Move-out cleaning is usually priced as a flat price by home size and condition, by the hour, or by the square foot for post-construction work. Whichever way you quote, check it against the real cost of the job.
Why a move-out clean takes longer than a regular clean
A move-out clean is a top-to-bottom clean of an empty home. With the furniture gone, you see everything. Dust lines where the couch sat. Grease on the wall behind the stove. Crumbs inside every drawer.
The scope is also bigger than a normal visit. Most move-out cleans include:
- Inside every cabinet, drawer and closet shelf
- Inside the oven, fridge, microwave and dishwasher
- Baseboards, door frames, light switches and spot-cleaning walls
- Window sills and tracks, and often blinds
- Bathrooms scrubbed to look new, including grout and the tub edge
Then there is the inspector. A landlord, a buyer or a property manager walks through after you. If they find a missed spot, you get called back for free. So price the full scope and a real standard, not a quick wipe.
If you mostly do recurring homes, read how to price house cleaning jobs as well. Move-out work uses the same costs but needs a longer time estimate.
Three ways to price a move-out clean
Pick the method that fits the job, but build every one from the same base. Take crew hours (including drive time) times your full hourly cost, add supplies, vehicle and fuel, then divide by one minus your margin.
- Flat price by home size and condition. Set a price for each home type, such as a 1-bedroom apartment or a 3-bedroom house, then move it up or down for condition. Customers like knowing the total up front. This works once you have tracked enough jobs to know your times.
- By the hour. Charge per cleaner per hour, with a stated time range. This fits homes you cannot see first, or homes in rough shape. Tell the customer the likely range so the final bill is not a shock.
- By the square foot. Useful for large empty homes and post-construction work. It is simple to quote, but it misses detail. Two bathrooms take far longer than two bedrooms of the same size.
Whatever you choose, set a job minimum. A studio still needs the drive, the supplies loaded, the parking found and the keys picked up. If the minimum does not cover that fixed time, small units will lose money. Our guide to flat rate vs hourly pricing covers when each one is safer.
What pushes the price up or down
Ask these questions before you quote. Ask for photos of the kitchen, the bathrooms and the oven if you cannot visit.
| Factor | Why it changes the time | What to do in the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Bathrooms and kitchen | These are the slow rooms. Bedrooms are quick once empty. | Count bathrooms, not just bedrooms. |
| Condition | Built-up grease, soap scum and hard water stains can make a room take far longer. | Price light, normal and heavy condition at different levels. |
| Appliances | An oven with years of baked-on grease can take an hour alone. | List each appliance interior as included or as an add-on. |
| Pets and smoking | Hair in vents and tracks, and a yellow film on walls and ceilings. | Ask directly. Add time or quote walls separately. |
| Leftover items | Cleaners end up hauling junk instead of cleaning. | State that the home must be empty, or charge for removal. |
| Access | Stairs, elevators, long walks from parking and key pickups all eat time. | Ask about parking and keys. Add time for each. |
| Water and power | If utilities are off, you cannot do the job properly. | Confirm both will be on. Charge a trip fee if they are not. |
| Deadline | Same-day or evening work before a key handover means overtime or a reshuffled schedule. | Add a rush charge for short notice. |
The price goes down when the home is small, recently cleaned, and empty with easy parking. It goes up with every item on that list.
Add-ons, re-cleans and the photo checklist
Decide what your standard move-out clean includes and write it down. Everything else goes on a short add-on list with its own time and price. Common add-ons:
- Washing all walls, not just spot-cleaning
- Inside windows and screens, or the outside of windows
- Blinds, one slat at a time
- Carpet cleaning (shampooing or steam cleaning the carpets)
- Garage, balcony or patio sweep
- Junk or leftover item removal
Then protect yourself with a photo checklist. Take photos of each room before you start and after you finish, from the same spots. Get close-ups of the oven, the fridge, the tub and the floors. If a landlord later says the home was dirty, your photos show what you left. This helps your customer's deposit and your own reputation.
Have a clear re-clean policy. For example: report a missed item within 48 hours, with a photo, and we return to fix that item at no charge. Say what is not covered, such as damage, stains that will not come out, or items added after you left. A written policy stops one small complaint from turning into a full free clean.
Pricing turnovers for property managers and realtors
A turnover is the clean between one tenant leaving and the next one moving in. Property managers, landlords and realtors can send steady work, but they expect a different deal than a single homeowner.
- Make a rate card. List a set price for each unit type and condition level they manage. It saves quoting every unit and keeps both sides clear.
- Give a volume price only for real volume. A lower price should come with a set number of units, not a promise of future work.
- Set payment terms. Business accounts often pay later than homeowners. Decide your terms before the first job, and build the cost of waiting for your money into the price.
- Plan for access. Lockboxes, key pickups and building rules all take time. Agree on how you get in, and charge when you show up and cannot get in.
- Charge for rush turnovers. Same-day cleans between tenants push other work around. That is worth more money.
- Agree on the checklist. Their inspectors use their own list. Get a copy and match your scope to it.
Turnover clients value the same result every time. Send the same crew when you can, and keep your photos on file for every unit.
Pricing post-construction cleaning by phase
Post-construction cleaning is the clean after a build or renovation. It is dustier and slower than a move-out clean. Fine drywall dust settles on every surface and comes back after the first wipe.
Builders often book it in three phases:
- Rough clean. Done while the other workers are still finishing. Remove debris, then sweep and vacuum the heavy dust.
- Final clean. Done when the work is complete. Remove stickers and labels, clean inside cabinets, wipe every surface, and clean windows and floors.
