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Cleaners hourly rate

38 replies

GetawayCar · 08/07/2024 07:26

Both me and DH work full time, long days and we have two DC age 8 and 12 and weekends are increasingly taken up with their extra curricular sporting activities. I’m tired of living in a house that’s rarely properly clean so looking to employ a cleaner. We’ve had a few quotes and they vary a lot. I’ve no idea what going rates are.

Our house is tidy, we don’t have much in the way of ornaments or clutter (well we have a ton of clutter but a lot of storage too so it’s all good until you start opening drawers and cupboards). We just don’t have time to properly clean the bathroom for example) We just about manage to hoover and flick a duster round the living room. Things like the shower screen have that translucent layer of lime scale, that sort of thing. It’s a 3 bed small semi, one bathroom.

We are in Kent, on the coast (if that makes a difference to pricing) and most cleaners have suggested two hours a week which sounds fair, but the rates vary from £15ph to £25ph which is a huge variation. They all said they use their own stuff.

Whats a reasonable rate for a cleaner (not in London). I’ve no idea.

OP posts:
patsy999 · 08/07/2024 07:28

I pay £16 an hour.

ohthejoys21 · 08/07/2024 07:29

I pay £15 ph

DilemmaDelilah · 08/07/2024 07:54

I pay £15ph (South west) but I think that's a pretty good price for round here. Self employed cleaner... agencies are more expensive.

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U53rName · 08/07/2024 07:57

£27 midlands

Purplecatshopaholic · 08/07/2024 07:59

U53rName · 08/07/2024 07:57

£27 midlands

£27 an hour? Wowsers. I pay £15 an hour (Central Scotland).

Revelatio · 08/07/2024 08:00

£15 in London.

SunmerSazz · 08/07/2024 08:06

£50 for 3 hours

BruceAndNosh · 08/07/2024 08:10

Mine has just gone up to £20 an hour. Apparently she has lost clients because of this increase. I kept her on as she's a very good cleaner
(Affluent South East suburb, not quite London)

DBD1975 · 08/07/2024 08:12

I would suggest buying a robotic hoover instead. Thought about it for a long time and was very sceptical but seriously life changing. Cannot recommend highly enough, looked in to getting a cleaner prior to the hoover but seriously £20 per hour (cash in hand) was more than I was prepared to pay. Getting the house hoovered daily is amazing, I got the hoover on sale so brought 2 in the end for upstairs and downstairs. This gives me back the time and energy to clean my own bathroom which I would rather do than get someone else in to clean.

Mrsknowitall · 08/07/2024 08:15

I charge £17.50 per hour I’m in Essex

Yippiddy · 08/07/2024 08:20

U53rName · 08/07/2024 07:57

£27 midlands

That seems crazy high.
I pay £15. I've had the same cleaner for 15 years and I think she is a really great person. She comes in two or three times a week.
I've never had a single issue with her.

U53rName · 08/07/2024 08:21

Purplecatshopaholic · 08/07/2024 07:59

£27 an hour? Wowsers. I pay £15 an hour (Central Scotland).

I know. She’s not even great, TBH. But we need someone to show up reliably and help us take the pressure off, as we both work FT and can’t do it all ourselves. Previous cleaners have arrived 15 minutes late/left 15 minutes early (so 30 minutes lost each session), been on their phone the entire time, not been reliable, etc. So our current lady does a half decent job and shows up every week, on time, and works the entire time. What can you do?

Wigeon · 08/07/2024 08:23

We pay £17 per hour - Hertfordshire but just inside the M25.

GetawayCar · 08/07/2024 08:29

Hmm the one I like best is £20/hour but that seems a lot more than the average!

We can whip the hoover and a duster round, it’s more bathrooms and wiping front of cupboards, sinks etc.

OP posts:
mrsnjw · 08/07/2024 16:08

£16 per hour

ObliviousCoalmine · 08/07/2024 16:40

Mine went up to £20ph in April. That's absolutely the max I'm willing to pay, if it goes up I'll either cut the hours down (maybe every other week rather than weekly) or find a different cleaner.

