Cleaning quote calculator
Estimate a job from your labour time and costs, then compare a target margin with markup.
For cleaning business owners. GBP only. VAT not calculated. Example inputs are not market rates. Nothing is saved.
TallyCleanOS estimate worksheet
Owner planning estimate. Review scope and tax treatment before sharing.
Indicative selling price
£77.14
At a 30% target margin. VAT not calculated.
- Labour
- £45.00
- Supplies
- £4.00
- Travel
- £5.00
- Allocated overhead
- £0.00
- Total estimated cost
- £54.00
- Estimated profit
- £23.14
Price with 30% markup on cost.
£70.20
Example inputs loaded. £15/hour × 180 person-minutes, plus £4 supplies and £5 travel.
Actual profit depends on actual time and costs. Confirm scope and property condition before making an offer.
How to calculate a cleaning quote
A cleaning quote needs a defined scope and an estimated cost. Record the rooms, tasks and condition you expect. For selected rooms, use the partial-house quoting example. Work out the person-minutes required for that scope. Multiply labour-hours by your fully loaded hourly cost. Add supplies, travel and an appropriate share of overhead.
Person-minutes measure labour effort. Elapsed minutes measure time on the clock. Two cleaners working together for 90 minutes contribute 180 person-minutes. Enter 180 in the tool. Multiplying it by two again would double-count labour.
Turn estimated cost into a margin price
A target margin sets the share of selling price remaining after the entered costs. Divide total estimated cost by one minus the target margin as a decimal. The tool uses exact pence and percentage basis points. Labour cost and the final price each round half-up to the penny.
The example costs £54 before VAT. A 30% target margin gives £54 ÷ 0.70 = £77.14 after rounding. A 30% markup adds £16.20 to cost and gives £70.20. The markup price has a lower margin because the percentage uses cost as its denominator. Use the profit margin calculator to check a price you already charge.
Check the costs behind the total
Fully loaded labour cost may include wages and other costs you need to cover. Owner time also has a cost even when no wage is paid for a particular job. Allocated overhead is a job's share of ongoing business expenses. Keep the allocation consistent across estimates.
The GOV.UK business expenses guide gives cost categories for self-employed businesses. Tax deductibility is a separate question from estimating what a job costs. This tool does not decide allowable expenses or calculate tax.
Review before you send
Check access, travel assumptions, equipment and exclusions before sharing an estimate. Record whether the amount is an estimate that may change after inspection. Agree any change with the customer. The tool calculates from your assumptions and cannot assess the condition of a property.
Use the cleaning quote template to write down the scope alongside your price. Choose “Create customer quote draft” to carry only the current selling price into the template editor. No cost or profit lines are carried across. Check tax treatment there. The CSV download contains the calculated cost breakdown for your own records. The print view is a planning worksheet and is not a booking or acceptance service.
THE LABOUR COST / 2026/27
What can an employed cleaning hour cost?
At the adult minimum wage of £12.71 an hour, our 30-hour-week example costs £14.40 per paid hour before Employment Allowance. Spread over hours after statutory leave, that becomes £16.13. Both figures include modelled employer National Insurance and pension contributions.
Annualised examples checked 18 October 2026. Use the assumptions below to understand the starting point, then add the costs of your own business. These figures are not fully loaded labour costs or market selling rates.
| Paid hours per week | Per paid hour | Per hour after leave | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No allowance | Allowance covers NIC | No allowance | Allowance covers NIC | |
| 8 | £12.81 | £12.71 | £14.36 | £14.24 |
| 16 | £13.87 | £12.87 | £15.55 | £14.42 |
| 24 | £14.25 | £12.94 | £15.97 | £14.50 |
| 30 | £14.40 | £12.97 | £16.13 | £14.54 |
| 37.5 | £14.52 | £13.00 | £16.27 | £14.56 |
Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen. It can receive keyboard focus.
Paid hours include leave. Hours after leave exclude the model's 5.6 weeks of holiday but still include time that may not be billable, such as training or travel. The allowance columns assume an eligible business has enough unused employer-wide allowance to cover this worker's NIC.
Assumptions
- Adult employee aged 22 to State Pension age, on regular hours, paid exactly £12.71 an hour (National Living Wage, from 1 April 2026).
- 52 paid weeks a year. These already include 5.6 weeks of statutory paid leave, so leave is not added on top of pay.
- Annual pay is £12.71 x weekly hours x 52.
- Employer NIC (category A employee) is 15% of annual pay above £5,000 a year. The weekly £96 and monthly £417 thresholds are separate payroll thresholds, so real pay-period rounding differs from this annual figure.
- The Employment Allowance (up to £10,500) is employer-wide, not per employee. Check the eligibility rules. They exclude a sole director who is the company's only employee liable for secondary Class 1 NIC. Personal household or domestic employment is excluded except care or support work. A cleaning business supplying customers differs from a household employing its own cleaner.
- Employer pension uses 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. Pension bases vary by scheme. The model assumes ordinary UK employment and pension participation where the standard enrolment criteria apply. The 8-hour row has no contribution because its pay falls below the qualifying band. Check the enrolment criteria and exceptions for the individual worker.
Method
Employer cost = annual pay + employer NIC + employer pension. "Per paid hour" divides it by weekly hours x 52. "Per hour after statutory leave" divides it by weekly hours x 46.4, which is the hours after statutory leave (non-leave hours). Money is rounded to the penny, half up. Components are rounded independently, so displayed totals can differ by a penny. The CSV contains the same hourly figures.
Reproduce the table
Download the dated source inputs and Python calculation. Save both together and run the script with Python 3 to generate the CSV. Annual pay, NIC and pension breakdowns are included in the download.
Costs not included
Sick pay, travel between jobs, training, supervision, insurance, supplies, overhead and profit are outside this model, as is any other non-attendance time. Self-employed subcontractors are also outside it: the model covers employees only.
Limitations
The model is annualised, not pay-period payroll. It covers one adult worker on regular hours at one rate, not under-22 workers, apprentices, irregular hours or part-year working. Use it as a cross-check for the labour-hour cost you enter in the calculator, then add your own costs.
How to cite this example
TallyCleanOS, “Illustrative annualised cleaning employee costs, 2026/27”, checked 18 October 2026. Link to this table and its assumptions. State the weekly hours, allowance assumption and hourly denominator when quoting a figure. Review rates again in April 2027.