There are many ways to give an accurate residential cleaning estimate, but the most important part of an estimate is having all the proper information from your potential customer to give an accurate bid.

Basic Questions:

1. How frequent will you be cleaning?
2. Does your customer have pets and if so, how many?
3. How long has it been since their home was cleaned? 
4. What type of floor surfaces?

After getting that info from the customer you can start putting together a mental idea of what things you will have to factor in your estimate.

I will tell you why these 4 questions have always been part of my pre-clean survey.

1. How frequent lets you know how long the job will take most monthly accounts take more time where biweekly jobs are less time frequency really determines time.

2. Pets are loved by all of us, but their dander takes more time to get off floors, furniture etc. again it is a time factor question.

3. How long since it’s been clean tells you an idea, without seeing it, of what you may be walking into. A tip I have is to ask on a scale of 1 to 10 ten being the worse where would they say their home falls. This determines the cost for initial cleaning.

4. The types of floors you clean are important. I am using a 2000 sq ft home as an example here. Consider the process to provide the service with all wood floors you must sweep and mop whereas, with carpets floors it’s a one step process vacuum only which takes a lot less time.

Number 4 is most important because if you add in, pets and the house rated as a 7 in how dirty it is and it has wood floors that 2000 square feet house will take 1 person 4 ½.

I have always sent at least 2 people to an assignment which turns the above job into a 2 hour and 10-minute job. Bringing more staff means you can clean more homes per day and provide a great customer experience and gain repeat business.

Bedrooms and bathrooms also play a factor in your cleaning estimate but these 4, will help you to identify the key things you need to ask when preparing an estimate for your customer.

 The cost for the above job would be $290.00 for the first cleaning and $180.00 biweekly and $210.00 on a monthly schedule.

Now go and take a bite out of grime!