Cleaning Business Profit Calculator
This free calculator shows what each cleaning actually earns after the costs most owners forget: paid drive time, payroll taxes and insurance on top of wages, and supplies. Enter your real numbers and it computes gross profit per job, per week, per month, and per year — plus your revenue per labor hour and what a $10 price raise would be worth.
Per-home margin is the number that decides whether a cleaning business scales. Revenue can grow while profit shrinks: every job you add also adds wages, burden, drive time, and supplies, so a thin margin per home multiplied across a full schedule is how busy companies stay broke. Know your per-job number first — then decide whether the fix is pricing, route density, or job length.
Interactive calculator
Your numbers
What each job really makes
Labor cost per job
$86.24
3.5 paid hrs incl. drive + 12% burden
Gross profit per job
$85.76 (47.6%)
after $94.24 total direct cost
Revenue per labor hour
$51.43
price ÷ paid hours per job
Weekly gross profit
$1,715
20 jobs · $3,600 revenue
Monthly gross profit
$7,433
Annual gross profit
$89,190
$53,514 of it from recurring clients (60%)
What if you raised your price $10? At 20 jobs a week, a $10/job increase adds $10,400 a year in pure gross profit and lifts your margin from 47.6% to 50.4% — with zero extra hours worked.
Show the formulas
- paid hours/job = on-site hours + drive time
- labor cost/job = paid hours × wage × (1 + burden%)
- total cost/job = labor cost + supplies
- gross profit/job = price − total cost
- gross margin % = gross profit ÷ price × 100
- weekly profit = profit/job × jobs/week · annual = weekly × 52 · monthly = annual ÷ 12
- revenue per labor hour = price ÷ paid hours/job
How the math works
The calculator uses six simple formulas. Nothing is estimated or benchmarked — every output comes directly from the numbers you enter:
- Paid hours per job = on-site cleaning hours + paid drive time.
- Labor cost per job = paid hours × hourly wage × (1 + payroll burden %). Burden covers employer-side payroll taxes and insurance.
- Total direct cost per job = labor cost + supplies cost.
- Gross profit per job = price charged − total direct cost. Gross margin % = gross profit ÷ price × 100.
- Weekly gross profit = gross profit per job × jobs per week. Annual = weekly × 52. Monthly = annual ÷ 12.
- Revenue per labor hour = price ÷ paid hours per job — the best single number for comparing job types (a fast small home can out-earn a slow big one).
Worked example (the calculator's default numbers)
Say you charge $180 per cleaning, a job takes 3 hours on-site plus 0.5 hours of paid driving, you pay $22/hour with a 12% payroll burden, supplies run $8 per job, and you complete 20 jobs a week:
- Paid hours per job: 3 + 0.5 = 3.5 hours.
- Labor cost per job: 3.5 × $22 × 1.12 = $86.24.
- Total direct cost: $86.24 + $8 = $94.24.
- Gross profit per job: $180 − $94.24 = $85.76, a 47.6% gross margin.
- At 20 jobs a week that's $1,715 weekly, $7,433 monthly, and $89,190 a year in gross profit — before overhead like software, marketing, and your own pay.
- Revenue per labor hour: $180 ÷ 3.5 = $51.43.
- Raising the price $10 (to $190) adds $10,400 a year at the same job count and lifts the margin to 50.4%.
Gross profit is not take-home profit. Overhead — software, insurance beyond workers' comp, marketing, an office, and paying yourself — comes out of the gross number. But gross profit per job is the lever you control on every single booking, which is why it's the one this calculator focuses on.
Profit calculator — frequently asked questions
What counts as "gross profit" in this calculator?
Gross profit here is your price per cleaning minus direct job costs: cleaner wages for on-site and drive time, payroll taxes and insurance on those wages, and supplies. It intentionally excludes overhead like software, marketing, rent, and your own salary — those come out of gross profit, which is why per-job margin matters so much.
Why does the calculator include drive time in labor cost?
If you pay cleaners for drive time between jobs (most compliant employers do), those hours cost real wages plus payroll burden even though no revenue is earned during them. A 3-hour cleaning with 30 paid minutes of driving actually costs 3.5 hours of wages. Ignoring drive time is the most common way owners overestimate their per-job profit.
What is a payroll burden percentage and what should I enter?
Payroll burden is everything you pay on top of gross wages for a W-2 employee: employer-side Social Security and Medicare (FICA), federal and state unemployment tax, and workers' compensation insurance. It varies by state and your workers' comp rate, so use your own payroll reports — the 12% default is just a starting point to adjust. If you use 1099 contractors, set it near 0% but budget separately for their higher rates.
Why do recurring clients matter for profit?
Recurring jobs (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) earn the same gross profit per visit as one-time jobs, but they cost almost nothing to re-book: no new lead cost, no quoting, no first-visit learning curve. The higher your recurring percentage, the more of your annual gross profit is predictable — which is why the calculator shows how much of your yearly profit comes from recurring clients.