Two cleaners in aqua polos working through an open-plan living room, one vacuuming and one wiping down a side table

Guide · Homes and hosting

An hourly rate tells you
almost nothing on its own.

What actually sits inside a house cleaning price, why the first clean costs more than the ones after it, and how to compare two cleaners when one quotes by the hour and the other by the job.

Get an instant quote

Local team
A local team right across the Northern Rivers and the Tweed
They stay
98% of our clients stay with us
Agency trusted
Preferred supplier for real estate agencies in the region
Over 100 clients
Over 100 local homes, hosts and businesses

House cleaning is priced either by the hour or as a fixed price per visit, and in both cases the number that matters is the cost of one visit at a stated scope, not the rate on its own. A low hourly rate over more hours is not a saving, and a fixed price with half the tasks in it is not a bargain.

TLB Cleaning cleans homes across the Northern Rivers, the Tweed and the Southern Gold Coast, on weekly, fortnightly and monthly schedules as well as one-off. What follows is how the pricing in this category actually works, whoever you end up booking.

Hourly or fixed price

Both are honest models. They fail in different directions, and the one that suits you depends on how predictable your house is.

Two ways the same clean gets sold	Hourly	Fixed price per visit
What you are buying	A block of time	An agreed list of tasks
What happens if the house is worse than usual	It costs more, or less gets done	It takes longer at the same price
What happens if it is better than usual	You pay less	You pay the same
Easy to compare between cleaners	Only if the hours are also quoted	Yes, if the task list is published
Suits	A one-off, or a house that varies a lot week to week	A regular clean on a house in steady condition
The way it goes wrong	Slow work is rewarded	A scope nobody wrote down is argued about later

Neither model is the trick. The trick is a rate with no scope attached, or a fixed price with no task list attached. Ask for the missing half in both cases and the two become directly comparable.

What moves the price

Six variables, in roughly the order they change a quote by.

Frequency, more than anything

A weekly clean of the same house costs less per visit than a monthly one, because a house cleaned weekly is never far from clean. A month of build-up is a genuinely bigger job than a week of it.

This is the one lever most people do not realise they are pulling. Stretching a fortnightly clean to monthly rarely halves the annual cost, because each visit grows.

Size, but mostly wet areas

Bathrooms and kitchens carry most of the detail work in a regular clean. A fourth bedroom adds a floor and a set of surfaces; a third bathroom adds a screen, a base, a toilet and a fan.

That is why two houses with the same floor area can quote differently, and why bedroom count alone is a poor guide.

How lived-in it is

Children, pets, a home office, people working from home five days a week. All of it is completely normal and all of it makes a house a bigger job than the floor plan suggests.

Nobody is judging the state of your house. It just has to be priced honestly, and a quote given without seeing it is a quote that may move.

Pets, specifically

Hair is the reason. It travels further than dust, it sits in upholstery and skirtings rather than on them, and it adds vacuuming time to every room rather than to one.

Say so up front. A cleaner who finds out on arrival has to either run over or under-do it, and neither is what you wanted.

What is actually on the list

Inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows, wall spot cleaning, changing the beds, the balcony. Some cleaners include some of these and almost nobody includes all of them in a standard visit.

This is where two prices that look far apart usually turn out to be for two different jobs.

Where you are, and when

Travel time is real in a region this spread out. A hinterland property forty minutes off the highway is a different proposition from a unit in town, and most cleaners price it in somewhere.

School hours on a weekday are the least expensive slot almost everywhere. Weekends and late afternoons are the ones everybody wants.

The first clean costs more, and it should

Almost every cleaner charges more for the first visit to a new house, or quotes a separate initial clean before the regular schedule starts. It is not an upsell. A house that has never been professionally cleaned, or has not been for a while, carries a backlog that a normal visit has no time in it for: the oven, the tracks, the skirtings, the grout, the tops of things.

Once that backlog is cleared, a regular visit is maintaining a standard rather than reaching one, and it fits the hours it is priced for. A cleaner who charges you the ongoing rate for the first visit is either going to run badly over or leave the backlog exactly where it was.

