job, a higher fixed minimum may be more commercially sensible than pretending travelling does not exist.
Price Different Services Differently
A strong cleaning price list should not necessarily have one universal hourly rate.
Consider separate pricing logic for:
Regular cleaning
Lower risk and predictable workload.
One-off cleaning
Less predictable and usually more intensive.
Deep cleaning
Higher labour intensity.
End-of-tenancy cleaning
Detailed specification and deadline-sensitive.
After-builders cleaning
Fine dust and construction residue can make the work significantly slower.
Carpet or upholstery cleaning
Different equipment, products and skills.
Oven cleaning
Specialist process and chemicals/equipment depending on your service.
There is no business reason that all of these services must produce the same revenue per hour.
Build a Job Cost Sheet
For larger fixed-price cleaning jobs, estimate the job before quoting.
A simple internal costing sheet can contain:
| Cost item | Estimate |
| Cleaner 1 labour | £75 |
| Cleaner 2 labour | £75 |
| Products | £15 |
| Travel/parking | £12 |
| Equipment allocation | £5 |
| Overhead allocation | £25 |
| Estimated total cost | £207 |
Then decide what selling price gives the business an acceptable return.
If you quote:
£220
you have very little room.
At:
£300
you have a £93 difference before tax and any unallocated costs.
Now suppose the job overruns by one hour for two cleaners.
You can see why that margin matters.
Without costing the job beforehand, £300 may feel expensive.
Once you see £207 of estimated business cost, it looks very different.
Margin and Mark-Up Are Not the Same
This is a common pricing mistake.
Suppose a cleaning job costs your business £200.
You want a 25% profit margin.
Some owners calculate:
£200 + 25% = £250
But the £50 profit is:
£50 ÷ £250 = 20% margin
not 25%.
To achieve a 25% gross margin:
Selling price = cost ÷ (1 – desired margin)
So:
£200 ÷ 0.75 = £266.67
Revenue: £266.67
Cost: £200
Difference: £66.67
£66.67 is 25% of £266.67.
You do not need to become an accountant to run a cleaning business, but understanding this distinction helps prevent systematic underpricing.
What Profit Margin Should a Cleaning Business Aim For?
There is no universal percentage that every cleaning business should use.
A self-employed solo cleaner has a very different cost structure from a company employing 15 cleaners.
The correct margin depends on:
- labour model;
- overheads;
- local prices;
- customer acquisition costs;
- service mix;
- utilisation;
- cancellations;
- management costs;
- growth plans.
Rather than copying an arbitrary target from the internet, calculate what the business requires.
You need enough surplus after direct job costs to cover overheads and leave genuine profit.
If your current pricing leaves almost nothing once every business expense is included, the fact that competitors charge similar prices does not improve the situation.
If You Employ Cleaners, Don’t Price From Wage Alone
Suppose you employ an adult cleaner at £13.50 per hour.
Your cost is not simply:
£13.50
Depending on circumstances, employment costs can also include:
- employer National Insurance;
- pension contributions where applicable;
- holiday entitlement;
- statutory obligations;
- payroll;
- uniforms;
- training;
- insurance;
- supervision;
- paid/non-billable time.
For 2026/27, the standard employer Class 1 National Insurance rate is 15% above the relevant secondary threshold for applicable categories, although actual liability depends on individual circumstances and available reliefs.
The statutory National Living Wage for workers aged 21+ is £12.71 per hour from April 2026.
A cleaning company therefore needs significantly more distance between employee pay and customer price than a superficial:
“Cleaner earns £13, customer pays £20, so I make £7.”
That £7 is not profit.
Charge for Two Cleaners Correctly
Customers can become confused when a two-person team works for two hours.
They may think:
“That’s only two hours.”
From your business’s perspective, it is:
2 cleaners × 2 hours = 4 labour hours
If your selling rate is £27 per cleaner-hour:
4 × £27 = £108
The customer benefits because the job is completed in two clock hours rather than four.
Make this clear in quotes.
For example:
Two-person cleaning team for approximately two hours, representing four labour hours.
This prevents disputes and protects your pricing.
Add Travel and Parking Where They Actually Affect the Job
Some cleaning businesses absorb local travel into their normal rate.
That can work well when routes are efficient.
But certain jobs genuinely cost more to reach.
Examples include:
- city-centre parking;
- congestion-related costs;
- rural properties;
- jobs outside the normal service area;
- properties requiring long walks from parking.
You can handle this through:
- explicit travel fees;
- a postcode-based minimum;
- higher fixed quotations;
- restricting your service area.
The customer does not necessarily need to see every internal cost line.
But you need to account for it internally.
