What to Charge for Cleaning Add-Ons (Price List)
Charge for cleaning add-ons individually, never bundled: interior windows run $70–$310 depending on count, while inside-fridge, inside-oven, laundry, baseboards, garage and carpet work are priced as extra crew time at your loaded rate (wage × 1.30) plus margin. Itemizing add-ons is how the quote pays for the extra hours.
Add-ons are where quotes bleed
The base clean gets priced carefully. Then the client says 'oh, and could you also do the inside of the fridge?' — and it gets thrown in free, because saying yes feels easier than naming a price on the spot.
Do that across a week of jobs and you've donated hours of crew time. Add-ons aren't favors; they're the highest-margin part of the business when they're priced — the client is already booked, there's no extra drive time, and the work is well-defined. The fix is a written price list: every extra has a number before anyone asks, so 'could you also…' gets answered with a price instead of a shrug.
The add-on price list
One add-on has a well-established market range; the rest are time-based. Here's the structure:
| Add-on | How to price it |
|---|---|
| Interior windows | $70 – $310, scaled by window count |
| Inside fridge | Timed job at your loaded rate — quick when maintained, slow when not |
| Inside oven | Timed job at your loaded rate — build-up varies more than any other add-on |
| Laundry (wash, dry, fold) | Per load — machine time isn't crew time, so don't price it hourly |
| Baseboards (whole home) | Scales with square footage — time it once per home size |
| Garage sweep-out | Quote after a photo — condition swings too wildly for a blind number |
| Carpet shampoo | Per room — and the price has to recover the equipment cost, not just labor |
For every timed add-on, the math is the same: minutes × loaded rate ÷ (1 − margin).
How to build your own numbers
The loaded rate is the key. If you pay $25/hour, the true cost is $32.50/hour after the 1.30 labor burden — and at a 25% target margin, the billable rate becomes about $43/hour ($32.50 ÷ 0.75). That's the rate every timed add-on gets priced at.
So the workflow is: run each add-on once, note the minutes, multiply by your billable rate, and round to a clean number. An add-on that takes half an hour of crew time should carry roughly half your billable hour — charge it as a fixed line item so the client sees a price, not a meter.
After a handful of jobs you'll have a personal price list grounded in your actual speed and your actual costs — which beats copying a competitor's list built on theirs.
Itemize — don't bundle
It's tempting to fold add-ons into one bigger number so the quote looks simple. Resist it. Bundling has three costs:
- The value disappears. A $380 'everything' quote looks expensive next to a $262 base quote — even if the competitor's total lands higher after extras.
- Scope creep gets free. When nothing is itemized, everything feels included, and disputes get settled at the front door in the client's favor.
- You can't negotiate without losing. With line items, a price-sensitive client drops the oven and keeps the clean. With a bundle, the only lever is discounting your base rate.
An itemized quote also quietly upsells: clients reading a clean list of extras add things they wouldn't have asked for. The line items do the selling.
Put the price list inside the quote
A price list only pays when it shows up on every quote, automatically. BidCalc carries your add-ons as itemized line items: set the price once — windows by count, oven, fridge, laundry, baseboards, carpet — and every quote lists exactly what's included and what each extra costs, with your margin protected underneath because each line is built on the loaded rate, not the wage.
The client gets a clear, professional breakdown; you get paid for every hour, including the ones that used to get donated at the door. Free to start.
Frequently asked questions
- What should I charge for interior window cleaning as an add-on?
- Interior windows typically run $70–$310 depending on the number of windows. Count them on the walkthrough or ask on the phone — it's the one add-on with a wide, count-driven range, so never quote it as a flat afterthought.
- How do I price add-ons that don't have a standard rate?
- Time them. Run each add-on once, note the minutes, then price it at your fully-loaded rate — wage × 1.30 for burden — divided by (1 − your target margin). After a few jobs you'll have a fixed price list built from your own numbers.
- Should I bundle add-ons into one price or itemize them?
- Itemize. A bundled 'everything included' number hides the value, invites scope creep, and makes the quote look expensive against competitors who itemize. Line items show the client what they're buying and let them trim cost without negotiating your base rate.
Price your next job in under a minute
BidCalc runs this math on your own rates and turns it into a branded quote — margin protected, costs private.