If you clean short-stay properties, you’re pricing a fundamentally different job from a domestic clean. Here’s how to price it so it’s still profitable in February when you’re doing four changeovers a day.
Price per property, not per hour
Hourly pricing punishes you for getting faster and makes hosts nervous about the total. Price the property.
| Property | Typical charge |
|---|---|
| Studio / 1 bedroom | $55 – $85 |
| 2 bedroom | $70 – $120 |
| 3 bedroom | $110 – $180 |
| 4+ bedroom | $150 – $280 |
| Linen service | +$25 – $50 |
| Deep clean after vacancy | $180 – $400 |
Set the price after seeing the property, and re-price if the host changes the setup.
What new cleaners under-price
Travel between properties. In holiday areas, properties are spread out. Forty minutes of driving between two changeovers is unpaid unless you build it in.
Linen handling. Stripping, bagging, transporting, and making up beds hotel-style takes real time. Making a bed properly is 8–12 minutes. Four beds is nearly an hour before anything else.
Consumables. Toilet paper, soap, dishwasher tablets, rubbish bags, tea and coffee. Small per item, meaningful per year.
The photo record. If you’re documenting condition (and you should, see below), that’s 5–10 minutes a property.
Waiting. Guests who check out late. It happens constantly, and it destroys a tightly-scheduled day.
Damage reporting. Photographing and writing up an issue is 10 minutes you didn’t plan for.
Charge more for same-day turnovers
A 10am checkout to a 3pm check-in is a genuinely harder product than a changeover with a free day either side. It removes all your scheduling slack, and one late checkout cascades through your whole day.
Charge 20–30% more for guaranteed same-day slots. Hosts who need them will pay, because the alternative is a cancelled booking.
Peak season pricing
In holiday markets, December to February is when hosts need you most and when your availability is scarcest. That’s a legitimate reason to price seasonally, but tell hosts in advance, in writing, at the start of the relationship. A surprise summer increase costs you the account.
The thing that lets you charge more
Photograph every finished property and send it to the host.
This sounds like extra work, it’s about 90 seconds, and it changes the relationship completely:
- The host stops driving over to check
- Disputes about whether something was done disappear
- When a guest damages something, the host has the evidence for their claim
- You can service hosts who live in another city entirely
Cleaners who document their work command higher rates and lose fewer accounts, because they’ve removed the host’s main source of anxiety.
What to put in writing
- Price per property, and what’s included
- Linen: yours or theirs, and the charge either way
- Same-day surcharge
- Late checkout policy, what happens and what it costs
- Cancellation notice
- Consumables: who supplies, who pays
- Peak season rates and when they apply