Products Are Not Free Either
It is easy to dismiss cleaning chemicals as a few pounds here and there.
Across hundreds of jobs, they become a real annual cost.
Track approximate product consumption.
For example:
If cleaning products, cloths, bags and other consumables average:
£4 per job
and you complete:
500 jobs per year
that is:
£2,000
If your price calculations repeatedly ignore those £4 amounts, your annual profit calculation can be wrong by thousands.
Price for Equipment Replacement
A commercial vacuum does not last forever.
Neither do:
- steam cleaners;
- carpet machines;
- mops;
- extension poles;
- buckets;
- cloths;
- brushes.
Suppose you spend £3,000 per year replacing and maintaining equipment across 1,000 billable jobs.
That is roughly:
£3 per job
before products.
Small costs become meaningful when scaled.
This is why professional pricing should include an overhead allocation rather than pricing only the visible labour.
Don’t Forget Customer Acquisition Cost
Suppose you spend £600 on Google Ads and win ten new customers.
Acquisition cost:
£60 per customer
A new customer booking a £300 deep clean can potentially support that cost.
A £45 job probably cannot.
If your business relies heavily on paid leads or advertising, your pricing must leave room for marketing.
The customer does not care how much the lead cost you.
But the business does.
This is especially important for one-off work where you may never generate another booking from that customer.
Recurring Customers Can Justify Different Pricing Economics
A regular customer can be worth thousands over time.
Suppose they pay:
£75 every week
for 48 visits.
Annual revenue:
£3,600
Spending £50 acquiring that customer can make commercial sense.
A one-off £75 customer is completely different.
That is one reason regular cleaning can be priced more competitively per visit than one-off cleaning.
Recurring work offers:
- predictable scheduling;
- lower acquisition cost per visit;
- more predictable cleaning times;
- easier route planning;
- less setup uncertainty.
Do not necessarily give huge discounts.
But understand why recurring and one-off jobs have different economics.
Create a First-Clean Price
A useful strategy for regular domestic cleaning is charging differently for the initial visit.
A home starting weekly cleaning may require:
5 hours initially
to bring it to a manageable standard.
Afterwards it may need:
3 hours weekly
Instead of squeezing the initial work into the ongoing price, quote:
Initial clean: £150
then:
Weekly maintenance: £81
This protects both parties.
The customer receives a proper first clean rather than expecting months of accumulated work to disappear within a normal three-hour slot.
The subsequent visits then become predictable.
How to Price End-of-Tenancy Cleaning
End-of-tenancy work is usually better suited to fixed pricing based on a defined scope.
Consider:
- number of bedrooms;
- bathrooms;
- property size;
- furnished/unfurnished;
- current condition;
- oven;
- appliances;
- internal windows;
- carpets;
- parking/access.
Current 2026 national figures put end-of-tenancy cleaning anywhere from approximately £100–£500, averaging around £300.
That enormous range exists because the jobs are not identical.
Do not quote a four-bedroom house based solely on the fact that you charged £250 for another four-bedroom house last month.
The condition and specification could be completely different.
How to Price Deep Cleaning
Estimate the labour hours realistically.
Suppose a deep clean needs:
2 cleaners × 4 hours = 8 labour hours
You target £32 per labour hour.
Labour-based selling price:
8 × £32 = £256
Then consider whether there are:
- specialist products;
- parking;
- carpet cleaning;
- oven cleaning;
- unusually difficult staining;
- travel costs.
Your fixed quote could become:
£285
depending on your cost structure.
Current national data averaging £31 per hour for deep cleaning gives you a useful market reference, but your own quote should still come from the job itself.
Price After-Builders Cleaning Separately
After-builders cleaning is not ordinary dusting.
Fine construction dust can settle:
- on walls;
- inside cupboards;
- on skirting;
- around frames;
- repeatedly after initial removal.
There may also be:
- adhesive residue;
- labels;
- paint spots;
- plaster dust;
- debris.
Current 2026 pricing benchmarks after-builders cleaning around £30–£35 per hour, averaging £32.50.
Before quoting, establish whether builders have already removed their actual construction waste.
A cleaning company should not arrive expecting dust and discover bags of rubble and building materials still filling the rooms unless that has been agreed.
Don’t Give Prices From Bedroom Count Alone
Bedroom count helps.
It does not define the workload.
Compare:
Property A
Three bedrooms
One bathroom
Minimal furniture
Maintained regularly
Small kitchen
Property B
Three bedrooms
Three bathrooms
Pets
Large kitchen
Heavy limescale
Cluttered surfaces
Both are “three-bedroom houses”.
They are not the same cleaning job.
