Cleaning your own house is cheaper in cash, almost every time. Hiring is cheaper once an hour of your time is worth more than the visit price divided by the hours the same clean would take you. For a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath Philadelphia rowhome, a Standard visit on an every-2-weeks plan is $247.50. If doing that clean yourself takes 4 hours, hiring breaks even at $61.88 an hour. Below that number, doing it yourself wins on dollars. Above it, hiring does. Most households sit somewhere in the middle.
We run Hometress, so we have a stake in this answer. To keep it honest, every price below comes from our published catalog, every task from our published checklist, and the one outside number, how long Americans spend on housework, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rest is arithmetic you can redo with your own hours.
What cleaning it yourself actually costs
Two things go into it: what you spend and what you give up.
The cash
Supplies and tools: spray cleaners, a toilet brush, sponges, microfiber cloths, mop pads, vacuum filters and bags, and the vacuum itself when it wears out. We bring our own supplies, so we do not sell any and will not invent a price for yours. Add up three months of receipts and divide by three. That is your monthly cash cost.
The hours
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures this in its American Time Use Survey. In the 2025 annual averages, people aged 15 and over spent 0.56 hours a day on housework, which is about 3.9 hours a week (0.56 × 7, our arithmetic). Only 36.1 percent of people did any housework on an average day, and those who did spent 1.55 hours. Treat that as a sanity check, not a budget. It describes people on average, not your home.
The better method is a stopwatch. Time your next two cleans from supplies out to supplies away and use the longer one. That is the number that goes into the break-even below.
The break-even in one line
Visit price ÷ the hours it would take you = the hourly value of your time at which hiring breaks even.
Here it is for two homes on an every-2-weeks plan, using our published prices before tax.
| Hours the same clean takes you | 1 bed, 1 bath: $198.00 a visit | 3 bed, 1.5 bath: $247.50 a visit |
|---|---|---|
| 2 hours | $99.00 | $123.75 |
| 3 hours | $66.00 | $82.50 |
| 4 hours | $49.50 | $61.88 |
| 5 hours | $39.60 | $49.50 |
| 6 hours | $33.00 | $41.25 |
Read the table this way: if your 3 bedroom clean takes 5 hours and an hour of your time is worth more than $49.50, hiring comes out ahead. If it is worth less, it does not. Three limits keep the math honest:
- Only some hours are worth a wage. If the hours you would get back go to billable work, a side business or overtime, use your real rate. If they go to rest or family, the number is yours to set. That is a legitimate answer, just a different one from a paycheck.
- Compare equal rhythms. Cleaning weekly yourself and hiring every 2 weeks is not the same house. Price the same schedule on both sides.
- A visit does not remove every chore. Dishes and laundry are not on the Standard checklist (next section), so a few hours of your week remain either way.
What a visit covers, and what stays with you
Our Standard clean is a 40-point checklist: ten tasks in each of four groups (Entire House, Bathroom, Bedroom and Kitchen), the same routine every visit. It includes ceiling fans, hallways and stairs, floors, the toilet and showerhead, bedside tables, countertops, the refrigerator front and kitchen shelves. Deep keeps all 40 and adds 10 scrubbing tasks, including the toilet inside and out, the bathtub and showerhead, the stovetop, and the inside and outside of the sink. Our checklist page lists Deep as 50% more cleaning time than Standard and shows every line.
Look at the 10 Deep tasks and ask which of them you did in the last month. Those are the ones to hand off first.
Some jobs sit outside both lists. They are available as add-ons with published prices and minutes, so you can decide task by task what to hand off:
| Job | On the Standard checklist? | Add-on (price, minutes) |
|---|---|---|
| Dishes | No | Wash Dishes: $25, 15 minutes (one sink full) |
| Laundry | No | Laundry Wash & Dry: $20 per load, 60 minutes |
| Inside the fridge | Refrigerator front only | Clean Inside Fridge: $35, 25 minutes |
| Inside the oven | No | Clean Inside Oven: $35, 30 minutes |
| Interior windows | Window sills and ledges | Clean Interior Windows (6 Max): $60, 35 minutes |
What each budget buys
Here is the same 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath rowhome at five budgets, from one hired visit a year to weekly. Prices are our published ones with the plan discount applied (weekly 15 percent off, every 2 weeks 10 percent, every 4 weeks 5 percent), before sales tax, tips, coupons and any first-cleaning offer. A year here is 52 weeks, so 13, 26 and 52 visits. Your real count depends on your start date and any skips.
| Plan | Per year | Per month | What you keep doing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it all yourself | $0 hired, plus your supplies and hours | $0.00 | Everything. |
| One Deep clean, then you maintain | 1 × $360.00 = $360.00 | $30.00 | The upkeep. Deep resets the scrubbing; you keep it from building back. |
| A Deep clean each quarter | 4 × $360.00 = $1,440.00 | $120.00 | Everything between the four visits. |
| Standard every 4 weeks | 13 × $261.25 = $3,396.25 | $283.02 | Weekly surface work in the kitchen and bathroom, plus dishes and laundry. |
| Standard every 2 weeks | 26 × $247.50 = $6,435.00 | $536.25 | Dishes, laundry and daily tidying. |
| Standard weekly | 52 × $233.75 = $12,155.00 | $1,012.92 | Dishes, laundry and daily tidying. |
Two of those rows have their own posts with the full arithmetic: deep clean first, then maintenance and every rhythm across three home sizes. What this table adds is the right-hand column. A budget is a decision about what you stop doing, not only about what you pay.