The version to be wary of is the one nobody mentions until the invoice arrives. Ask before you book, and ask whether the higher first visit is a one-off or a separate deep clean quoted on its own.

How we price ours

It depends on the size of your place, its condition and how often we come. 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.

Whoever you book, the useful thing to ask is the same: what does one visit cost, and what is on the list for that visit. Two numbers without two lists cannot be compared.

Why one rate is half another

A cleaning rate is not wages. Out of it come insurance, superannuation, leave, workers compensation, equipment, chemicals, vehicle costs, travel time between jobs, training and the office hours that book you in and answer the phone. A rate that covers all of that cannot sit at the same number as one that covers none of it.

So when a rate looks remarkably low, the useful question is not whether the person is worth it. It is which of those things the rate is not paying for, and what that means for you if someone is hurt in your house, if something is damaged, or if the person who cleans your home each week has no cover when they are sick.

We employ our cleaners rather than subcontracting them, which is a cost decision as much as an ethical one and it is priced in. It is also why the same person turns up each visit, which is the thing most clients say they actually wanted.

Six questions that make two quotes comparable

None of them are awkward to ask, and any cleaner worth booking will have an answer ready.

Ask for cost per visit, not per hour

Then ask what is on the list for that visit. Those two facts make any two cleaners directly comparable, whichever model they price on.

Check the four usual extras

Inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows and changing the beds. Most standard visits exclude some of these, and it is where most price gaps hide.

Ask what the first visit costs

And whether it is a one-off higher rate or a separate initial clean. This is the most common billing surprise in the category and one question removes it.

Ask who turns up, and whether it is the same person

A rotating roster and a consistent cleaner are different products at similar prices. If continuity matters to you, it is worth asking before you book rather than after the third change.

Ask about insurance and employment

Whether the cleaner is employed or subcontracted, and what cover is in place. It costs nothing to ask and it tells you what the rate is actually made of.

Ask what happens when something is missed

Everyone misses something eventually. What separates cleaners is whether there is a number to call and somebody who answers it, not whether it never happens.

Get an instant quote

House cleaning costs: frequently asked questions

1. How much does house cleaning cost?

It is priced either by the hour or as a fixed price per visit, and the useful figure is the cost of one visit at a stated scope. Frequency moves it most, then the number of wet areas, then how lived-in the house is. Ask any cleaner for cost per visit plus the task list, and two quotes become comparable.

2. Is hourly or fixed price better?

Fixed price suits a regular clean on a house in steady condition, because you know what you are paying and the cleaner carries the risk of a bad week. Hourly suits a one-off, or a house that varies a lot. The problem is never the model, it is a rate with no scope or a price with no list.

3. Why is the first clean more expensive?

Because it clears a backlog rather than maintaining a standard. Ovens, tracks, skirtings, grout and the tops of things all take time a regular visit is not priced for. Once that is done, a normal visit fits its hours. Ask whether the higher first visit is a one-off rate or a separately quoted initial deep clean.

4. Does fortnightly cost less than weekly?

Less per year, usually, but not by half, because each visit is a bigger job. A weekly clean is never far from clean; a fortnightly one has fourteen days of living in it. If cost is the constraint, a shorter weekly visit sometimes beats a longer fortnightly one for the same annual spend.

5. Do I need to supply the products and equipment?

Usually not, and you should ask, because it changes what a rate means. A cleaner bringing their own vacuum, chemicals and cloths is carrying a real cost. One using yours is not, and the rate should reflect that. Either arrangement is fine as long as it is agreed before the first visit.

6. Does a cleaner cost more if I have pets?

Often a little, yes. Hair adds vacuuming time to every room rather than to one, and it sits in soft furnishings rather than on hard surfaces. It is not a penalty, it is just more work. Mention it when you ask for a quote so the price you are given is the price that holds.

Regular home cleaning

Ask us for cost per visit and the list.

Tell us the property, how often you want us and what state it is in. You get a price for a visit and the tasks that price covers.

See regular home cleaning

An hourly rate tells youalmost nothing on its own.