CARPET CLEANING PRICING GUIDE
Carpet cleaning pricing: what to charge in 2026
The 2026 US prices per room, per square foot and by the home, by cleaning method, the commercial rate and the recurring discount, what to add for stairs, stains, pet odor and protector, the pricing formula from your costs to a margin — and a free calculator that turns them into a price you can put on your website.
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The short answer
Carpet cleaners charge $40 to $125 a room or $0.20 to $0.40 a square foot — $160 to $200 for a small home of two or three rooms and $230 to $345 for four to six, because added rooms are discounted (Housecall Pro, October 2026). Fixr's national range is $75 to $300 for one to three rooms, $90 on average, at $0.18 to $0.36 a square foot (January 2025).
The method sets the per-room price: bonnet cleaning $25 to $85, dry cleaning $60 to $130, encapsulation $80 to $200, shampooing $100 to $240, steam or hot water extraction $100 to $310 (Fixr, for one room on its own). Commercial carpet is $0.15 to $0.25 a square foot — $300 to $500 for a 2,000-square-foot office — and a recurring contract runs about 18% less per visit than a one-time clean (Housecall Pro).
The extras go on their own lines: stairs $45 to $65 a staircase, stain removal $25 to $300 by severity, deodorizing and pet odor $20 to $40 a room, carpet protector $10 to $40 a room, moving furniture $10 to $75, same-day service $50 to $100, area rugs $2 to $8 a square foot and upholstery $50 to $400 an item (Housecall Pro). Under it all sits a minimum charge of $75 to $125, so a single room still pays for the trip.
Price from your costs: a loaded wage plus overhead per hour times the job's hours is break-even, then price = break-even ÷ (1 − margin), with Housecall Pro targeting 20% to 40%. Then put the per-room price on your website: “carpet cleaning pricing” is Googled about 4,400 times a month, and “how much to charge for carpet cleaning” is put to AI assistants about 1,180 times (DataForSEO, October 2026).
AT A GLANCE · NOVEMBER 2026
Carpet cleaning pricing at a glance
| The job | Typical US price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Carpet cleaning | $120–$375 for 3 rooms ($40–$125 per room) | Housecall Pro, October 2026 |
| Carpet cleaning | $200–$400 for 1,000 sq ft ($0.20–$0.40 per sq ft) | Housecall Pro, October 2026 |
| Small home, 2–3 rooms | $160–$200 | Housecall Pro, October 2026 |
| Medium home, 4–6 rooms | $230–$345 | Housecall Pro, October 2026 |
| Steam cleaning (hot water extraction) | $100–$310 | Fixr, January 2025 |
| Minimum charge | $75–$125 | Housecall Pro, October 2026 |
The same published figures as the full rate table below; the calculator works out a price for your own job.
FREE PRICE CALCULATOR
What should I charge for this job?
Pick the rooms, the square feet or the home, a method for a single room, a commercial floor, a rug or upholstery, then tick the extras. The range uses the published 2026 US figures in the table below.
Suggested price
$120–$375
per room, 3 rooms
A starting range from published US figures — not a price for a customer until you've seen the carpet, the soil and the stairs. The calculator never goes below the minimum charge.
Show this price on your website ↓Show this price on your website
Put your carpet cleaning prices where customers look
Add your town, and Zarla builds your carpet cleaning website from this one line. Then tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your prices, and change them any time.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
RATES · NOVEMBER 2026
Carpet cleaning prices (2026)
Typical US prices per room, per square foot, by the home, by method and for commercial work, with each per-unit row's worked total at a usual size. The per-room figures don't line up across publishers, and the reason matters: Housecall Pro's $40–$125 is a per-room rate inside a job where added rooms are discounted — its 2–3-room home is $160–$200, which is $53–$100 a room (our arithmetic) — while Fixr's by-method prices are for one room on its own, so its steam cleaning at $100–$310 sits above Housecall Pro's $40–$90 a room for steam. Fixr's own by-rooms table runs $40–$70 for one room to $140–$600 for five (January 2025); Bob Vila's, $25–$75 for one to $150–$600 for five (November 2023).
