Move Out Cleaning Cost Calculator & Price Guide

A move-out clean is a top-to-bottom scrub of a home after the furniture is gone. Cleaners usually vacuum and mop the floors, dust and wipe surfaces, and clean the kitchen and bathrooms. Tenants often book one to protect a security deposit, and sellers book one before a showing or closing.

Price follows the work. Cleaners charge by square footage, by the hour, or a flat fee for the job, and the number moves with the size of the home and the mess left behind. The sections below show the published ranges and what pushes a quote up or down.

Square footage is the quickest way to estimate. Multiply your home's size by the rate for a ballpark before any extras. This Old House puts the rate at $0.20 – $0.45/sq ft, which works out to the totals below for common sizes.

A 1,000 square foot home lands at $200 – $450, while a 3,000 square foot home reaches $600 – $1,350. Bills do not scale in a perfectly straight line, because a bigger home often has more bathrooms and more floor types, and cleaners price those separately.

Bedroom count gives a second angle on the same question. Small units cost less because there is less to clean, and a house with several bathrooms costs more.

A studio comes in at $100 – $210, and a four bedroom house at $200 – $350. Your own quote can sit outside these ranges if the home is unusually dirty or has a lot of glass, tile, or stairs.

Yelp builds its figures from real quotes that local businesses sent to customers, so it is a useful cross-check against the table above. It groups prices by apartment and house size.

A small apartment of one or two bedrooms runs $75 – $175, and a three or four bedroom house runs $250 – $450. Those numbers come from a different method than the square-foot rates, which is one reason the two lists do not match exactly.

Several things change a quote more than the size of the home does.

• Condition: a home kept clean through the lease takes less time. Built-up grease, soap scum, and stains take longer, and cleaners may charge a flat fee that rises when the job needs extra work.
• Furniture left behind: if cleaners have to move items out of the way, some will charge more, especially when they bill by the hour.
• Location: cleaning costs more in areas with a higher cost of living.
• Add-on services: anything beyond the basic package is usually priced separately.

Basic packages cover floors, surfaces, and bathrooms. Appliances, carpets, and specialty surfaces often cost extra, and prices vary by company.

Cleaning inside the refrigerator costs $10 – $50, the oven $15 – $40, and carpet cleaning $75 – $300. Check whether your lease requires professional carpet cleaning before you book it.

Some companies bill by the hour instead of quoting a flat fee for the home. Yelp reports a labor rate per worker, and a crew of several people multiplies the hourly total.

At $25 – $65/hr per worker, a team of three costs three times that for every hour on site. Ask whether the quote is per cleaner or per crew, and whether there is a minimum number of hours.

Published ranges differ because each source measures something slightly different. Some publish an average across all home sizes, others quote the middle of real customer requests, and others focus on a single home type. Regional pricing, the cleaning level included, and whether supplies are part of the price can all differ between sources.

Use the overlap between sources as your working budget, then replace it with written quotes. A range that two sources share is a stronger guide than either source's extreme.

Many leases require the unit to be returned in the condition it was received, and a landlord can deduct cleaning from the security deposit if it is not. The rules differ by state, so read your lease and your state's tenant rules before deciding whether to hire cleaners. A written checklist from your landlord tells you exactly what counts as clean.

If you are a seller, a clean empty home photographs and shows better. Ask your agent whether the listing agreement or buyer expects a professional clean at closing.

• Give the square footage, bedroom and bathroom count, and the condition of the home.
• List every extra you want, such as the oven, refrigerator, carpets, or windows.
• Ask whether the price is flat or hourly, and what happens if the job runs long.
• Ask what the package includes, and whether supplies and equipment are covered.
• Get at least three written quotes and compare what each one covers, not only the total.