Ask enough questions to understand:
- bathrooms;
- condition;
- pets;
- floor surfaces;
- occupancy;
- service required;
- extras;
- access.
Photographs can be extremely useful for fixed-price work.
Create Packages Carefully
Packages can make buying easier.
For example:
Regular Clean
Bathrooms
Kitchen surfaces
Dusting
Vacuuming
Mopping
Deep Clean
Everything in regular cleaning plus additional detailed tasks specified in the package.
Moving Clean
A defined end-of-tenancy or move-out specification.
The advantage is clarity.
The danger is accidentally creating an unlimited package.
Avoid vague promises such as:
Complete deep clean – everything included.
What is “everything”?
Carpets?
Oven?
Upholstery?
External windows?
Inside every appliance?
Define the scope.
Use Written Quotes for Larger Jobs
For bigger one-off cleaning jobs, put the agreement in writing.
Your quote should make clear:
- total price;
- service;
- areas included;
- extras;
- exclusions;
- whether products are supplied;
- estimated duration where useful;
- payment terms;
- validity period where relevant.
Our guide to what should be included in a written quote is written from the customer’s perspective, but the same principle helps businesses: clear quotes reduce misunderstandings.
A customer should not discover halfway through an end-of-tenancy clean that the oven costs another £60 when they reasonably thought it was included.
Likewise, you should not discover halfway through that the customer expected six additional tasks you never priced.
Give Yourself a Quote Validity Period
Costs change.
Your availability changes.
A quote provided today should not automatically remain open forever.
For larger one-off jobs, you might state:
Quote valid for 30 days.
This is particularly useful if there are substantial material, subcontractor or staffing costs.
For simple recurring domestic cleaning, a formal expiry period may be unnecessary, but you should still confirm current rates before someone finally accepts a quote sent six months earlier.
Stop Discounting Without Doing the Maths
A customer asks:
“Can you do 10% off?”
Your £300 quote becomes:
£270
That sounds like only £30.
But suppose the job costs you £240.
Original:
£300 – £240 = £60
After discount:
£270 – £240 = £30
A 10% discount has cut your £60 difference in half.
This is why discounts come out of profit faster than many owners realise.
If you want to incentivise customers, consider whether something else makes more sense:
- recurring-booking pricing;
- combined-service packages;
- off-peak availability;
- referral credit;
- minimum-spend offers.
Do not automatically cut the core price.
Know When to Walk Away From a Job
Some enquiries are simply not worth winning.
Examples include:
- customer demands a price below your cost;
- property condition is misrepresented;
- travel makes the appointment unprofitable;
- expectations cannot realistically be met;
- scope remains deliberately unclear;
- repeated price negotiation suggests future conflict.
Being busy with unprofitable customers prevents you from accepting profitable ones.
Sometimes the correct quote is your real price.
If the customer declines, that can be a good business outcome.
Raise Prices Before You Become Desperate
Businesses often wait until costs have already become painful.
Then they realise:
“I need to put my prices up by £5 an hour immediately.”
Regular smaller reviews are easier.
Check your numbers periodically:
Has fuel increased?
Are wages higher?
Are products more expensive?
Has insurance increased?
Is the average job taking longer?
Are you paying more for leads?
Are you fully booked?
The UK National Living Wage increased to £12.71 for workers aged 21+ in April 2026, illustrating why labour-based businesses need to review their pricing as wage costs change.
Pricing is not something you calculate once when starting the business and never revisit.
How to Raise Prices for Existing Cleaning Customers
Be clear and professional.
You do not need a 600-word apology.
For example:
From 1 October, our regular cleaning rate will change from £24 to £26 per hour. This allows us to continue covering increased operating costs while maintaining the service provided. Your appointment schedule will remain unchanged.
Give reasonable notice.
Do not present your price as though you have done something wrong.
Customers are free to decide whether the service still represents value.
You are responsible for making sure your business can continue delivering it sustainably.
Use a Pricing Floor
Every business should know the minimum price below which a job stops making commercial sense.
For example:
Minimum job value: £70
or:
Minimum booking: 3 hours
or:
Minimum fixed deep-clean charge: £160
That protects you from improvising whenever somebody negotiates.
Without a floor, pricing becomes emotional.
Customer:
“Can you do it for £60?”
You:
“Maybe…”
With a calculated minimum, the answer is easier.
If £60 does not work, it does not work.
Review Estimated Hours Against Actual Hours
This is how fixed pricing gets better.
Suppose you estimated:
8 labour hours
Actual:
11 labour hours
Record it.
Why was the estimate wrong?
- more limescale than expected?
- large kitchen?
- customer added tasks?
- cleaner worked inefficiently?
- photographs were misleading?