| The job | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Per room | $40–$125 per room · about $120–$375 for 3 rooms · Housecall Pro |
| By the home, rooms discounted | Small home, 2–3 rooms: $160–$200 · Medium home, 4–6 rooms: $230–$345 · Housecall Pro |
| Per square foot | $0.20–$0.40 per sq ft · about $200–$400 for 1,000 sq ft · Housecall Pro |
| One room, by method (Fixr's figures) | Bonnet cleaning: $25–$85 · Dry cleaning: $60–$130 · Encapsulation: $80–$200 · Shampooing: $100–$240 · Steam cleaning (hot water extraction): $100–$310 · Carbonated cleaning: $130–$400 · Fixr |
| Commercial, per square foot | $0.15–$0.25 per sq ft · about $300–$500 for 2,000 sq ft · Housecall Pro |
| Area rug, per square foot | $2–$8 per sq ft · about $80–$320 for 40 sq ft · Housecall Pro |
| Upholstery, per item | $50–$400 per item · about $100–$800 for 2 items · Housecall Pro |
| Hourly labor (rare for residential work) | $25–$65 per hour · about $75–$195 for 3 hours · Fixr |
| Job minimum | $75–$125 · Housecall Pro |
| Hourly labor (rare for residential work) | $25–$65 an hour · Fixr |
Rates read off each publisher's page in November 2026. The calculator above uses exactly these numbers, rounded to whole dollars and to the nearest $5 from $100 up, and never goes below the job minimum. Full source list below.
ADD-ONS AND ADJUSTMENTS
What to add for stairs, stains, pet odor, protector and the rush
The lines that go on top of the per-room price — each one priced on its own — and the discount a recurring commercial contract carries.
| What | Typical US price · source |
|---|---|
| Contract: recurring contract | 18% off · Housecall Pro |
| Stairs, per staircase | +$45–$65 · Housecall Pro |
| Stain removal, by severity | +$25–$300 · Housecall Pro |
| Deodorizing or pet odor treatment, per room | +$20–$40 · Housecall Pro |
| Carpet protector, per room | +$10–$40 · Housecall Pro |
| Moving furniture | +$10–$75 · Housecall Pro |
| Same-day service | +$50–$100 · Housecall Pro |
Where a row shows a sum (a rate × a quantity, or a percentage worked out from published dollar ranges), the arithmetic is ours and the inputs are the publisher's.
THE PRICING FORMULA
How to price a carpet cleaning job
Six steps from your costs to the number on your price list.
Load the wage
Labor rate = hourly wage × 1.25 — about 25% for payroll taxes and workers' comp (Housecall Pro, October 2026). A $25-an-hour technician costs $31.25 an hour.
Work out the overhead per hour
Monthly overhead ÷ monthly billable hours: Housecall Pro's $2,000 a month over 100 billable hours is $20 an hour — the van, the machine, the chemicals and the insurance ride on every hour you bill.
Find the break-even for the job
(Labor rate + overhead rate) × the job's hours: $51.25 an hour × 3 hours is $153.75 (Housecall Pro). Time your first jobs — the clock, not the room count, is what the cost follows.
Add the margin
Price = break-even ÷ (1 − target margin), with Housecall Pro targeting 20%–40%: its $120 cost at 30% prices at $171.43. Markup and margin aren't the same number — a 30% markup is a 23% margin.
Turn it into a per-room price with a minimum
Charge per room — $40–$125 — and discount added rooms, so a 2–3-room home is $160–$200 and a 4–6-room home $230–$345 (Housecall Pro); set a $75–$125 minimum so one room still pays for the trip, and switch to the square foot when the rooms are odd sizes.
Put the extras on their own lines
Stairs $45–$65 a staircase, stains $25–$300, deodorizing $20–$40 a room, protector $10–$40 a room, furniture $10–$75, same-day $50–$100 (Housecall Pro) — and price commercial floors per square foot at $0.15–$0.25, about 18% less per visit on a recurring contract.
The formula, worked through
Say it's a three-room apartment with a smell to shift. Housecall Pro's own example prices it at 3 rooms × $40 = $120, plus deodorizing at 3 × $20 = $60 — $180 (October 2026).
Now the cost side, on Housecall Pro's figures: a $25-an-hour technician loaded to $31.25, $20 an hour of overhead, and a three-hour job — $51.25 × 3 = $153.75 at break-even. At a 30% target margin, $153.75 ÷ 0.70 = $219.64.
So the $180 price only clears a 30% margin if the job is done in about two and a half hours ($51.25 × 2.5 = $128.13, ÷ 0.70 = $183.04) — at three hours it's a 15% margin. That's the whole trade in one example: the per-room price is set by the market, and the margin is made on the clock. The figures are Housecall Pro's; the arithmetic on the hours is ours, and your wage, your overhead and your speed are what make the price yours.
What to charge in your part of the country
The ranges on this page are US national figures, and labor is most of a carpet cleaning bill — Fixr puts the labor at $25–$65 an hour (January 2025) — so the per-room price follows local wages. The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts overall prices in California at 110.7 against a US average of 100 and Arkansas at 86.9 (2024 regional price parities, released February 2026): a $180 three-room job in an average market is about $199 in California and about $156 in Arkansas.
