“How much to clean a three-bedroom flat?” almost always gets three different answers — and that does not mean anyone is overcharging. The price of a clean comes from the amount of work, and floor area describes that far less well than it seems to.
What really moves the price
Condition, not square metres. A flat cleaned every week and a flat left for three months are different jobs at identical size. An honest cleaner will ask when it was last done.
Bathrooms and the kitchen. These are the most labour-intensive rooms in any home. A second bathroom adds more to a quote than an extra bedroom does.
Windows. Nearly always priced separately, and often per sash, because the frames and reveals take longer than the glass.
Pets and allergies. Fur changes both the time and the kit required.
Frequency. A one-off visit costs more than the same clean inside a regular schedule: there is no predictability for the cleaner, and the flat is not maintained in between.
What a regular clean covers
Treat this as the default baseline: floors, dust on open surfaces, the bathroom, sink and hob, taking the rubbish out, beds made. Anything beyond that is a separate agreement.
What a deep clean adds
- inside cupboards, the fridge and the oven;
- windows including frames and sills;
- skirting boards, door frames, switches;
- limescale in the shower and on taps;
- the extractor and its filter;
- behind and underneath furniture.
A deep clean takes two to three times longer, which is why it is almost never charged at the same rate as a regular one.
What to agree before the visit
The rule holds across every home service: the more precisely you describe the job, the smaller the gap between the quote and the invoice. The same applies to choosing an electrician.
Three questions remove most of the later friction: whose products and equipment, whether windows are included, and what happens if there turns out to be more work than described on the phone. The last one matters most — “we'll add something if needed”, without a number, becomes an argument at the door.
Say separately what is fragile and what must not be touched: electronics, documents, plants, children's things. It saves both sides the stress.
How to tell a quote was thought about
A good sign is that the cleaner asks questions rather than naming a figure straight away: how many rooms and bathrooms, when it was last cleaned, whether there are pets, whether windows are needed, one-off or regular. A quote produced in ten seconds from a single number is almost always revised on arrival. To describe the flat once and hear back from several cleaners, send a request.
