An empty room on moving-out day, bare floor and stripped walls, light through an uncurtained window

Guide · End of lease and tenancy

Nobody can price your bond clean
without knowing what state it is in.

What actually moves the price of an end of lease clean, in the order it moves it by. Plus the four things a low quote has almost always left out, and how to hold two quotes against each other.

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End of lease cleaning is priced per job rather than per hour by most cleaners in this region, and the quote is built from the size of the property, its condition, whether it is empty, and which extras the property needs. Two identical floor plans can be hundreds of dollars apart, and condition is usually the reason.

Anyone who gives you a firm price for a bond clean without asking about the oven, the carpets and whether the place is empty is either guessing or planning to revise it on the day. TLB Cleaning quotes against the task list published on our end of lease page, before the work starts.

What moves the price, in order

Six variables. They are listed by how much they actually change a quote, which is not the order most price pages use.

1. Condition, not size

The single biggest variable, and the one that surprises people. A well-kept four-bedroom house can quote under a neglected two-bedroom unit, because the hours go into build-up rather than into floor area.

This is why a real quote asks how long you have been there, whether there were pets, and whether anyone has cleaned the oven in that time.

2. Empty or furnished

A furnished property is roughly twice the work and it never finishes as well. Everything has to be moved, worked around and put back, and half the surfaces the inspection checks are underneath something.

Book the clean for the day after the truck. It is the least expensive single decision on this page.

3. The oven, and how bad it is

An oven that has been wiped through the tenancy is twenty minutes. An oven that has not been touched in three years is a job of its own, and on a fixed-price quote it is the item most likely to be re-priced when the cleaner sees it.

Send a photo of the inside of it when you ask for a quote. It is the most useful photo you can send.

4. Bathrooms and wet areas

Bathroom count moves a bond clean price more than bedroom count does, because a bathroom is dense detail work — screen, grout, base, drain, fan, toilet — and a bedroom is mostly floor.

A three-bedroom, one-bathroom house and a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house are not the same job.

5. The extras the property needs

Carpet steam cleaning, exterior windows, balconies, garages, wall washing beyond spot cleaning, pest control. Each is quoted separately by nearly every cleaner, including us.

They are the reason two quotes for "the same job" can be far apart. One has included them and one has not.

6. Timing and access

A clean squeezed into the last afternoon before a handover, on a weekend, at the end of the month, in a building with one lift and a loading dock booking, costs more than the same clean on a quiet Tuesday.

The end of the month is peak in this region for exactly the reason you would expect. Book earlier and you have more to negotiate with.

Why one quote is half the other

Almost every large gap between two bond clean quotes comes from one of these six rows, not from one cleaner being greedy.

What to check before you compare two numbers	A complete quote	A low quote
A written scope of works (You can see which tasks the number covers)
Carpet steam cleaning	Named as included or excluded	Usually silent, and usually not included
The oven	Priced after asking about its condition	Priced as a line item, re-priced on the day
Exterior windows and balconies	Named either way	Assumed to be out of scope without saying so
Who turns up (And whether they are the person you spoke to)	An employed team, briefed on the scope	Whoever the platform assigned this morning
What happens if the agent comes back	A stated policy you can read before you book	A guarantee badge, with the terms elsewhere

If you are comparing two quotes, do not compare the numbers. Compare the task lists, and add the missing items to the lower one before you decide. Very often that is the entire difference.

How we price ours

It depends on the size of the property and the condition it's left in. That's why we quote rather than publish a flat rate that would be wrong for most homes. Tell us the basics and you'll have a price back quickly, with no obligation attached to it.

The quote is built against the published task list rather than against a guess, and it comes before the work does. If something turns up on the day that changes the job, you hear about it before it is done and not on the invoice.

The lowest quote is sometimes the most expensive one

A bond clean is one of the few purchases where a bad outcome costs more than the job did. If the clean is rejected, the usual sequence is that the agent has it re-done at a rate nobody negotiated and takes it from your bond, and you are now out both amounts. The gap between the lowest quote and a complete one is routinely smaller than a single re-clean.

