One of the big reasons I don t have a cleaning service is because they re so expensive. I called Molly Maid after I had my second baby and thought it would be great to have that just once a week for a little bit...well it turned out to be about $100 for our one bedroom apartment which at the time I could only afford once a month, and with a husband and two kids once a month didn t really help me. If I was you I d offer a very basic, come in, dust, clean mirrors and counter in bathroom $50 for a half hour, then offer a la carte cleanings ie full bathroom clean:mirror, tub, counter, toilet, floor for $30, full kitchen clean: sink, counter, top and front of fridge, windows ledges for say another $30, carpet clean: vacuum all carpet with baking soda sprinkle for $50 living room, hallway and one bedroom, another $15 per bedroom and another $20 for each flight of stairs a full on holiday clean or spring clean, including all of the above for $150 for a two bedroom, another $50 per extra bedroom.That way, your bread and butter, the $50 quick clean that really helps people out, first of all people can afford so they ll do it, second, if you re only spending 30-40 minutes in a home you can do a bunch of them in a day/evening. Then at Christmas time and in the spring when people need/want more done or for the people who can afford more you ll be rolling in the dough.One extra you might think to offer as well is an organizational help service. That seems to be really big now for people, doing their garage and spare rooms etc. You could go in, go through everything put them in boxes for garbage, charity and keep just like they do on tv and the people could choose to either help you or for you to leave the boxes there for them to go through and then take to the dump etc. This service would obviously be something you charge for by consultation only, it depends a lot on what the mess is.You could also offer a Teen Clean for all those parents who say clean your room or I m throwing it all out you can come it, throw away everything on the floor, vaccum, dust, make the bed, bob s your vacuum Another $50 clean for just one room! I d make people sign a waiver for this one though, or at least leave the garbage bags there for the teen to go through, you wouldn t want to throw away school books or anything.Try advertising some basic extras also that will set you apart from the rest ie, using green cleaning products, the baking soda sprinkle with every vaccum , maybe even at Christmas you can offer a bag of Christmas-y scented pot pouri sachet s for the kitchen and bath or something. Things that won t cost you a lot to offer but that will make people choose you over someone else.If I could have found someone to do that $50 clean for me back then, I d probably still be using them, and that was 5 years ago.
One of the first things I would like to see is, everything should be dusted from top to bottom. Open windows and do the window sills, dust blinds, dust the doors and all light fixtures including ceiling fans, vacuum all the edges of the house including registers inside if they are on the floor, vacuum the carpets and shake out throw rugs, shag the walls if too if they need it, sweep and mop the floors, wipe down the bathrooms and kitchen and make sure you sweep the front porch and shake out door mats for the final touch. Inside and outside windows are extra and appliances such as, cleaning oven and frig. are extra. Pricing is very hard unless you see the house but I would say start out at 100.00 for the 1 bedroom and kind of feel it out from there. I could see paying 400.00 for a large 4 bedroom. Hope this helped.
Most people will not pay more than $10 - 20/hr or a max of $150/day for a full day for a 4 BR house. If you clean mansions, including polishing brass door knobs and plates, polish the sterling silver, etc, know how to wash crystal stemware and crystal chandeliers properly, care for valuable antiques, etc, you can command $150-200/day.