In the US, carpet cleaning is generally not a licensed trade, but some states charge sales tax on cleaning services and some don't, so whether your price carries tax is a state-by-state answer; our guide to starting a carpet cleaning business covers which states tax it, the registration, the sales-tax permit and the city licence where one applies. Check your state's rule before you print a price list, and confirm the tax line with your accountant.
Outside the US, treat the ranges as a shape, not a price — a per-room price with added rooms discounted, a minimum under it, the square foot for odd rooms and commercial floors, and the extras on their own lines hold everywhere — and check what local cleaners list on their own websites.
Put your prices on your website
A price list — even “from” prices — answers a customer's first question before they pick up the phone, and it's the line an AI assistant can quote when someone asks what carpet cleaning costs near them.
If you build your site with Zarla, tell the editor “add a pricing section: carpet cleaning from $50 a room, $100 minimum” and your prices go on the site, in a section you can edit any time. Want to see a finished site first? Browse carpet cleaning website templates or see how Zarla builds carpet cleaning websites.
Still setting up? Write your carpet cleaning business plan, browse carpet cleaning business name ideas, and when the prices are set, read how to get your business on Google. Raising prices you set a year ago? The price increase letter tells customers a month ahead.
Buying the first machine? How to start a carpet cleaning business covers the truck-mount or portable, the registration and the first customers. Cleaning whole homes as well? How much to charge for house cleaning has that work's own rates.
Carpet cleaning pricing: common questions
$40–$125 a room, with added rooms discounted — $160–$200 for a 2–3-room home and $230–$345 for 4–6 rooms (Housecall Pro, October 2026). Fixr's by-rooms range runs $40–$70 for one room to $140–$600 for five (January 2025); Bob Vila's, $25–$75 for one to $150–$600 for five (November 2023). The calculator above works out any number of rooms, with the extras and the minimum.
$0.20–$0.40 a square foot for residential work (Housecall Pro, October 2026); Fixr's is $0.18–$0.36 (January 2025) and Bob Vila's $0.20–$0.40 (November 2023). Commercial carpet is $0.15–$0.25 a square foot — $300–$500 for a 2,000-square-foot office — with a recurring contract about 18% less per visit (Housecall Pro).
$75–$125 (Housecall Pro, October 2026) — some companies set a two-room minimum or charge up to $250 on small jobs. Fixr lists Stanley Steemer's minimum at $300 a job and Coit's at $125 (January 2025). A $100 minimum covers a job that one $40 room never would.
For one room on its own, Fixr puts bonnet cleaning at $25–$85, dry cleaning $60–$130, encapsulation $80–$200, shampooing $100–$240, steam or hot water extraction $100–$310 and carbonated cleaning $130–$400 (January 2025). Inside a multi-room job Housecall Pro's per-room rate is $40–$90 for steam and $60–$130 for dry (October 2026).
Stairs $2–$5 a step or $45–$65 a staircase; stain removal $25–$300 by severity; deodorizing and pet odor $20–$40 a room; carpet protector $10–$40 a room; moving furniture $10–$75; same-day service $50–$100 (Housecall Pro, October 2026). Fixr prices a stubborn stain at $40–$300 and pet stain and odor work at $30–$40 an hour (January 2025).
$25–$65 an hour for the labor (Fixr, January 2025) — but residential work is priced per room or per square foot, not by the hour (Housecall Pro, October 2026). The hour is the check: a $25-an-hour technician costs $31.25 loaded, plus about $20 an hour of overhead in Housecall Pro's example, so a three-hour job has to clear $153.75 before any margin.
Housecall Pro targets 20%–40% and prices at break-even ÷ (1 − margin) — a $120 cost at 30% is $171.43 (October 2026). The margin is made on the clock: the per-room price is set by the market, so the faster the truck-mount clears the rooms, the more of the price is yours.
Yes — a per-room “from” price, the minimum and the add-on list answer the first question before the call, and they're the line an AI assistant can quote. On a Zarla site, tell the editor “add a pricing section” with your prices, and change them any time.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is read off a published source, dated below. They're US figures for residential carpet cleaning, with one commercial per-square-foot row — typical, not a rule; your costs and your market come first.
- Housecall Pro — How to Price Carpet Cleaning Jobs in 2026 — dated October 2026, read November 2026
- Fixr — Carpet Cleaning Cost — dated January 2025, read November 2026
- Bob Vila — How Much Does Carpet Cleaning Cost? — dated November 2023, read November 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — regional price parities by state, 2024 — dated February 2026, read September 2026
Put your carpet cleaning prices on your website
Add your town and your business name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line. Your per-room prices go in a pricing section you edit by chat.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.