- Touch-up clean. Done just before handover or a walk-through. Catch the dust and fingerprints left by late repairs.
Many cleaners quote this work by the square foot. That is fine, but build the rate from your own times for each phase, not from a number someone else uses. Time a few jobs, work out the full job price with your margin, then divide it by the square feet.
Watch for the costs that are special to this work: extra vacuum filters and pads, paint and caulk spots on glass, safety gear, and trips wasted when the site is not ready. Put a trip charge in writing for days when other workers are still busy in the rooms you were booked to clean.
Mistakes to avoid, and jobs to walk away from
These are the mistakes that turn a good move-out job into unpaid work.
- Pricing from bedrooms alone. The kitchen and bathrooms set the time.
- Quoting without photos. A quick phone call hides the oven and the shower.
- Using the wage as your hourly cost. The full cost includes payroll taxes, insurance and workers' compensation. Use the labor burden calculator to find yours.
- Adding a small markup and calling it profit. Markup is added on top of cost; margin is the share of the price you keep. A 20% markup is only about a 17% margin, and your office, ads and own pay come out of that. See profit margin vs markup.
- No written scope. If walls or blinds are not listed, the customer will assume they are included.
Walk away, or quote much higher, when:
- The home is full of belongings and the customer wants a cleaning price for a clear-out job.
- There is mould, sewage, needles or a pest problem. That needs a specialist, not a cleaning crew.
- The customer wants you to promise they will get their full deposit back. You control the clean, not the landlord.
- The deadline cannot be met without overtime, and the customer will not pay for it.
How to present the price, and check it after the job
Send a written quote, not a number in a text. Show one total, then list exactly what is included, the add-ons they chose, the condition you based it on, and your re-clean policy. Say that the home must be empty with water and power on. Our guide on how to quote a job professionally walks through the layout.
If the home turns out worse than the photos showed, call before you start the extra work. Agree on the new price, then do it. Do not let the customer find out on the invoice.
After each job, compare the hours you planned with the hours your crew used. Move-out times are hard to guess at first, so this is where your prices get better. If you keep running over, your rate card is too low. Our guide to estimating labor hours for a job shows how to tighten your estimates.
CrewBrain tracks crew hours by job, and the crew app lets your cleaners follow checklists and take before and after photos on their phones. That way you can see which move-out cleans earned their price.
A worked example: a vacant 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo of about 1,100 sq ft, including oven, fridge and cabinet interiors
| Item | How it is worked out | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Labor | 2 people × 5 hours (including drive time) × $28 per hour | $280 |
| Materials | Supplies used on the job | $30 |
| Vehicle and fuel | Truck time and fuel for this job | $25 |
| Job costs | $335 | |
| Price at a 45% margin | $335 ÷ 0.55 | $609 |
| Left after job costs | $609 − $335 | $274 |
Where the price goes in this example
Every dollar of the price, split into the costs it covers and what is left over.
- Labor $280 (46%)
- Materials $30 (5%)
- Vehicle and fuel $25 (4%)
- Left after job costs $274 (45%)
The whole bar is the price the customer pays: $609. Illustrative numbers, built from the table above.
Hourly cost per person is the full cost of one cleaner for one hour, including payroll taxes, insurance and workers' compensation, not just the wage. Drive time to and from the home, plus parking and key pickup, is counted as paid time. These numbers are an illustrative example of the method. They are not a price list, and not a promise of what your jobs will earn.
Try it with your own numbers
Job costs means crew time (with drive time), materials, vehicle and fuel. Hourly cost per person is the full cost of an hour, including payroll taxes and insurance, not just the wage. This is a simple calculator, not a quote.
Built for house cleaning: the house cleaning price calculator works from home size, bathrooms, extras (inside oven, fridge, cabinets), with example speeds you can change to your crew’s.
Keep going
- CrewBrain for cleaning companies: how the software handles quoting, scheduling and crew time for this trade.
- Office cleaning: how much to charge for a contract that pays
- How much to charge for house cleaning: a price table with the math shown
- How to price a moving job without losing money on the hard ones
- How to price a service job: the five-step method behind every page in this series.
- Job price calculator: the same calculator as above, on its own page.
- What is a good profit margin for a service business?
- How to estimate labor hours for a job
- All pricing guides by trade
Questions owners ask
How much should I charge for a move out cleaning?
Estimate the crew hours for that home, including drive time, multiply by your full hourly cost per cleaner, and add supplies, vehicle and fuel. Then divide by one minus your target margin. Set a job minimum so small units still cover the fixed time.
Should I charge more for move out cleaning than regular cleaning?
Yes, in most cases. A move-out clean covers inside cabinets, appliances, baseboards and walls in an empty home, and it has to pass an inspection, so it takes much longer than a regular visit.
Is it better to charge by the hour or a flat rate for a move out clean?
A flat rate by home size and condition is easier for customers once you know your times. Charge by the hour when you cannot see the home first or it is in very rough shape, and give a likely range in writing.
How do you price post-construction cleaning?
Price each phase on its own: rough, final and touch-up. Time a few jobs, work out your full price for each phase, and divide by the square feet to get your rate. Add a trip charge for when the site is not ready.
Should I give property managers a discount on turnover cleans?
Only for real, steady volume, and only after you know your times on their units. Use a rate card by unit type and condition, and set payment terms before the first job.
What should not be included in a standard move out cleaning price?
Leftover junk removal, carpet shampooing, full wall washing, outside windows, and mould, sewage or other health hazards. List these as add-ons or separate jobs so the customer knows before you start.