Why Bond Clean Pricing Is the Most Misunderstood Quote in Cleaning
Every month another cleaner posts in a Facebook group asking the same question: "What should I charge for a 3-bedroom bond clean?" The replies are all over the place. $250. $480. $800. Some operators are sustaining profitable businesses at the $480 mark; others are still doing it for $250 and wondering why they have no money at the end of the month.
The answer isn't a single number, it's a structure. If you would rather have the arithmetic done for you, the cleaning price calculator for bond, deep and standard cleans runs the same structure and gives you a range you can send. Bond clean pricing is a sum of components, each of which an operator can reason about. Once you understand the structure, you can quote with confidence in any market in Australia.
The Per-Room / Per-Bathroom Base
The single most important pricing decision is moving off hourly pricing and onto per-room / per-bathroom. Hourly pricing is a trap. Customers argue. You race to finish. Both lose.
These are the ranges you will commonly see quoted for bond cleans in 2026. They are a starting point for your own pricing rather than a benchmark, so check what is being advertised in your own city before you set yours:
- Per bedroom: $80 to $100
- Per bathroom: $70 to $95 (bathrooms take longer per square metre, grout, mirrors, shower screens)
- Living areas / kitchen: Bundled into the base (typically valued at $150 to $220 for a standard 3-bed home)
A 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home base = roughly $390 to $520, depending on suburb and market positioning. That's before any add-ons.
OneBookPlus runs quoting, invoicing, bookings, jobs and GST-ready accounting in one Australian app. See what that looks like for cleaners.
The Add-Ons That Make or Break the Quote
Where these numbers come from. The rates on this page are a pricing model built from the cost breakdown further down, not a survey of operators. For a published cross-check on the finished number, ServiceTasker's bond cleaning cost guide put a three-bedroom, two-bathroom bond clean at $400 to $600 and carpet steam cleaning at $80 to $150 when we read it on 1 September 2026 (guide published 9 June 2025). Price your own job off your own hours and costs, not off either range.
The single largest source of bond-clean disputes is whether specific items are "included" or "extra". Operators who quote a flat number get cooked when the customer expects oven, carpets, and windows on a $380 quote. The fix is to isolate every add-on as a line item with a transparent price.
The standard add-ons every bond clean quote should isolate:
- Oven & griller deep clean: $40 to $80. Often the difference between a profitable and unprofitable job, ovens take 60 to 90 minutes each. If you bundle it, you're paying for the customer's hard-baked grease.
- Carpet steam clean: $25 to $45 per room. Required by most agents for bond return, especially if pets were on the lease. Many operators sub-contract this to a specialist who pays them a referral commission.
- Internal windows: $80 to $120 for a typical 3-bed home (single-storey). Adjust by storey and pane count.
- External windows (single-storey only): $60 to $100. Multi-storey external windows are usually declined on safety and insurance grounds, so either price a licensed height-access subcontractor into the quote or leave them out of scope in writing.
- Garage clear & sweep: $40 to $80. Cobwebs, oil stains noted.
- Wall scuff removal: $50 to $100 for moderate, charged hourly if extensive.
- Pet flea treatment / de-bombing: $80 to $150. Required by some agents when the lease included pets.
With a 3-bed home base of $440 plus oven ($60), carpets ($120 for 4 rooms), and internal windows ($95), the quote lands at $715. That's the realistic mid-market price in capital-city Australia in 2026.
Margin Math: What's Actually Profitable
A $715 quote sounds healthy. Let's break down where the money goes for a solo operator:
- Labour (7 to 9 hours of solo work): This is the operator's drawings. At $50/hr loaded cost it's $350 to $450.
- Materials & consumables: $25 to $40 (cleaning chemicals, fresh microfibre cloths, sometimes new mop heads).
- Travel: $20 to $40 (fuel + vehicle wear).
- Insurance allocation: $5 to $10 per job amortised.
- Marketing acquisition allocation: $50 to $100 per first job (lead cost via Google Ads or platform), $0 on referrals.
Gross margin on a $715 job: roughly $250 to $300 if it's a referral, $150 to $200 if it's a paid acquisition. That's healthy enough to sustain a solo operation, especially if 30 to 40% of jobs are referrals.
Now compare with a $480 quote for the same job:
- Labour-loaded: $350+ for the same hours
- Materials, travel, insurance, marketing: ~$100
- Gross margin: $30 to break-even
The operator quoting $480 isn't winning more jobs, they're selling labour at marginal cost and working for the equivalent of $33/hour after expenses. The customer doesn't value a $230 saving enough to make the difference worthwhile for the operator.
Regional Pricing, The Adjustments That Matter
The per-room benchmarks above are capital-city CBD-suburb pricing. Regional adjustments:
- Outer-suburbs of capital cities: Same per-room rates; travel is the variable. Adjust quote by adding $20 to $40 travel premium where appropriate.
- Regional towns (Wollongong, Geelong, Newcastle, Toowoomba, etc.): Per-room rates 10 to 15% lower; less competition can absorb some of that.
- Remote / rural: Per-room rates can be 20 to 30% higher with travel premium. Fewer competitors, higher operating costs, customers expect to pay more.
- Tourist markets (Gold Coast, Byron, Hobart): Short-term rental turnover pricing crosses over with bond cleans. Often charge 15 to 25% premium because demand outstrips supply in peak.
The Re-Clean Clause That Saves Margin
Agents occasionally request a re-clean. Most reasonable operators offer a 72-hour re-clean window at no cost if the agent flags a specific inclusion. This is a sales tool, it makes the quote feel safe to the customer, but it has to be scoped tightly:
- Re-clean is for items the agent flags within 72 hours.
- Re-clean is limited to the specific items flagged (not a full re-do).
- Re-clean isn't available if the property was damaged by the tenant between the initial clean and inspection (e.g., dust accumulation from waiting a week).
Unscoped re-clean clauses are the second-most-common source of margin destruction (after under-pricing add-ons). Scope tight.
How OneBookPlus Turns This Into a Workflow
The pricing structure above only sustains a profitable operation if it's implemented in the quote-to-invoice workflow. OneBookPlus is built around this exact flow:
- Inclusions-based quoting: Build the quote from a structured per-room + per-add-on template. Customer sees the breakdown.
- State-specific templates: NSW Fair Trading, VIC CAV, QLD RTA inclusions vary slightly, choose the right starting template.
- Photo-evidence per inclusion: Stamp before/after photos against each inclusion. Defends against re-clean abuse.
- Same-day invoicing: The moment keys go back, send the invoice with a Pay Now link. Tenants pay before bond release.
- Agency-level reporting: Track which agencies request re-cleans. Price future jobs from problem agencies up.
A solo operator with the right pricing structure can sustain a profitable operation. The pricing structure has to be in the tool, not in the operator's head, for it to work week after week.
TL;DR, The 2026 Pricing Cheatsheet
- Per bedroom: $80 to $100
- Per bathroom: $70 to $95
- Oven: $40 to $80 (isolate, never bundle)
- Carpet steam: $25 to $45 per room (isolate)
- Windows internal: $80 to $120 (isolate)
- Re-clean clause: 72 hours, flagged items only
- Quote with the breakdown visible, not a single flat number
- Track agencies that push back, price future jobs accordingly
Get the structure right and the numbers fall into place.
Where the quote goes next
A price is only worth having once it is out the door. Cleaning business software for Australian operators turns the structure above into a sent quote, a booked job and a GST-ready invoice, without retyping any of it.
