Cleaning employee cost calculator
The wage on a cleaner’s offer letter is not what they cost you. On top of it sit the employer’s payroll taxes, state unemployment, workers’ compensation and paid time off — and underneath it sits the time you pay for but cannot bill, mostly driving between houses. This calculator adds all of it up and divides by the hours a client actually pays for.
Have to hand
- The wage you will offer
- Your state unemployment rate letter
- A workers' comp quote, or the average
Then
- Price from the cost per billable hour
- Check it against your current charge rate
- Re-run it whenever wages or rates change
Pre-filled with the national mean wage for maids and housekeeping cleaners, federal payroll rates, Florida’s new-employer unemployment rate as an example, and the average workers’ comp premium for cleaning businesses. Change anything.
Cost per billable hour
$23.55
- Cost per paid hour
- $19.63
- Taxes and cover on top of wages
- 10.1%
- Total a year
- $30,630
- Wages a year
- $27,815
- FICA, FUTA, state
- $2,359
- Billable hours a year
- 1301
The lines on top of the wage
| Line | Rate used | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Social security and Medicare | 6.2% social security and 1.45% Medicare, paid by the employer on top of wages | IRS |
| Federal unemployment | 0.6% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages | IRS |
| State unemployment | Your state’s rate; default 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages (Florida, new employer) | Florida Department of Revenue |
| Workers' compensation | $114 a month average for a cleaning business, shared across your staff | Insureon |
| Paid time off | Your policy | — |
Internal Revenue Service, Topic 751, read 2026-10-18 · Internal Revenue Service, Topic 759, read 2026-10-18 · Florida Department of Revenue, read 2026-10-18 · Insureon, read 2026-10-18
State unemployment varies most. New employers usually get an initial rate for their first years, then a rate based on their own history; enter the figure on your state’s rate notice. Whether you need workers’ comp at all depends on your state’s threshold — Florida requires it for non-construction employers with four or more employees, counting corporate officers and LLC members.
Why the billable hour is the number that matters
A client pays for the hours your cleaner spends in their home. You pay for those hours plus the drive between homes, loading the van, training and paid days off. Dividing the yearly cost by billable hours, not paid hours, is what turns a payroll figure into a price floor.
A round spread thinly across a county can push the unbillable share past 25%. That one input moves the cost per billable hour more than any tax rate on this page — which is why route density is a pricing decision, not a scheduling one.
The default cleaner, worked through
At the default inputs — the national mean wage for maids and housekeeping cleaners of $17.83, 30 paid hours a week, five paid days off, 15% unbillable time and three employees sharing the comp premium:
| Line | A year |
|---|---|
| Wages | $27,815 |
| Employer FICA | $2,128 |
| FUTA | $42 |
| State unemployment | $189 |
| Workers' comp share | $456 |
| Total | $30,630 |
| Per paid hour | $19.63 |
| Per billable hour | $23.55 |
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, via the BLS public API, read 2026-09-04
Taxes and cover add about 10% to the wage, but the cost per billable hour ends up around 32% above it once time off and unbillable time are counted. That is why the rest of this site loads wages by roughly a quarter or more before pricing.
Using the result in your prices
Your charge per cleaner-hour has to clear the cost per billable hour with room for supplies, overhead and profit. Put the result into the base wage and burden fields of the commercial cleaning bid calculator, or check your visit prices in the house cleaning price calculator. If you are deciding between a per-hour and a per-visit price, read hourly vs flat-rate pricing first.
This calculator assumes the cleaner is an employee. If you are paying on a 1099, check whether that holds up with W-2 vs 1099 cleaners, and see is a cleaning business profitable? for how this cost line shapes the whole month.