How to choose a cleaning service in Toronto

The Average Cost of a Cleaning Service in Toronto

The average cost of cleaning services ranges between $150 (for a condo, apartment or very small house cleaned every 2 or 4 weeks) to $600+ for a larger home with many bathrooms and bedrooms.

Most cleaning companies charge by the hour – or base their price on how many hours they believe it will take to clean your home. Hourly rates range between $40 and $70 per hour.

Aside from hiring an individual cleaner – at $25 – $40 per hour – cleaning companies typically operate based on one of the three models we have outlined below.

The following are some examples of the cost to provide a Toronto home cleaning for a typical 2.5 bathroom, 4 bedroom home with finished basement – every 2 weeks.

Company A – Full Service Cleaning Company

This company often uses mostly full-time and some part-time cleaning staff. Their employees are paid on payroll and therefore the company incurs all employment costs as overheads.

These companies usually have 1 or 2 people dedicated to customer service at an actual office. They pay for employee training costs and advertising costs. They also pay their employees for travel or waiting time between cleanings and provide them with transportation to each home cleaning Toronto.

The company will usually supply high quality tools and supplies for each cleaning. Staff are usually well trained in all techniques necessary for a consistent, high quality outcome. 

These companies tend to therefore be more expensive but suit homeowners looking for reliability, consistency, trustworthiness and a high quality overall experience. Typically the cleaning teams are efficient and spend more time to clean more thoroughly and work more carefully to reduce damage and breakage. $60 per hour x 6 hours = $360 per cleaning. This type of company usually does not clean for less time than they quote and sometimes longer at no additional charge.

See chart below to see how this type of company compares with other companies.

Company B – Organization “Presenting” as Full Service Cleaning Company Toronto

Many home cleaning services toronto hire “independent contractors” – usually part-time workers (think “GIG economy”) – and dispatch teams of cleaners to your home – often from an overseas service that handles scheduling and customer service.

Their overhead usually involves mostly advertising costs.  Their employment costs are usually limited to the hourly rate paid to their employees and do not include payroll deductions like stat holiday pay, vacation pay, federal tax deductions, WSIB premiums and other costs. 

Often the “contractors” are responsible for purchasing and bringing the tools and supplies they can afford to your home and they buy their uniforms etc. Most of these companies are insured and do background checks on the people they send to your home. The workers in your home usually have some cleaning experience (e.g. sweeping warehouses, vacuuming condo hallways, operating an automatic floor cleaning machine, cleaning hotel rooms and sometimes cleaning homes) and may receive some basic training by the company.  

Typically this type of service bases their approach on “speed cleaning” like Company C. $50 per hour x 5 hours = $250 per cleaning (although a two person team may actually be in your home cleaning for 2 hours or less).  Many people who have a modest budget (or don’t care about the difference between a high quality cleaning and basic cleaning) use these types of services and many homeowners are happy with this type of company if they are ok with often uneven quality, consistency, reliability and managing the cleaning team closely.

See chart below to see how this group compares with other companies.

Company C  – 2 or 3 Individuals “presenting” as Full Service Cleaning Company Toronto

Usually two or three individuals form a company and work together as a team. They may have little to no overhead and enough customers to fill their weekly schedule.  They may not have suitable insurance, pay WSIB premiums and may need to use your tools and supplies. They usually focus on speed to keep the price low and clean to an average quality level. $40 per hour for 4 hours (2 hours in your home) = $160 per cleaning. Sometimes they charge the same amount every visit but clean for less hours most visits. Many people use and are happy with this type of service. 

See chart below to see how Company Acompares with other companies.

Types of cleaning a typical cleaning company provides

Most cleaning companies will typically complete the following chores at each service:

• Dust the surfaces in your home
• Vacuum floors and carpeting
• Mop hard surface flooring
• Wash and clean surfaces in bathrooms and kitchens

You may want additional cleaning services and it’s important to let the company know this so they can not only provide this service but estimate the time (and cost) associate with the extra work. Many homeowners expect many of the tasks in the list below will be automatically done. 

However, each of these tasks take time and if you are paying for a short amount of cleaning time, there won’t be enough time to complete or do them well.

• Vacuum soft furnishings
• Cleaning under and behind furniture
• Cleaning fingerprints from walls
• Cleaning baseboards
• Dusting for cobwebs
• Cleaning inside of ovens or fridges
• Cleaning window coverings
• Cleaning the laundry room
• Cleaning the gym
• Cleaning ceiling light fixtures
• Cleaning door handles or light switches
• Vacuuming air vent or exhaust vent covers
• Cleaning bed frames
• Cleaning front door and threshold
• Changing linens on beds
• Washing dishes
• Collecting garbage and placing them in city bins
• Polishing inside windows and washing window screens
• Other speciality home cleaning requirements based on your needs