Cleaning business pricing guide UK

Quick answer

A cleaning price should cover paid labour, owner time, materials, travel, parking, overhead, payment fees, tax buffer and profit. Copying another cleaner's headline hourly rate is risky because their workload, travel, staffing and overhead may be different.

Use hourly pricing while learning timings, then move repeatable services into fixed prices only when you can estimate scope and risk confidently.

A simple pricing method

• Estimate task time honestly, including setup, pack-down and travel.
• Apply a charge-out hourly rate that accounts for tax buffer, unpaid admin and overhead.
• Add materials, parking, travel and specialist add-ons.
• Set a minimum call-out charge so short jobs do not wipe out margin.
• Write exclusions and assumptions into every quote.
• Use the profit calculator after quoting to catch weak jobs before accepting them.

When to raise or lower a quote

Raise the quote for difficult access, heavy soil, uncertain scope, pets, parking costs, specialist products, evening work, one-off work, short notice or higher re-clean risk. Avoid lowering a quote unless the scope is genuinely smaller or the job creates predictable repeat work with low travel friction.

Common questions