AIBU to wonder if I am being overcharged for cleaning?

I pay £26.40 an hour. That includes VAT which pushes it up but after cheaper, unreliable cleaners I decided to pay extra and go through a company. They bring equipment etc and do a great job but I know I pay more than others. If a cleaner is sick they send another one so it’s far more reliable. I’m in the south west.

Are they sending a team in for £100 per hour?
My cleaner sometimes doubles up with a friend, they do two hours instead of four.

I've just been quoted £27.50 per hour - NE Scotland. I really don't know if I can justify it. According to fb, £15 - £20 is the going rate locally.

So based on that, I'd say you aren't overcharging at all.

I live outer London and my cleaner charges £17 an hour. Your hourly rate is perfectly reasonable. What people don't think about is that you don't get paid for holiday or sick. I do pay my cleaner for these things at 50% of her usual rate. My friend paid her cleaner furlough during Covid. I am not sure why people seem to think self employed cleaners charge too much.

Ha- people would rather give you their husbands than their cleaners!!

I’m in the Midlands and pay £20 ph. It’s just gone up from £17.50 I think. They do a good job and are nice ladies so I don’t complain. I think £20 is fairly standard.

Company I use is £25 p/h for a deep clean, minimum 4 hours and £20 p/h for standard clean, no minimum time. Some other cleaners are available for £18 p/h so it looks like £18-20 is standard - Central Belt Scotland.

There was a recent thread where OP (me!) was roasted for querying being quoted £22 ph for a regular clean in not London, not SE.

I pay £25 per hour. I feel it is expensive but it is the price in my area. I feel I’m overcharged because they don’t stay the full time and much is left undone but I have tried a number of different cleaners and various situations. It is pretty much all the same. Once I get really pissed off, I move on to the next.

I've had a cleaner a couple of times in the last year where I am (midlands) and they've charged £20ph. If I was regular, it would be £19ph. When I was looking around for someone to do a one off clean, another company said they would have to visit and would only quote for the whole house (5 bed). They visited and then quoted £475 for 7 hours!!!

Most of the other regular clean regular rates I've seen have been £18 minimum and for that price, I'll just do it myself.
£20 in London seems like a bargain.

Most cleaners are self employed and will not get sick, holiday pay or pension entitlement. Will also have to fund travel and insurance. Can also get notice immediately. Lot to be said for having a contract.

Massive difference between employment and self employment. You get paid holidays, paid sick leave, generous employer pension contributions, don't have to buy your own equipment/materials, don't have costs of insurance, accountant, etc etc. You're comparing apples and pears. I always tell clients that minimum hourly rate for being self employed is 2X NMW rates to account for all the unchargeable time, overheads, lack of paid leave etc etc. £25 is effectively the bare minimum to make self employment worthwhile.

£15 is fair. I work for the NHS is a very stressful job for minimum wage!!!

We pay £24 an hour which I’m happy with as they are brilliant!

@ofcolitasI used to recommend my cleaner, she ended up doing loads of neighbours. Went home after Brexit

The thing is, once you've got yourself a good, reasonably priced cleaner/gardener/window cleaner/ etc the first thing you do is NEVER recommend them to anyone. Recommending them means they are less available to you and more likely to increase their prices. As a private carer I was always in demand, but the only time families recommended me was when their loved one was dead 😀

We are between zone 1-2 and have a cleaner for the communal stairs/hall. She is insured, invoices (not cash in hand) and charges £20 /hr.

In in North London and payy cleaner £17.50 per hour.

…and in answer to your question, I found my cleaner by asking for personal recommendations (rather than companies touting for work) on a local facebook group, maybe ask there?

We pay £20 an hour, in the SE, but not London. I think my cleaner is worth every penny!

Can anyone recommend me their £15 cleaner please?

My cleaner gets 15ph. We need her for more hours but she's fully booked out so we just have 3 hrs every 2 weeks. It's not enough time to do any bedrooms!

The only thing I would ask is can you live on what you earn comfortably and keep busy.

I was ridiculously cheap when I was a gardener, but had few overheads and as a workaholic I was happy to be constantly busy.

There's a fb ad today from a guy who took over a lot of business from me. Everyone was shocked when I warned the I was cheap. But no gardener should be advertising in June if you're OK and reasonably priced