As a business owner you need to be costing into your price just for the labour cost around £10 per hour if you are to pay the staff at min wage because you have to factor in all statutory rights such as holiday pay, pension sick, pay etc so this is what the labour factor will cost you to provide.
Then you need to pay for travel costs, equipment, supplies, marketing, accountancy, insurance and all other business costs that you will find you have.
Because good cleaning staff are hard to come by you will have to pay them more than min wage to cover all costs and still leave yourself with a wage and a small profit margin. You ourself will work around the clock to manage a business with staff, your own wage will not be anywhere near min wage.
So realistically £15 per hour is just about doable to charge, when you hit the VAT threshold like us you then have to add 20% to this so we now have to charge £18 per hour for our service inc VAT. Luckily there is still a strong market for a good detailed service at this price but margins are still very tight at our end and it is not a get-rich industry,
Solo cleaners who don;t need to factor in staff costs still need to remember they are self employed so £10 an hour is only just min wage in real terms then you take off your travel costs, insurance, admin time and costs plus all your other costs of doing business and cancellations will cost you money. £10 is NOWHERE near the min wage for you.
You need to charge a LOT more to make it work especially if you grow with staff. It's a whole lot of work and hassle. I love it, and I also used to love it when I was the solo cleaner, but it's not for everyone and most do give up once they realise the effort involved in keeping the wheels of the business turning and everything running fluently. and this is why cleaners are in short supply in most areas.
You have to charge a lot more than you think and once they realise this a lot just give up at that point deciding it's not worth the hassle for what you are left with pay-wise.