Cleaning job profit calculator

Enter what you charge for a cleaning job and what it costs you to do it, and see what your business keeps after paying the crew. It also shows the price that reaches the margin you want. Free, no account needed.

Every number below is an example. Replace each one with your own.

Example. What the customer pays for this clean.
Example. How many people you send.
Example. Time each cleaner spends on site.
Example. What you pay each cleaner an hour.
Example. Products used on this job.
More costs and your target margin
Employer Social Security 6.2% plus Medicare 1.45% is 7.65%, per IRS Topic 751. Add workers' comp and unemployment taxes if you pay them. Use 0 for 1099 contractors.
Example. Priced at the 2026 IRS rate of 72.5 cents a mile.
Example. Use 0 for cash or check.
Example. Insurance, software, phone and marketing.
Example. Your overhead is split across these jobs.
Example. The share of the price you want to keep.

You keep

$65.39 per job

You keep $65.39 of $180 (36.3%). At 40 jobs a month that's $2,615.60 before income tax.

Margin
36.3%
Profit per cleaner-hour
$16.35

Costs on this job

Cleaner pay with payroll taxes
$77.51
Supplies
$8.00
Drive at 72.5¢ a mile
$8.70
Card fees
$5.40
Share of monthly overhead
$15.00
Total costs
$114.61

To keep 20%, charge at least $141.83.

Make a quote with this price

Opens the free cleaning quote generator, no account needed. Enter $180 as the price on the quote.

Start free. Once your crew clocks in and out of each job, EosLog's profitability report shows the margin on every job, with worker pay figured from the tracked hours. Reports come with the Crew and Shop plans.

Pricing a new customer from the size of the home instead? The cleaning price calculator builds a flat price from your hourly rate, and the cleaning pricing guide explains the rates and times behind it.

How the math works

Here is each line with the example job, a $180 clean.

  • Cleaner pay: cleaners × hours per cleaner × pay per hour, plus payroll taxes as a percent of that pay. 2 × 2 × $18 is $72.00, and adding 7.65% makes it $77.51.
  • Drive: round-trip miles × 72.5 cents, the 2026 IRS standard mileage rate. 12 miles come to $8.70. The IRS sets that rate each year from a study of the fixed and variable costs of running a vehicle.2
  • Card fees: the price × your card fee. 3% of $180 is $5.40.
  • Overhead share: monthly overhead ÷ jobs per month. $600 ÷ 40 is $15.00.
  • Profit: the price minus all of the costs above. $180 minus $114.61 leaves $65.39. The margin is profit ÷ price, 36.3%.
  • Profit per cleaner-hour: profit ÷ (cleaners × hours per cleaner). $65.39 ÷ 4 is $16.35, what the business earns for each hour a cleaner spends on site, on top of their pay.
  • Price for your target margin: every cost except card fees ÷ (1 minus the card fee minus the target margin), to the cent. The calculator checks it with the card fee rounded to the cent, so at that price or more the margin reaches your target. For a 20% margin that's $141.83.
  • Each month: profit per job × jobs per month, before income tax. $65.39 × 40 is $2,615.60.

Each cost is rounded to the cent, so the lines add up to the total. If you clean jobs yourself, count yourself as one of the cleaners at the wage you'd pay someone else. Then the profit is what the business earns on top of your pay.

Cleaning job profit questions, answered

How do I figure the profit on a cleaning job?

Start with the price the customer pays. Subtract what you pay your cleaners for their hours on site, plus your employer payroll taxes on that pay. Subtract the supplies and the cost of the drive. If the customer pays by card, subtract the processing fee. Then subtract a share of your monthly overhead, which is your overhead divided by the jobs you do in a month. What's left is your profit on the job. In the example above, a $180 clean with 2 cleaners on site for 2 hours each at $18 an hour costs $114.61 and leaves $65.39, a 36.3% margin.

Do I pay payroll taxes on cleaners I pay as 1099 contractors?

Usually not. The IRS says you generally do not have to withhold or pay any taxes on payments to independent contractors, so enter 0 in the payroll field for them. For employees, you withhold Social Security and Medicare taxes from their pay and pay a matching employer share: 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare, 7.65% of their wages in all. You also pay unemployment tax on employee wages. Whether a cleaner is a contractor or an employee depends on the whole working relationship, including how much right you have to direct and control the work, so read the IRS guidance before you pay anyone on a 1099.

How can I raise my margin without raising my price?

Start with the biggest cost in the breakdown. In the example it's cleaner pay, $77.51 of the $114.61 in costs, and it moves with time on site: if the same clean took 1.75 hours per cleaner instead of 2, you'd keep $75.08 instead of $65.39. Tighter routes shorten the drive. More jobs a month spread the same overhead thinner: at 50 jobs, $600 of overhead comes to $12.00 a job instead of $15.00. Change one number at a time in the calculator to see which change matters most for your business.

What should I charge to hit a profit margin?

Add up every cost except card fees, then divide by 1 minus your card fee and your target margin, both written as decimals. Card fees are a share of the price, so they rise with it, which is why they come out of the divisor instead. In the example, the costs before card fees come to $109.21, the card fee is 3% and the target is 20%: $109.21 divided by 0.77 is $141.83. At $141.83 the card fee is $4.25 and you keep $28.37, which is 20.0% of the price. The calculator rounds the card fee to the cent, the way the breakdown does, and shows the lowest price that still reaches your target.

Sources

  1. Internal Revenue Service, "Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates" (employer share: 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare).
  2. Internal Revenue Service, "IRS sets 2026 business standard mileage rate at 72.5 cents per mile, up 2.5 cents" (IR-2025-128, December 29, 2025). The rate is meant for figuring a tax deduction; here it stands in for what a business mile costs you.
  3. Internal Revenue Service, "Independent contractor (self-employed) or employee?" (what you withhold and pay for employees but generally not for independent contractors, and how the IRS tells the two apart).

This calculator is a planning tool, not tax advice. What you owe on payroll depends on your state and on how your cleaners are classified.