How Much to Charge for a Deep Clean (Deep Clean Multiplier)

What makes a deep clean different

A standard clean maintains an already-clean home: surfaces, floors, bathrooms, kitchen, trash. A deep clean goes after everything a standard visit skips — baseboards, inside the oven and fridge, under furniture, grout, window tracks, blinds, cabinet fronts, detailed dusting.

That means significantly more time and effort for the same square footage. Pricing a deep clean at your standard rate is one of the fastest ways to work twice as hard for the same pay.

The deep clean multiplier: 1.5–2×

The industry rule of thumb is that a deep clean costs 1.5 to 2 times a standard clean of the same home. On a per-square-foot basis, standard cleans run about $0.10–$0.20/sq ft and deep cleans about $0.18–$0.25/sq ft.

Use the low end (1.5×) for a home that's in decent shape but overdue, and the high end (2×) for heavy build-up, neglected kitchens and bathrooms, or a first-time client whose condition you can't verify in advance.

Worked example

If your standard price for a 3-bed, 2-bath home is $262, a deep clean of the same home lands at:

• 1.5× → ≈ $393
• 2× → ≈ $524

The cleanest way to get there is to price the standard job correctly first (labor × 1.30 burden + overhead, divided by 1 − your margin), then apply the multiplier. That keeps your margin intact — the extra hours are already covered because you scaled the whole cost, not just the price.

First-time cleans are usually deep cleans

Almost every new client should start with a deep clean or a first-visit premium, even if they ask for 'just a standard.' You're inheriting however long the home has gone without professional cleaning, and you have no history to estimate from.

Pricing the first visit at 1.5–2× protects you from the classic trap: quoting a low recurring rate on a home that actually needs hours of catch-up work. Once the home is at a maintainable baseline, drop to your recurring rate.

Let the calculator apply the multiplier

BidCalc has the deep-clean and first-visit multipliers built in. Pick 'Deep' and it scales the whole cost — labor, burden and overhead — so your target margin holds automatically, then shows the client-ready price. No mental math on the doorstep, no underpricing the hardest jobs.

Try it free and price your next deep clean in seconds.