Cleaning Employee Cost Calculator & State Wage Benchmarks

Reviewed September 17, 2026 · Wage benchmarks: May 2025 · Federal tax settings: 2026

An $18/hour cleaning employee costs $27.47 per billable hour for labor in the example below—or $30.25 after the selected supplies and overhead. The difference comes from employer costs and paid time that cannot be billed to a customer. These are adjustable planning examples, not industry averages.

Use the calculator for one regular-time employee, then compare two cleaning occupations across all 50 states and DC. For the insurance part of the budget, see our cleaning business insurance guide.

Why $18 paid is not $18 earned back from customers

At 40 paid hours for 52 weeks, an $18 wage is $37,440 a year. If 75% of paid time is billable, the employee produces 1,560 billable worker-hours. Wages alone then cost $24 per billable hour. The remaining 520 paid hours still cost money.

The example adds employer Social Security and Medicare, $42 FUTA assuming full credit, $300 state employer payroll charges, $1,000 workers’ compensation and $1,200 benefits. That brings annual labor cost to $42,846.16. The model then adds $2,000 allocated overhead and $1.50 of supplies per billable hour. Those five nonfederal cost inputs are chosen examples, not surveyed averages.

The same employee, different billable time

This comparison holds the $18 wage, 2,080 paid hours and every dollar/rate assumption above constant. Only the billable share changes.

Paid travel between job sites during the workday is working time under the federal rule discussed in DOL Fact Sheet 22. Include applicable paid setup, training, breaks and leave in your schedule too. Reducing the billable share allocates their cost; it does not make legally compensable time unpaid. Paid leave already included in wages should not be added again as a separate benefit cost.

Get an insurance number that belongs in your budget

The $1,000 workers’ compensation input is only an example allocation. Ask for a quote based on the work performed, estimated payroll, employees and business locations, then allocate the quoted business cost appropriately. Do not mistake a whole-policy minimum or premium for a per-employee price.

Keep workers’ compensation separate from general liability, vehicle coverage and other business insurance. Include your allocated share of those other premiums in overhead without counting them twice. Our four cleaning-business insurance disputes explain why the work and policy exclusions matter alongside the price.

Compare cleaning insurance coverage

Use the result to check a job—not to copy a market price

Once you have a cost estimate, match it to a buyer’s actual scope, schedule and proposal requirements using our commercial cleaning contract guide.

The default $30.25 operating-cost estimate becomes $37.81 per worker-hour at a 20% margin on the included costs. The formula divides cost by 0.80; multiplying cost by 1.20 produces a 20% markup, which is a different calculation. A four-worker-hour job would need about $151.24 of revenue under this example before any separately charged items or taxes.

Your price must also reflect the actual scope, unmodeled costs, owner compensation, customer acquisition, payment fees and demand. Add costs once, in the appropriate input. Revenue is not owner income: compare this budget with our cleaning business revenue research.

Explore cash needed before hiring a cleaning crew with a 13-week scenario that accounts for setup costs, weekly expenses and delayed customer payments. Enter your own costs and collection timing to estimate the cash gap before adding staff.

Sources, formulas and what this tool leaves out

Maryland employers should budget the new 2027 contribution separately: our Maryland FAMLI contribution calculator applies the employer-size threshold and separates employee withholding from business expense. Avoid counting the same contribution twice in your labor-cost inputs.

If you offer employee medical benefits, use the 2027 small-business health insurance rate tracker to distinguish proposed increases from approved changes before updating your benefits assumption. The state averages are context; use your actual renewal quote in this cost model.

Explore observed cleaning-industry payroll shares using 2022 Census employer data for all 50 states and DC. The observed payroll share excludes employer taxes and insurance premiums; it is not a profit margin or a recommended budget.

1. Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025 state estimates, file oesm25st.zip, fields H_MEDIAN for SOC 37-2011 and 37-2012. We extracted 102 available records for 50 states and DC. The archived official workbook was re-read for this page; the direct download was blocked during this check. See BLS definitions and limitations. Wages are nominal, not inflation-adjusted, and do not measure total compensation, contractor rates or customer prices. No missing values were converted to zero.
2. Federal employer taxes: IRS Social Security and Medicare rates and 2026 Publication 15: Social Security = 6.2% of modeled wages up to $184,500; Medicare = 1.45% of all modeled wages. Employee withholding is not added again as an employer cost. Additional Medicare withholding has no employer share.
3. FUTA: IRS FUTA guidance. The model applies the selected rate to the first $7,000 of modeled wages. The default 0.6% assumes the full state credit and no credit reduction; the statutory rate before credits is 6%. Check eligibility, timely state payments and applicable credit reductions. State selection does not determine the correct FUTA rate.
4. Other costs: state unemployment and other employer payroll charges are annual dollar inputs because rates, wage bases and assessments vary. Workers’ compensation, benefits, overhead, supplies and billable time are user assumptions. They are not supplied by BLS or the IRS. This page does not determine legal wage, overtime, leave, coverage or tax obligations.

Paid hours = weekly paid hours × paid weeks.
Billable hours = paid hours × billable share.
Annual labor = wages + employer FICA + FUTA + state employer payroll charges + workers’ compensation + employer benefits.
Annual included operating cost = labor + other overhead + (supplies per billable hour × billable hours).
Target price per worker-hour = operating cost per billable hour ÷ (1 − target margin).

Use a fresh employee-specific calculation for multiple hires or turnover: unemployment wage bases do not necessarily carry over from one worker to another. This regular-time model does not calculate overtime premiums, including any applicable daily overtime, pretax benefit adjustments or tax exemptions. Match the budget to your payroll provider’s calculations before committing to a hire.

After you know employer cost per hour, check timing: how much cash before taking a commercial contract covers mobilization and payroll float until the first customer payment.

Common questions

Plan the rest of your cleaning business

• State-by-state cleaning business startup guides
• Wages for other service-business occupations

To cite this comparison, identify BLS wage figures as May 2025 estimates and employee-cost figures as StartBusinessByState.com scenarios reviewed September 17, 2026. Keep the assumptions with any figures you reuse.