How Much to Charge for Move Out Cleaning: A Price List From Your Hours

How do you price a move-out cleaning job?

Price a move-out clean from the cleaner-hours an empty home takes, then add supplies, overhead and margin. Bedrooms and square feet only matter because they set the hours.

1. Cleaner-hours = square feet ÷ your move-out production rate (sq ft per cleaner-hour), plus drive and setup time.
2. Labour = cleaner-hours × loaded rate (wage × (1 + burden %)).
3. Overhead share = cleaner-hours × (yearly overhead ÷ sellable hours).
4. Break-even = labour + supplies + overhead share.
5. Price = break-even ÷ (1 − margin), never below your minimum charge.

Search results for this question are mostly price ranges from other towns and other wage levels. A range cannot tell you whether a clean pays you. I build pricing maths, not cleaning schedules, so this page shows arithmetic you can check, with every input labelled as an assumption to replace.

The assumptions match the house cleaning pricing guide, so the move-out and standard figures compare like for like: a $20 wage with 25% burden ($25 loaded); $10,560 a year of overhead over 1 person × 220 billable days × 8 hours = $6 per sellable hour; a 35% target margin. The move-out production rate is an assumed 250 sq ft per cleaner-hour, half the 500 used for a standard clean, because an empty home gets baseboards, door frames, switch plates, vents, closet shelves and every floor edge that furniture used to hide.

Move out cleaning cost calculator

Enter the floor area, your move-out production rate, wage, supplies and overhead to see break-even and the price to quote. It opens on the 1,000 sq ft two-bedroom move-out worked below, so it shows $213.85 until you change a number.

The widget prices time on site. Add drive and setup by lowering the rate a little or by running the free cleaning job price calculator in cleaner-hours, which takes hours directly. No signup, and your numbers stay in your browser.

Move out cleaning price list by home size

On this page's assumptions, a move-out clean runs from $156.62 for a 700 sq ft one-bedroom apartment to $442.77 for a 2,200 sq ft four-bedroom house, before drive time. Every row is sqft_job(area, 250, supplies $15) from the same maths the calculator runs.

The home sizes are placeholders for typical layouts, not measurements. Price the real square footage from the listing or the lease.

The drive column is job(hours = sq ft ÷ 250 + 0.5, supplies $15). Half an hour of drive and setup adds $23.85 to every row, which is why small apartments carry the highest price per square foot.

Condition changes the hours, not the formula. Grease build-up, pet hair, nail holes and a garage or patio all belong in your hours estimate. If you cannot see the home first, quote hourly with a stated minimum, or give a price that holds only for a home "broom clean and empty" when you arrive.

Worked example: apartment move out cleaning pricing vs a standard clean

A 1,000 sq ft two-bedroom move-out is 4 cleaner-hours at the assumed 250 sq ft per hour. With $15 of supplies it breaks even at $139.00 and prices at $213.85.

Check it: labour 4 × $25.00 = $100.00. Overhead 4 × $6.00 = $24.00. Break-even $100.00 + $15 + $24.00 = $139.00. Price $139.00 ÷ 0.65 = $213.85. Profit: $74.85.

The same apartment as a standard clean

At the standard placeholder of 500 sq ft per cleaner-hour with $8 of supplies, the same home is 2 cleaner-hours and prices at $107.69.

Divide the two prices and the move-out comes out at 1.99 times the standard clean. That ratio is an output of the hours, not a percentage to add. It sits just under 2 because supplies do not double. If your timed move-out rate is 200 sq ft per hour instead of 250, the ratio changes, and only re-running the hours will show you by how much.

Each unbudgeted hour costs $31 in loaded labour and overhead. If this fixed-price job runs one hour over, profit falls from $74.85 to $43.85.

How much to charge for move-out add-ons: oven, fridge, windows, walls, cabinets

Price each add-on from its own minutes at the same loaded rate, overhead and margin. On this page's assumptions an inside-oven clean prices at $40.38 and an inside-fridge clean at $26.92.

All five together are 4.25 cleaner-hours and $11 of supplies, which prices at $219.62 as one line. The two-bedroom with drive and every add-on is 8.75 cleaner-hours and $26 of supplies: $457.31.

The minutes are placeholders. Time an oven and a fridge on two or three jobs, then fix the add-on prices in your list. Decide up front which items sit in the base move-out and which are add-ons, and print that on the quote so a tenant or landlord sees what the price covers.