That is not an argument for the most expensive quote either. It is an argument for the quote you can read. Ask for the task list, check the four usual omissions against it, and pick on the basis of what is actually being done.

How to get a quote that holds on the day

Six things to tell whoever is quoting. All of them protect you from a price that changes when the van arrives.

Say whether it will be empty

It changes the price more than almost anything else, and a quote given for an empty property and delivered on a furnished one gets revised on the day. Say which it is.

Photograph the oven

Open the door and take one photo of the inside. It is the item most often re-priced on arrival and the one a photo settles instantly.

Count the wet areas, not the bedrooms

Bathrooms, ensuites, separate toilets and the laundry. That count moves a bond clean quote more than the bedroom count does.

Ask about carpets explicitly

Whether they are included, what method is used, and whether it is booked for after the clean. It is the most common gap between two quotes in this category.

Give the real handover date

Not the date you hope for. A clean booked with a day of slack in front of the inspection can be finished properly; one booked for the morning of cannot be redone if something goes wrong.

Ask for it in writing, against a list

A number in a text message is not a quote you can compare or hold anyone to. A number attached to a task list is.

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About bond back guarantees

Almost every national platform in this category leads with a bond back guarantee, and it is worth understanding what is usually behind the badge.

In nearly every case the guarantee is a re-clean commitment, not a money commitment: if the agent lists something from the agreed scope, the cleaner returns within a stated window and fixes it. That is a genuinely useful thing to be offered. It is not, however, a promise that your bond will be returned, because no cleaner controls what an agent writes in a report or what a tribunal decides.

So read the terms rather than the badge. The questions worth asking are: how long is the window, does it cover only the items that were in the original scope, and do you have to notify the cleaner before you respond to the agent. A cleaner who answers those three plainly is offering you something real.

We do not advertise a bond back guarantee, for the reason above. What we do offer is set out on the end of lease page, in the same words we would use on the phone.

End of lease cleaning costs: frequently asked questions

1. How much does end of lease cleaning cost?

It is quoted per property rather than sold at a list price, because condition moves it more than size does. The quote is built from the property’s size, how it has been kept, whether it will be empty, how many wet areas there are, and which extras the place needs. Ask for the quote against a written task list so you can compare it to another one.

2. Why are two quotes for the same house so far apart?

Usually because one includes carpet steam cleaning, exterior windows or the oven and the other does not, and neither says so on the front page. Add the missing items to the lower quote before comparing. Very often that closes the whole gap, and sometimes it reverses which one is lower.

3. Is a bond clean more expensive than a deep clean?

Generally yes, for the same property. A deep clean is measured against a baseline you set; a bond clean is measured against someone else’s checklist and includes work a deep clean quotes separately, notably inside the oven and inside every cupboard. The two are different jobs at different standards, not the same job at two prices.

4. Does it cost more if the property is still furnished?

Yes, and by a lot. A furnished bond clean is roughly twice the work, because every surface has to be moved around rather than simply cleaned, and it still does not finish as well. Booking the clean for the day after the removal truck is the single least expensive decision available to you.

5. Do I need carpet steam cleaning as well?

It depends on your agreement, your state and the condition of the carpet. It is quoted separately by nearly every cleaner, so ask for it with the main quote rather than after the inspection. If it is being done, book it for after the clean rather than before, or the carpet is walked on damp all day.

6. What happens if the agent is not satisfied?

That depends on what the cleaner has committed to before you booked, which is why it is worth reading. Most offer a return visit within a stated window for items that were in the original scope. None of them can promise what an agent will write in a report, so treat a plain re-clean policy as the useful thing and a guarantee badge as the thing to read the terms of.

End of lease and bond cleaning

Get the quote and the list together.

Tell us the property, the handover date and whether it will be empty. You get a price and the task list it is priced against, before anybody starts.

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Nobody can price your bond cleanwithout knowing what state it is in.