A hybrid that costs less than it looks
The fourth row is the one most people overlook. A Standard clean every 4 weeks is $261.25 a visit. You keep the weekly surface work, a quick pass at the kitchen and bathroom, and the visit resets what builds up between: floors and stairs, dust, the full bathroom, the kitchen. The break-even works the same way: $261.25 divided by the hours of your own time that visit replaces each month. If it replaces a 4-hour monthly scrub, that is $65.31 an hour. At 6 hours it is $43.54.
Here is that math with a plain result. Suppose the monthly visit replaces a 4-hour scrub and an hour of your time is worth $40. Those 4 hours are worth $160 against a $261.25 visit, so on time alone you pay $101.25 more each month, or $1,316.25 over 13 visits. What closes the gap is the part this table cannot count: the Deep tasks you were not getting to, and the weekend you keep. That is a fair trade to make. It is just not a saving.
If the Deep tasks keep slipping, start with one Deep clean. On an every-2-weeks plan, opening with a Deep clean adds $112.50 to the first year of this rowhome compared with starting straight on the plan ($360.00 − $247.50). The post linked above shows the full year.
When doing it yourself is the right call
- The home is small and the list is short. Fewer hours push the break-even up. At 2 hours, our 1 bedroom plan breaks even at $99.00 an hour.
- You like it. If the hour is one you would choose anyway, it is not a cost.
- Cash is the constraint right now and your hours are free. That is a real reason, not a failure.
Hiring is the better call when your hours are scarce or expensive (work, a baby, a long commute), when the home is large, or when you have fallen behind and the first clean is the hard one. A one-time Deep clean is the lowest-cost way to reset.
What you take on by hiring
- Someone is in your home. Our cleaners are background-checked and bring their supplies, which are included in the price. We cover what that means in do cleaners bring their own supplies.
- Tidy what you do not want moved. The Standard list includes general room straightening and clearing the walking area, but it is built for cleaning, so put away anything fragile or personal first.
- A safety net. If something is not right, tell us within 48 hours and we re-clean it or refund the affected portion (see the White Glove Guarantee). If plans change, cancelling with more than 48 hours' notice has no fee. Between 24 and 48 hours it is a $75 fee (customer policy).
Run the numbers for your own home
- Time two of your own cleans with a stopwatch and use the longer one.
- Pick the rhythm you would actually keep, then look up the visit price for your home size in the cost guide.
- Divide the price by your hours. That is your break-even.
- Compare it with what an hour of yours is worth, using the three limits above.
- If it is close, decide by what the hours buy, not by the dollars.
Frequently asked questions
Is hiring a house cleaner worth it?
It is when an hour of your time is worth more than the visit price divided by the hours the clean would take you, or when the hours you get back matter more than the dollars. For the rowhome above, that line is $61.88 at 4 hours and $49.50 at 5. Time your own clean and compare.
How much does it cost to clean your own house?
In cash, whatever you spend on supplies and tools, so count your last three months of receipts. In hours, the Bureau of Labor Statistics average for housework is about 3.9 hours a week per person, and your home may differ. A stopwatch beats an average.
How long does it take to clean a house yourself?
It depends on the home and on you, and we do not publish visit lengths, so we cannot give you a figure to compare. Time yourself. For reference, our published add-on times are 15 minutes for a sink of dishes, 25 for the inside of a fridge and 30 for the inside of an oven.
Is it cheaper to hire a cleaner once a month?
In total, yes. Monthly is our lowest-cost recurring plan: $3,396.25 a year ($283.02 a month) for the rowhome, against $536.25 a month every 2 weeks and $1,012.92 a month weekly. Per visit it costs more ($261.25 against $247.50) because the plan discount is smaller. Whether it is worth it depends on how many hours of upkeep it replaces.
Should I get one deep clean and maintain it myself?
It is the lowest-cost way to use a professional: $360.00 once for this home, then you keep the surfaces up. It works while you keep up. If the Deep tasks slip again, the quarterly row ($1,440.00 a year) is the next step.
Do I need to buy supplies if I hire a cleaner?
No. Supplies are included in the price of every visit.
These prices are for Philadelphia. The Philadelphia cost guide lists every home size, and you can book a clean from the same published prices.