- your standard estimate is simply too low?
If three-bedroom end-of-tenancy cleans repeatedly take 20% longer than your estimate, change the estimating model.
Do not keep making the same mistake and blame every individual job.
Build a Simple Pricing Calculator
You do not need expensive software initially.
A spreadsheet can contain:
estimated labour hours
× target billable labour rate
- travel
- products
- specialist extras
- parking
- risk/complexity allowance
= quote
For example:
| Item | Amount |
| 9 labour hours × £30 | £270 |
| Products | £15 |
| Parking | £10 |
| Oven add-on | £50 |
| Quote | £345 |
Then compare the result with your market and desired margins.
This produces far more consistent pricing than deciding:
“£300 feels about right.”
Pricing for Profit Does Not Mean Overcharging
Customers deserve fair prices.
Businesses deserve sustainable prices.
Those ideas are not in conflict.
A strong price should reflect:
- the work required;
- the actual operating costs;
- appropriate business profit;
- local market conditions;
- the service delivered.
Customers can compare the wider market through resources such as our UK house cleaning cost guide, so unrealistic pricing in either direction becomes increasingly difficult to hide.
Charging substantially above competitors without offering corresponding value can make sales difficult.
Charging below your sustainable cost can destroy the business.
The target is not cheap.
The target is profitable and competitive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should I price cleaning jobs?
Start by estimating the labour required, then account for products, travel, overheads, equipment, customer-acquisition costs and the profit the business needs.
For one-off work, turn that calculation into a fixed quote where appropriate rather than simply guessing from the property size.
How much should cleaners charge per hour in the UK?
Current 2026 national pricing puts independent domestic cleaners at around £25 per hour, with agency cleaning generally around £25–£30 per hour.
Your own profitable rate may be higher or lower depending on location, service and business costs.
Should a cleaning business charge hourly or per job?
Regular domestic cleaning often suits hourly pricing.
Deep cleaning, end-of-tenancy, after-builders and specialist cleaning frequently work better as fixed-price jobs because customers want certainty and the service has a defined outcome.
Many successful businesses use both.
How do I calculate a fixed cleaning price?
Estimate the total labour hours, multiply by your required billable labour rate, then add job-specific costs and any required allowance for overhead and risk.
Check that the final price leaves an acceptable margin after all costs.
Should one-off cleaning cost more than regular cleaning?
Often, yes.
One-off jobs are less predictable, may be dirtier and do not provide guaranteed future revenue. Regular weekly customers are easier to schedule and their homes generally remain at a maintained baseline.
What should I charge for a deep clean?
Current UK 2026 guidance puts deep cleaning around £25–£37 per hour, averaging approximately £31.
Use this as a market benchmark rather than automatically adopting £31 as your rate.
How much should I mark up a cleaning job?
There is no universal mark-up that suits every cleaning business.
Calculate your actual job cost first, then choose a selling price that covers overhead and produces the margin your business needs.
Remember that a 25% mark-up is not the same as a 25% margin.
Should I charge for travel?
You can either charge travel separately or incorporate normal local travel into your rate.
What matters is that the business accounts for it somewhere. Long-distance jobs, tolls or expensive parking may justify an explicit additional charge.
Should cleaning products be included in my price?
They can be, and many companies find an all-inclusive price easier for customers.
If you supply products, make sure their cost is included in your calculations rather than absorbing it without tracking.
How often should I increase cleaning prices?
There is no fixed schedule, but review prices regularly whenever wages, products, fuel, insurance or other operating costs materially change.
Do not wait until jobs have been unprofitable for months before checking the numbers.
The Pricing Test Every Cleaning Business Should Use
Before sending any quotation, ask three questions:
1. What will this job genuinely cost me?
Include labour and the less visible costs.
2. What happens if the job takes longer than expected?
Fixed-price jobs need enough room to absorb reasonable estimating variation.
3. Would I be happy to fill my diary with jobs at this price?
This final question is powerful.
If the answer is:
“No, I’d lose money if every customer paid this.”
then the quote is probably wrong.
Do not price a job so cheaply that winning it becomes a problem.
A profitable cleaning business needs customers, but it also needs enough margin to replace equipment, advertise, deal with cancellations, pay staff properly, survive quieter periods and eventually reward the owner for building the business.
The goal is not to have the lowest cleaning price in town.
It is to create a price that customers can understand and that still makes commercial sense after the cleaning is finished.
If you run a cleaning business and want another place for potential customers to discover your services, The Right Guy helps UK local service professionals increase their online visibility and connect with people searching for local help.
Get the pricing right first.
Then every new customer you attract has the potential to grow the business — rather than simply make you busier.