How much to charge for move in cleaning

Price a move-in clean the same way, from its own production rate. If the home was cleaned at move-out, a move-in clean is a lighter pass; at an assumed 350 sq ft per cleaner-hour and $10 of supplies, the 1,000 sq ft two-bedroom prices at $151.65.

If nobody cleaned at move-out, the move-in job is a move-out clean in all but name. Price it at your move-out rate. Ask the client one question before quoting: was the home professionally cleaned when the last occupant left?

Move out cleaning price per square foot, per hour and minimum charge

Price per square foot is a result. The 1,000 sq ft move-out works out to $0.21 per square foot before drive and $0.24 with it; the 2,200 sq ft house works out to $0.21 with drive.

A single per-square-foot rate would undercharge small apartments and overcharge large houses, because drive and setup time is the same half hour whatever the size. Use the figure to sanity-check a quote, not to build one.

Per hour, the floor is (loaded rate + overhead per hour) ÷ (1 − margin) = ($25 + $6) ÷ 0.65 = $47.69 per cleaner-hour, plus supplies. Two cleaners finish in half the time on site but cost twice per hour, so price total cleaner-hours.

Minimum charge

Set the minimum from the shortest job worth the drive. At 3 cleaner-hours door to door with $15 of supplies, the minimum here is $166.15. A 500 sq ft studio move-out with drive is 2.5 cleaner-hours and prices at $142.31, so you would quote the minimum.

The common mistake: markup instead of margin

Adding 35% to cost is not a 35% margin. On the two-bedroom move-out, break-even × 1.35 bills $187.65 and keeps only 25.93% of the price.

That is $26.20 short on one job and $4,086.60 a year at 3 move-outs a week. Divide instead: break-even ÷ 0.65. The markup vs margin guide has a conversion chart, and the cleaning business profit margin guide covers choosing the target.

Two more leaks are common on one-off cleans:

• Pricing the wage, not the loaded rate. A $20 wage priced at $20 leaves $5 an hour of payroll cost unbilled before overhead.
• A flat percentage on top of the standard price. A fixed uplift ignores your own move-out rate. Here the hours give 1.99 times; a different rate gives a different ratio.

Calculator, spreadsheet or custom build for move-out quotes

For one move-out quote, the free calculator is enough. For a price list you reuse, use a spreadsheet.

There is no ready-made move-out template in the store; a move-out is a one-off job. If a landlord or agent then wants a unit cleaned weekly or monthly, that is a recurring contract, and the $39 cleaning contract pricing spreadsheet prices it: break-even per visit and per month, the monthly price to quote and the annual contract value, with residential home among its six facility types. A builder's handover clean is different again; see the post construction cleaning pricing guide.

What to put in your move out cleaning price list

One row per home size for move-out and move-in, a drive line, priced add-ons and a minimum. Layout: B2 = sq ft, B3 = move-out sq ft per cleaner-hour, B4 = drive and setup hours, B5 = wage, B6 = burden %, B7 = supplies, B8 = yearly overhead, B9 = people cleaning, B10 = billable days, B11 = target margin %, B12 = minimum charge.

• Your timed sq ft per cleaner-hour for move-out and move-in.
• Drive and setup hours per job.
• Supplies per job by service type.
• Add-ons in minutes, each converted to a price.
• What the base clean includes, in writing, as a checklist the tenant, landlord or agent can tick. What a landlord accepts for a deposit is set by the lease, not by you, so quote to the checklist.
• Condition terms: price holds for an empty home; extra hours billed at your hourly price.
• Minimum charge.

Reprice when your wage, fuel or insurance moves. With formulas, every row updates on its own.

Step-by-step: How Much to Charge for Move Out Cleaning: A Price List From Your Hours

1. Measure the home. Take the square footage from the listing or lease and note condition, appliances, windows and anything outside the base checklist.
2. Estimate cleaner-hours. Divide square feet by your timed move-out rate (sq ft per cleaner-hour) and add drive and setup time.
3. Cost the hours. Multiply cleaner-hours by the loaded rate plus overhead per sellable hour, then add supplies to get break-even.
4. Apply your margin. Divide break-even by (1 − margin). For 35%, divide by 0.65.
5. Add priced add-ons. Add inside oven, fridge, cabinets, interior windows and wall spot-cleaning, each priced from its own minutes.
6. Check the minimum. Quote the higher of the calculated price and your minimum charge, and list what the price includes.

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