AIBU to wonder if I am being overcharged for cleaning?

[2026baby]

So I am a cleaner in London and charge £20 per hour. Whenever a new client gets in contact they seem to think I am ridiculously expensive, they always try to negotiate and lately I have been refused work based on my hourly rate.

I am currently heavily pregnant so not working but also not coping with my own housework so thought let me get some help in! I didn't think I was cheap so was willing to pay someone else around £20 too (perhaps more even!) and thought that was reasonable.

So far I have been quoted £200 for a basic bathroom clean that should take 2 hours at the most, £350 for exterior window cleaning (I live in a flat and have 4 windows, all accessible from the inside....) and the minimum price per hour seems to be £25 for individual cleaners and £30 if a company!

Is this normal?! Am I wildly undercharging?! Where do I find clients who are willing to pay these prices?

And more importantly where do I find the cheaper cleaners that my clients claim they can get?! Or at least someone charging similar to me!

We are zone 4-5 and it’s around £15/20 an hour here. You can get £15 if you post local mums Facebook group but the quality isn’t great

As a cleaner I am inclined to think similarly. Having a cleaner is a luxury and if I wasn't heavily pregnant and struggling to clean myself, I wouldn't have even considered hiring one. The high quotes sent to me did exactly what you said and I just ended up cleaning the bathroom the best I could and will live with it not being perfection for now rather than pay £45 per hour etc!

Paid £15 an hour, 6 years ago
She would make drinks and eat her lunch that she had with her (in my time) amd then sometimes leave her baby with me to keep an eye on while she cleaned

She was great and worth it

my window cleaner has just increased to £21

@2026babyIve used Fantastic services for a bit, I found the cleaners really hit & miss.

We are in Hampshire (not a posh part) and pay £20ph

It's not a big company or anything

£20 an hour seems cheap for London.
If the OP is always busy then put the price up to £22.

I am a cleaner in London. I charge between £15 and £20 an hour most of the time but might charge someone in need as little as £10ph. Family homes where lots of people are using all communal rooms usually warrant more than say a couple. Some families are messier than others too. There is no way I could fairly charge everyone the same price, even if I excluded the "charity" work i do for £10ph (I do free cleans too, it's just most people insist on paying something)

I've done a quote this week for £180 to deep clean someone's bathroom. I wonder if it is you! Some things to say, though.

• it will not be taking 2 hours. There is lots of stuff in there to move, sort and put back.

• there are some things that haven't been cleaned for a long time properly, the shower glass will need scraping, limescale build up under taps and knobs, tub is embedded with dirt and will need a scrub to get it back

• all the books and crannies need a good scrub and will need to sit with some sort of cleaner to reduce the pink mould.

*the grout is yellowing. Once you get a scrubbing brush to those tiles, you'll see the pinky yellowy start of mould coming off.

• Toilet cistern has never been cleaned inside.

• The floor needs to be scrubbed. The smell of urine around the toilet is ++++. I don't think the client can smell it. It's the same in the cloakroom. The males in that family "miss".

I'll be using several products and appliances. It will likely take me about 5 hours in total to get it to a decent standard. Then I would be able to sustain that standard weekly for about £17ph for this home.

Would be interesting if it was you! Its only been a couple of weeks since I was last able to clean my bathroom so surely you wouldn't charge me £180 for a normal clean?!

Its a small bathroom in a one bedroom flat, my husband is disabled so transfers from his wheelchair to the toilet so definitely no "missing" here!

As a cleaner myself, I would also remove all items from the bathroom as I wish my clients would! People underestimate how long it takes to move their stuff/put it back which means less time to clean!

Anyway I cleaned it myself in the end in less than 30 minutes, definitely not 5 hours, bath isn't great as I'm not able to really get in there being pregnant but saved myself £200.

Perhaps post pregnancy I need to start charging these kind of prices if people think they are normal 😂 Why earn less if I can earn more?!

£15ph in London. All my friends pay similar. This is the second cleaner we have had and both charged £15.

I am in Yorkshire. My cleaner charges me £40 a week for a small 3 bedroom. She takes between 2-2.5 hrs to clean. She does bathrooms, surface's floors and dusting. Then once a month does windows and some other things. Seems to work

I was one of her first clients. She is ace as I can swap days with notice and does a great job.

I found it hard to get a reliable cleaner as the first few just didn’t turn up weekly.

So I take it none of you would be interested in paying the prices I have been quoted?

I'm very curious as to where they would find clients as they seemed to think they were very reasonable!

I live outside of London and pay my cleaner 25 quid for 1.5 hours. I felt that was the right rate to offer.

Same but on Mumsnet everyone thinks £20 is cheap. I can't work out what's going on - is it different areas of London? Or cleaners posting to try and normalise a higher rate? Something else? Maybe the higher rates are agencies? I have had recommendations from friends, not agencies

Join Nextdoor. You can get reasonable (legal) rates there.

I semi agree - I have raised my prices from 15ph to 20ph over the last few years and thought it was quite steep tbh! I kept all my clients as they value my work but has definitely hindered gaining new clients as they think I'm too expensive.

Hence my utter confusion that now looking for my own cleaner I can't find anyone with an hourly rate below £25ph and have been quoted the ridiculous prices as per the OP.

The general consensus seems to be that I am undercharging though which wasn't the main point of my post, more whether the inflated charges were seen as normal.

How are you looking for a cleaner?

I wouldn't take Mumsnet as a guide on this stuff TBH - better to ask around locally. Mumsnet also thinks £20/hr is cheap for babysitting and no one where I am in London would pay that. (Our babysitter is a teacher and she asks for £13/hr)

I have mainly looked/posted on facebook groups but also used some of the apps like airtasker, task rabbit. Also looked up the bigger companies like Fantastic Services and Merry Maids. Still these are the responses I am getting

I don't know anyone who has a cleaner unfortunately to be able to ask for actual recommendations

How about local WhatsApp groups? E.g. your street WhatsApp if you have one

We have an estate whatsapp group. I posted in there but no response - not surprising as I have never heard any of my neighbours mention a cleaner/seen a cleaner so either they don't have one or don't want to share!

It depends on the condition.

I quoted someone a price for an end of tenancy clean recently but when I got there, it was clear that the flat was barely lived in. Instead of the whole job quote I gave, I told them to pay me £20ph and it ended up at £80 as it was really no more intensive than a normal clean. 2 bed, 2 bath brand new flat. They rarely used one bathroom.

I know that.

Hence my surprise at my relatively clean bathroom being quoted at £200 for a standard clean.

Its far better condition and cleanliness than all my clients! Sometimes I wonder how they can get their bathrooms so dirty in a short amount of time.

As you can see I have explained the condition of my bathroom to you. Would you still quote me £200?

That's the thing, I'd have to see it (not suggesting you post a photo!) Purely because my experience has shown me that standards differ wildly. When I started out, I'd believe the majority of people who said "it isn't that bad" or "it just needs a quick wipe down". And it wasnt as easy as just doing the work they expected it to take and that's that because they would leave you awful reviews when their landlord complains.

Over time, I got more confident about being realistic with people about what needs doing and how much time and money it will take to do it well.

Baths are a good example because some people will swear that the greyish look is something to do with the finish but you actually scrub it and then you see it's just a build up of dirt that hasn't been agitated well enough to remove over time. That can be layers and need a few times of scrubbing and rinsing.

I wouldn't no. But my bathroom gets done daily. There isn't 200 quid worth of cleaning in it.