Watch the full January Core KPI webinar on bill rate per cleaning.
You can shave pennies off supplies and chase every new lead in town, but the most direct lever on your profit is already sitting on every invoice you send: your bill rate per cleaning. It's one of MaidCentral's 12 core KPIs, and small moves on it flow almost straight to the bottom line.
What bill rate per cleaning measures
Bill rate per cleaning is your average bill rate per job — higher-priced jobs pull it up, lower-priced jobs drag it down. It includes one-time, move-out, and initial cleans alongside recurring service, but since fewer than 3% of MaidCentral jobs are one-time, for most companies it effectively reflects the recurring average. To calculate it, divide total revenue by job count over the same time period. In MaidCentral, Stats by Week or the Revenue Production Planning report does it for you. Among partners, the top quartile now starts around $27 per job — a benchmark that keeps climbing.
Why small price changes hit profit so hard
Profit has three levers: cost, price, and volume. You can't cheap your way to profit, so price is where the real leverage lives. Picture a job with $1 in revenue and 90 cents in cost — a dime of profit, or a 10% margin. Raise the price 1% and profit climbs to 11 cents: a 10% profit improvement with no extra work. Raise it 10% and profit doubles to 20 cents — a 100% improvement. That's why the webinar's refrain sticks: revenue is for vanity, profit is for sanity. The "only $25" a customer wants knocked off a $250 job can be the entire difference between turning a profit and breaking even.
Levers that raise your number
A few practical moves, several built into MaidCentral:
- Run rate increases monthly, not annually, for anyone who hasn't seen one in 9–12 months. Keeping the timing slightly unpredictable — around the 9–10 month mark — avoids customer anxiety and spreads any fallout across the year instead of hitting all at once.
- Raise your quoting hourly rate and add skip, lockout, travel, and admin fees through bulk rate modifications.
- "Cut off the bottom." Export the Service Set Pricing report, plot every customer's hourly rate, and pull everyone below your average up to it. In one real example, the average rose from $65.57 to $72.49 per hour; because that gain is pure margin, profit more than doubled even after a few cancellations.
Want to see the math before you commit? The free rate increase outcomes calculator at toolbox.maidcentral.com lets you model it — a 3% increase across 200 homes can add roughly $1,400 in monthly gross profit even after expected attrition.
Set the price right from the start
Pricing follows a Goldilocks rule: too cheap reads as suspicious, too high makes buyers walk. Aim to be reassuringly expensive, and never price-match a service you know is inferior. When a customer pushes back, add value — a fridge or oven clean — rather than cutting the rate. Discounting an initial clean to win a lifetime customer is fine; discounting recurring service isn't, so reduce the scope of work instead. And remember the old sales truth: buyers are liars. What a customer wants to pay isn't the same as what they're willing to pay, and they'll remember the quality of the clean long after they forget the price.
The Monday takeaway
Pull your revenue and job counts, calculate your bill rate per cleaning, and see where you land against that climbing $27 benchmark. Then pick one lever — a monthly rate increase or a "cut off the bottom" pass — and run it for a quarter. On this KPI, a 1% nudge can mean 10% more profit.
FAQs
A: Divide your total revenue by your total job count over the same time period — that gives you the average bill rate for each job. Use one-time, move-out, initial, and recurring cleans together, since for most companies one-time work is a tiny share of jobs. In MaidCentral, the Stats by Week or Revenue Production Planning report calculates it automatically.
A: Higher is better, and the benchmark keeps rising. Among MaidCentral partners, the top quartile currently starts around $27 per job and has been climbing steadily. The right target depends on your market and service level, but the goal is to sit at or above your own average rather than letting underpriced jobs drag the number down.
A: Far more than the percentage suggests, because the increase flows straight to the bottom line without raising costs. On a job with a 10% margin, a 1% price increase raises profit by about 10%, and a 10% price increase can double your profit on that job. The work, payroll, and supplies don't change — only the price does.
A: Review rate increases monthly and apply them to any customer who hasn't had one in 9 to 12 months. Spreading increases throughout the year keeps any customer fallout small and manageable instead of concentrated, and slightly unpredictable timing (around the 9–10 month mark) reduces customer anxiety compared with a fixed annual date.
A: It's a method for raising your average bill rate by pulling your lowest-priced customers up to your average rate. You export your customer pricing data, identify everyone billing below your average hourly rate, and raise them to that line. Because the added revenue is nearly pure profit, your bottom line can grow substantially even if a few of those customers cancel.
A: Lead with added value before you cut price — throwing in a fridge or oven clean preserves your rate while still giving the customer a win. Discounting an initial clean to earn a long-term customer can be worth it, but avoid discounting recurring service; if you must lower a recurring price, reduce the scope of work instead so the rate stays intact.
A: Shift the conversation from price to value, and get comfortable explaining what makes your service worth it. Aim to be reassuringly expensive rather than suspiciously cheap, and never price-match a service you know is inferior to yours. Customers remember the quality of a clean long after they forget what they paid, so protecting quality protects your pricing.
