£86 for a 3 hour clean

[nonwonderwoman]

AIBU but when did cleaners start charging so much. It used to be £10 and hour back in 2014 when we got out first Cleaner.its then gone up to £15 an hour since I moved to a new area in Surrey. Pricey but I thought, fine.

Just been quoted a whopping 23.50 per person per hour plus VAT which comes to about £86. That's mad right?

That is pretty expensive. We’ve never paid more than £13 an hour.

You could always do it yourself !

Three hours costs me £33. I’m in Wiltshire.

Thats a stupid price.

I would shop about

For £86 I definitely would do it myself. In fact, if that's the going rate I'm going to quit my job in London and start a local cleaning company!

My cleaner is £12 an hour. I live in Lancashire though

Is it with a cleaning company (in which case you're also paying for office staff, transport costs if they serve a large area etc)? Much better to pay someone directly if you can find a personal recommendation.

That is completely crazy. I assume it’s through an agency? I used to pay £10per hour. Now slightly more - £11.50 per hour. And this is in London. I provide all the cleaning products.

You could always do it yourself !

Of course she could. Everyone who employs cleaners could, and then there would be a lot of people out of a job. People could do their own decorating, or their own gardening, or clean their own windows, or their own cars. But sometimes people choose to pay for a service to make their lives easier, and the OP was just querying whether this was the current going rate for that service.

I was quoted £63 for a 3 hour clean but that was with an agency who charged a £30 agency fee anytime you booked with them.
I'm in West Yorkshire

Seems pretty expensive
We used to pay £30 for 2 hours with a company - very reliable, brought all equipment and was fully insured.
Then we moved and got a local lady who was less reliable as she worked on her own, but again brought all equipment / supplies & was insured £30 for 3hrs
She retired so our latest cleaner was £30 for 3hrs, insured but we provided all equipment & supplies. Unfortunately we had to let her go as although she was very nice she wasn't very good at cleaning so we are currently looking again.
We are in the NE though so it's usually a bit cheaper up here.

Jeez I'm in the wrong business if that is now the going rate to clean. I'm sure you can find it cheaper than that. Shop around for other quotes.

Through an agency, I got quoted £66 total for a 3 hour clean, all in.

I found a cleaner through a recommendation who isn’t as part of an agency. She’s £11 ph all in, she’s managed to get everything down to 2 hrs including ironing. This is city centre Bristol.

Expensive! I'm on the edge of West London, my Polish cleaner charges £12 per hour, I supply the cleaning products of her choice such as Viakal. She started off doing 3 hours per week, but down to 2 now. My children have left home so my house isn't that messy. She does the heavy duty stuff like shower and bath cleaning hoovering, changes the linen on the beds, it's all gleaming after her stint.

That’s ridiculous

I've been out for quotes on a fortnightly clean and three companies came back very similar -£80-£85. I tried one of them but they weren't very good (dust left on bathroom floor, sinks not cleaned etc). so I cancelled our arrangement. Good cleaners than don't cost the Earth are like gold dust!

I live in Surrey and pay £40 for 3 hours.

That sounds expensive- my cleaner charges £12.50/ hr and we’re based in London. It might be worth joining an online local neighbourhood group to ask for some recommendations.

yep, "£23.50 per person per hour" is really expensive.

That’s more than my pay for a whole day!

I pay £10 an hour to the cleaners and £2.50 to the agency. That price is ridiculous.

Yeah, that's a huge amount. Depends how much you need the help! I got a quote for a "whole house" deep clean (not a large house) - probably 6 hours, maybe 7 or 8 at a push if you emptied every cupboard and they wanted £160!

Agencies always charge more.

I would expect to pay £12-14 an hour.

billysboy

You could always do it yourself !

Is that because the OP is a woman?

I think it depends upon what kind of service you would like really. If you want a fully managed service then that management has to be costed into their price.

They can only offer the service for what it costs plus a profit margin, so each company has to price according to their own 'cost of doing business' depending on what that is.

There is a strong market on the pricier side as long as the company can back up with a quality and full management.

There is also a strong market for the cheaper side of the industry but they are two separate things.

Actually, not just two, there are very many different business models within the domestic cleaning industry and each have to price what THEY need to deliver what they offer. You just have to choose the one that offers all that YOU would like that falls within your budget.

I also wouldn't assume that a cleaning agency will be better. I got a professional clean done when I moved out of a rental once (it was part of the rental agreement tat it had to be professionally cleaned). It was bloody expensive and the cleaners were obviously totally untrained (they obviously cleaned the kitchen floor then trod all over it while it was still wet etc.)