What causes different price quotes for cleaning a home?

When you’re shopping around for a maid service for your home, you may receive a wide range of price quotes. What causes these price differences? Why are some house cleaning companies more expensive than others when they’re all quoting prices for the same house?

Size of company

One of the biggest factors is whether you’re being quoted a price from an independent solo cleaner versus a professional cleaning company. Someone operating their cleaning business out of a car trunk can charge a lot less than a company with a bunch of employees. But that solo cleaner may not be bonded or insured, be able to replace or reimburse you for something they accidentally break while they are cleaning, and they may not have a back-up if they can’t clean on your scheduled day.

Experience

A cleaner with years of experience will generally charge more than someone just starting out who will cut prices in order to build up a customer list.

Type of service

What exactly is included for the price you’ve been quoted? Company A may be quoting a one-time clean vs. Company B is giving you a discount on your first cleaning assuming that you’ll be hiring them on a regular weekly or bi-weekly basis. Or Company A may be offering you a deluxe package while Company B is quoting you their least expensive plan.

Quote formula

Companies use different information to provide you with a price. Most house cleaning companies charge by the job based on total square footage or by the hour, but others create an estimate based on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. A company might add fees for the number of pets in your home and another might adjust their quote based on how dirty your home is when they arrive, which can be avoided with an in-home estimate. Unless you’ve had regular maid service for a while, you can be sure that a one-time or first-time cleaning will cost more than ongoing regular service because of the extra time required to remove build-up in your home. When you receive a quote based on hours, the hours are “work hours” (also called “man hours”). If the cleaning company sends two cleaning techs to do a four hour cleaning, you will receive four total hours, not four hours from each cleaning person.

Business model

Some companies will work hard to give you a detailed quote for your home up front, while others will lowball the quote and then upsell you on various services once they arrive. Customer reviews can be a great source for learning about such surprises.

Quality

Professional cleaning services can vary in the type of cleaning quality they provide. It’s essential to ask for and check references so you can get an understanding of whether you’re hiring a top-notch company or one that does the bare minimum.

Specialty services

Are any specialty services or products a part of the quote? Perhaps you mentioned window cleaning, which is generally an extra charge.

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