Two cleaning companies quote the same three bedroom house in Southeast Portland. One says $45 an hour. One says $190 for the visit. Most people assume the hourly one is cheaper. Neither number means anything yet, because an hourly rate is not a price until you know how many cleaners are coming and how long they plan to stay.
We have been quoting Portland homes since 2005, and most of the confusion we hear on the phone is about pricing models rather than price. This is how the models work, what a minimum charge is for, why the first visit usually costs more than the ones after it, and the questions that make two quotes actually comparable.
Want the numbers rather than the mechanics? Our house cleaning cost page for Portland carries a price table by home size and frequency, a cost calculator, and every assumption behind the figures. This post is the companion to it: how a quote is actually built, and what to ask before you compare two of them.
The four ways a house cleaning job gets priced
Hourly
You pay for time. To turn an hourly rate into a price you need two more numbers: how many cleaners and how many hours. Ask which one the rate applies to. Some companies quote per cleaner per hour, so $45 an hour with two cleaners for three hours is $270. Others quote a crew rate, where $90 an hour covers the pair. Same work, same total, completely different sounding number over the phone.
Hourly puts the risk on you. If the house takes longer than expected, the bill grows. The upside is that you are not paying a padded estimate on an easy week.
Flat rate per visit
One price for the visit, whatever it takes. The risk sits with the company, which is why a flat quote normally comes after someone has seen the home or walked through a detailed set of questions about it. A flat rate given sight unseen over a two minute phone call is a guess, and guesses get revised on arrival.
Per room
A base charge plus a price per bedroom and per bathroom. It is fast to quote and easy to understand. The weakness is that rooms are not standard units. A guest room nobody enters and a home office with three desks and a cat tree both count as one room.
Square footage
Common with instant online quote forms, because square footage is a number you already know. Floor area predicts vacuuming time reasonably well. It predicts almost nothing about the parts of cleaning that take longest, which are surfaces, kitchens and bathrooms. A 1,400 square foot bungalow with two bathrooms and a heavily used kitchen takes longer than a 2,000 square foot condo with one of each.
What a minimum charge is and why it exists
Our minimum service charge is $133, with a two hour minimum visit. That number is not a floor price for a specific amount of cleaning. Minimums exist because arranging any visit carries fixed costs regardless of how small the job is, which is why nearly every cleaning company has one.
The practical effect matters when your place is small. A one bedroom apartment may not need two hours. You still pay for the two hour minimum. If you are comparing companies, ask every one of them for their minimum before you compare anything else. A lower hourly rate with a higher minimum can cost more on a small home than the reverse. Our Portland house cleaning price table shows where the minimum stops applying as a home gets bigger.
Why the first clean usually costs more
Recurring prices are built around maintenance. They assume the last clean was two or four weeks ago and the work is holding a line rather than moving it. The first visit to a home has no such assumption behind it, so most companies price it higher or sell it as a deep clean.
This is not a sales tactic, though it can be used as one. Soap scum, oven interiors, baseboards and window tracks accumulate on a timescale of months. A crew cannot do that backlog inside a normal maintenance visit without skipping the rest of the house. We recommend a deep clean about twice a year, and it costs extra on top of regular service. If a company quotes a first visit at the same price as every visit after it, ask what they plan to leave for later.
What changes a quote after someone sees the house
A quote given over the phone is based on what you described. These are the things that most often turn out to be different in person:
- Pets, especially shedding breeds, which change vacuuming time and floor work more than any other single factor.
- Surface count rather than floor area. Open shelving, collections, plants and countertop appliances all need lifting and replacing.
- Condition of grout, glass shower doors and oven interiors, which is a function of years rather than weeks.
- Clutter. Cleaners clean around objects. A kitchen table covered in mail is slower than an empty one.
- Stairs and multiple floors, which mean carrying equipment rather than rolling it.
- Parking. In parts of inner Portland there is no free spot within a reasonable carry.
The costs that sit outside the headline number
Two quotes can match to the dollar and still cost different amounts by the end of the year. Ours work like this, and we publish them so you have something to hold other quotes against.
- Parking fees, where we have to pay them, are added to your invoice.
- We take cash, personal or bank check, and online bank transfer through QuickBooks. The online transfer carries a 2.95% fee with a $1.25 minimum. We do not take credit cards, PayPal or Venmo.
- A failed online payment adds a $10 fee.
- One-time cleanings are due the day of service. Recurring clients pay on the day for the first two months, then within 7 days.
- Invoices over 30 days old carry a 5% late fee. Anything unpaid past two months goes to Columbia Collection Service.
- Cancelling inside 48 hours is charged at half the service. If the crew arrives and cannot get in, the full service is charged, so a reliable entry method is on you to provide.
- Tips are never required.
Ask any company you are considering for the same list. The cancellation and no-entry terms are the two that catch people out, and they are almost never on the pricing page.
Questions that make two quotes comparable
- Is the rate per cleaner or per crew, and how many people are coming?
- How long do you expect to be here, and what happens if it runs over?
- What is the minimum charge and the minimum visit length?
- Is the first visit priced differently, and what does the higher price buy?
- What is on the standard checklist, and what is an add-on?
- Are supplies and equipment included, or am I providing them?
- What are the cancellation, lockout and late payment terms in writing?
- Which payment methods do you take, and do any of them add a fee?
Answers to those eight turn an hourly quote and a flat quote into two numbers you can put side by side. Without them you are comparing formats, not prices. There is more on weighing companies against each other in our guide on how to compare house cleaning companies in Portland.
Where our pricing will not suit you
Worth saying before you spend time on a quote. Home cleaning visits run Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, so if you need evenings or weekends at home, we are the wrong call. Office cleaning is the exception and can be scheduled before or after the workday or on weekends.
Some things people expect to be inside a price are not inside ours at any price. We do not shampoo carpets, wash dishes, handle pet messes or body fluids, empty litter boxes, clean inside fireplaces, clean outdoor areas, move furniture over 20 pounds, or clean above 8 feet. Oven interiors need you to run the self-clean cycle a day or two beforehand.
And if a visit is not up to standard, we do not give discounts. We come back and touch up the areas concerned, and we need to hear about it within 24 hours. Some people would rather have money back. That is a fair preference, and it is worth knowing before you book rather than after.
If our terms are the kind you want in writing, ask us for a quote on house cleaning. It is free, there is no obligation, and you can see the full terms on the FAQ page or call 1 888 404 7930.
