Room Price Check
How to use it
Room pricing beats square-foot math when most of the cost is fixed per visit, but it hides the add-on, stairs, and overhead numbers that actually decide the price. This calculator builds the quote from the House preset (4 rooms at $45), Apartment, or Big home, all editable starting points. Choose per-room or per-square-foot mode, set the soiling multiplier (light 0.85, medium 1.0, heavy 1.25), and add stairs at $15 per flight. The add-on card is where the margin lives: protectant per room (+10 min each), pet odor treatment flat (+15 min), deodorizer per room (+5 min), stain spotting per room (+10 min), each with its minutes added to real hours. The costs card takes chemicals, fuel and van, drive time round trip, setup, and monthly overhead spread across your jobs per month. Results show the recommended quote (costs plus your time at your $65 per hour bar, rounded up to the nearest $5, with your $99 minimum applied), your effective rate on the quote, and PRICED RIGHT, CLOSE BUT LEAKING, or UNDERPRICED verdicts. The gut-check box takes your off-the-cuff quote and shows what it really pays per hour.
Worked example
Example only, not typical pricing. House preset with protectant and pet odor treatment added. Base is 4 x 45 = $180.00, protectant is 4 x 20 = $80.00, pet odor is $35.00. Chemical, van, and overhead share is $56.33. Real hours are (4 x 30 + 55 + 0) / 60 + 40 / 60 + 30 / 60 = 4.1. Labor at the $65 bar is 4.08 x 65 = $265.42. Recommended quote is costs plus labor = $321.75, rounded up to the nearest $5 = $325. Effective rate is (295 - 56.33) / 4.08 = $58.45 per hour, under the bar, so the verdict is CLOSE, BUT LEAKING. A $150 gut quote pays ($150 - $56.33) / 4.08 = $22.94 per hour, leaving $325 - $150 = $175 on the table.
FAQs
**Q** Per room or per square foot?
Per room when rooms are similar in size; per square foot when they vary a lot. The sq ft mode takes total square feet times your per-foot price, then the same add-ons and costs apply.
**Q** How should I price carpet protectant?
As a high-margin add-on. It takes about 10 minutes per room, and the tool adds those minutes to real hours so the labor cost is never free.
**Q** What should monthly overhead include?
Insurance, marketing, machine payments, and anything else it costs to operate, divided by the jobs you do per month. That share lands on every quote.
**Q** Why does the minimum job price matter?
Drive time and setup are fixed per visit. The $99 floor stops tiny jobs from quietly losing money after the minimum is applied.
**Q** What is my effective hourly rate really?
It is (quote minus costs) divided by real hours, not the price divided by cleaning hours. Drive, setup, and add-on minutes all count.