Deep Cleaning Cost: Pricing by Home Size and Hours

What drives the deep cleaning cost on your quote

Deep cleaning cost is driven by three things: how much floor area a crew has to cover, how long the job takes, and how much grime has built up since the last thorough clean. HomeGuide puts a whole house deep clean at $0.15 to $0.30 per square foot, or roughly $230 to $600 for an average sized home, while HomeAdvisor reports a national average of about $300 for a one time service. Those two figures line up well, so treat $300 as the middle of the market rather than a floor.

Hourly pricing is the second common model. HomeGuide reports $25 to $60 per hour per person for deep cleaning, and notes that a two person team runs $50 to $120 per hour combined. HomeAdvisor lists $25 to $80 per hour for house cleaners generally, with $50 per hour as the average. Because a deep clean of a four bedroom home can take 5 to 12 hours according to HomeGuide, hourly quotes and flat quotes usually land in the same place once the crew size is factored in.

Condition matters more than most homeowners expect. A house cleaned every two weeks needs far less scrubbing than one that has gone a year without attention, and kitchens and bathrooms absorb a disproportionate share of the labor. Extra bathrooms, heavy pet hair, and grout that needs scrubbing all push a quote toward the upper end of the published range.

Deep cleaning prices by home size

Bedroom count is the shorthand most companies use when quoting over the phone. The figures below come from HomeGuide's deep cleaning data.

Square footage gives a second check on the same job. HomeGuide lists deep cleaning at $150 to $300 for homes of 1,000 square feet or less, $300 to $600 at 2,000 square feet, and $450 to $900 at 3,000 square feet. Housecall Pro reports $200 to $400 for cleaning an average 2,000 square foot home, which sits at the lower half of that band and reflects lighter scopes of work. If you only need part of the house handled, HomeGuide notes a per room rate of $25 to $150.

Apartments and condos price lower for obvious reasons. HomeGuide puts apartment cleaning at $75 to $180 total, and a routine house cleaning visit costs far less than a deep clean of the same space.

Add on services that sit outside a standard deep clean

A deep clean covers baseboards, grout, inside the oven and refrigerator, behind appliances, blinds, vents, and under furniture, per HomeGuide's scope list. Anything beyond that is usually billed separately. HomeAdvisor's published add on prices:

• Oven cleaning: $20 to $50.
• Refrigerator cleaning: $10 to $40 for a typical unit, more if it has been neglected.
• Baseboards: $25 to $75 when priced on their own.
• Walls and ceilings: $170 to $465, one of the largest single add ons.
• Upholstery and furniture: $120 to $230.
• Carpets and rugs: $120 to $240; see our carpet cleaning cost breakdown for room by room figures.
• Window treatments: $100 to $200.
• Move out cleaning: $140 to $500 as a separate service, since it includes restoring the home to near move in condition.

Frequency discounts work the other way. HomeGuide reports 5 to 20 percent off for customers on a weekly or monthly schedule, and regular visits reduce how much deep cleaning the home needs later.

Is your quote reasonable?

Run the numbers two ways before you accept a price. First, multiply your finished square footage by $0.15 to $0.30. A 2,000 square foot house should land between $300 and $600. Second, ask how many cleaners will come and how many hours they expect to spend, then multiply by $25 to $60 per person per hour. If a company quotes $700 for a 2,000 square foot home and describes a two person crew for four hours, that works out to roughly $88 per person per hour, which is well above the published range and worth challenging.

A flat quote at the low end can be just as much of a warning sign. A $150 offer for a four bedroom deep clean implies a crew moving through the house in under three hours, which is not enough time for the scope that a deep clean is supposed to include. Ask for the task list in writing, confirm whether inside the oven and refrigerator are included, and check that the company carries liability insurance. Get three quotes, compare them on scope rather than headline price, and the reasonable number for your home becomes obvious quickly.