Popfan · 08/07/2024 16:53

£15 an hour in the SE

Movinghouseatlast · 08/07/2024 16:54

I'm in Cornwall. I've been charged £35 an hour for a deep clean because it's 'more physically demanding'- all I asked her to do was clean the fronts of the kitchen cupboards!!!

My last cleaner was £20 an hour and brilliant but she was very unreliable, let me down 6 times then disappeared

Current one is £15 an hour but spends time on the phone, eating her lunch', trying to talk to me when I'm working, drinking a cup of tea I've made her very slowly...

I can't seem to find someone who will turn up regularly, clean for 4 hours and go home when they have finished. I'm actually a cleaner myself, hence why I want someone to do my house, shoemakers children and all that.

Thedayb4youcame · 08/07/2024 23:58

Yippiddy · 08/07/2024 08:20

That seems crazy high.
I pay £15. I've had the same cleaner for 15 years and I think she is a really great person. She comes in two or three times a week.
I've never had a single issue with her.

I clean in the Midlands. People will pay well here for a good, reliable cleaner.

Thedayb4youcame · 09/07/2024 00:17

In all honesty, have any of those who quoted for cleaning actually said they can fit you in? I used to know of the owners of several cleaning companies in Kent, all of the stupidly busy with work.

Thus, no matter what the price, you may have to go with whoever can fit you in.

I do not charge per hour, I charge for attending and doing the work. It is how I've always done it, but that's not to say I don't continually evaluate my work to ensure I am charging enough on a hourly basis.

If you've never had a cleaner before, it can sometime be difficult on both sides to manage expectations, so keep an open mind with whoever you go with.

When I first started cleaning, back in very late 2003, I had one client who was not overly impressed with her first clean. I was so embarrassed, yet I knew I'd worked very hard. She'd never had a cleaner before, and I was very new to doing it as a professional.

I went again the following week, and this time she was gushing afterwards. I carried on going every week for over three years in the end. I think it was just not knowing what to expect on her part, and seeing after two visits that it was all coming together.

But it made me ever so wary of taking on clients who've never had cleaners before, and it's something I always, always ask, unless they tell me they've had a cleaner already. If they haven't had a cleaner, I always talk them through what to expect and to trust in the process.

Conversely, if they've had cleaners before and I can find out why they left / were asked to stop going, then I can avoid doing the same thing. Reliability (or rather lack of same) is a massive complaint and always has been about other cleaners and cleaning services.

I've also had many a quirky compliment. For example, I've been told "I don't know what you do when you come here, but please don't ever stop coming and doing it".

Also, "I didn't know what you did until that day you couldn't come and do it".

And the strangest one of all (and yet I could understand it) came from someone who had a house that was in need of a huge amount of cleaning, which -room by room, over many weeks- was all done, and then it was a case of doing the whole house generally each visit.

However, after about a year or so, the lady told me she loved it when I'd been, but now that everywhere is clean and and I kept it clean, there was no 'wow' factor anymore, saying that it just always felt the same, unlike when she was thigh-deep in dust and cobwebs, and every time she came home from work after I'd been, she was blown away by the difference of each room, or at least part of the room I'd cleaned.

She also said that she thoroughly missed her bag of oddments that I used to gather - anything lying about the house (under furniture, behind radiators, etc, and my goodness there was plenty of it) I used to put into a small bag, and apparently she loved sitting down of an evening and going through it! Once the house was tidy, there was nothing to bag up.

Good luck going forward.

HTH

justjuggling · 09/07/2024 00:43

£20 per hour. South Coast.

thehousewiththesagegreensofa · 09/07/2024 00:46

My cleaner has just increased her rate to £18 per hour. SE, just outside the M25.

TheRealKatnissEverdeen · 09/07/2024 00:56

I pay £80 for 4.5 to 5 hours. I use her fortnightly.

JockTamsonsBairns · 09/07/2024 01:09

I pay £19p/h, which is relatively pricey for Yorkshire.
But, I don't grudge a penny of it. She's reliable, and does a brilliant job.

My previous cleaner was £15p/h, but she sapped every last drop of energy I had.
The extra £4 an hour is money well spent!

emmetgirl · 09/07/2024 08:33

£17ph Cornwall
She brings all her own cleaning stuff and doesn't use anything of ours.
Worth her weight in gold!

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