HOW TO PRICE CARPET CLEANING SERVICES
Price the job from
time, chemistry and equipment.
A carpet cleaning quote should recover paid labour, chemicals, spotting products, equipment wear, travel, overhead, fees and margin before tax is added.
Open the free calculator ↗1. Estimate total paid time
Include inspection, setup, vacuuming, pre-treatment, agitation, extraction, spotting, pack-down and paid travel. Room count alone does not capture the real workload.
2. Adjust for condition and soil load
Heavy soil, staining, odour treatment, difficult access and furniture movement can materially increase job time and chemical usage. Price the actual scope.
3. Cost chemicals and consumables
Pre-sprays, rinses, spotting agents, protectors, deodorisers, pads and disposable items are direct costs. Estimate realistic usage per job.
4. Recover machine and tool wear
Extraction machines, pumps, vacuums, hoses, wands, agitation tools and dryers require maintenance and replacement. Add a sensible allowance to the jobs using them.
5. Include travel and vehicle cost
Paid travel time and vehicle running cost are separate. Small jobs can become weak quickly when long journeys are ignored.
6. Allocate fixed overhead
Insurance, storage, training, software, marketing, admin and other recurring costs should be spread across a realistic number of paid jobs.
7. Set a minimum call-out
A single room still requires travel, unloading, setup and administration. A minimum pre-tax charge protects that fixed workload.
8. Solve for retained margin
Adding a percentage to cost is markup. If you need a specific retained margin, solve the required selling price from the full cost base.
9. Keep optional treatments explicit
Protection, deodorising, stain treatment and specialist work should be priced as deliberate scope additions rather than absorbed into the standard clean.
10. Apply tax after the commercial price
Where VAT, GST or another sales tax applies, calculate the pre-tax selling price first and add the relevant tax. Reference rates should remain editable for local treatment.
Build a carpet cleaning quote ↗