Why Our Minimum Is $150 — and How We Actually Price a Calvert County Cleaning

The most common question we get isn't "are you available next Tuesday." It's "what does a cleaning cost?"

Most cleaning companies dodge that question. They want you on the phone, on their schedule, in their funnel. I get the marketing logic, but I think it's a bad way to start a relationship with a customer. So here's the honest answer.

A typical Streaker's recurring cleaning in Calvert or St. Mary's County is $150 to $250. A move-in or move-out cleaning is $300 to $550. A post-construction cleanup is $400 to $1,000+ depending on square footage and condition. Those aren't marketing numbers. Those are what we actually quote, and we have the receipts to prove it.

Below is the real math.

Why $150 is the floor

Our minimum for any residential cleaning is $150. That number isn't arbitrary. It's the smallest job we can do well and not lose money on, and here's what's inside it.

Drive time. Southern Maryland is spread out. A teammate driving from Prince Frederick to a job in Lexington Park is burning thirty to forty minutes of paid time before they touch a sponge. We don't pass that as a separate line item — we bake it into the floor.

Two-person, two-hour minimum on-site. Almost every cleaning needs at least two people for at least two hours to be done right. Even a small one-bedroom condo. One person can do it, but the result isn't the same, and the customer feels it on day three when the streaks show up.

Supplies and equipment depreciation. Microfiber cloths, vacuum bags and belts, mop heads, glass cleaner, disinfectant, drywall dust filters for post-construction work. None of it is free. We don't use grocery-store products on customer surfaces — we use commercial-grade, and that has a cost.

Insurance, contracts, and overhead. We carry $1 million general liability. We pay for licensing, contractor agreements, background checks. Cheaper local operators skip these. Until something goes wrong, that looks fine.

If we tried to do a $99 cleaning, you'd get the kind of cleaning that costs $99. We'd rather tell you the floor up front.

What pushes the price up

Once you're past the floor, the price is driven by real, measurable things.

Square footage and number of bathrooms. A 1,400 sq ft three-bedroom one-bath is a different job from a 3,200 sq ft four-bedroom three-bath. Bathrooms are slow work; they drive the time more than total square footage does.

Scope — recurring vs. deep vs. move-out. A recurring cleaning maintains a baseline. A deep cleaning resets it. A move-out cleaning is a full reset including inside the oven, behind appliances, all interior windows, all cabinet interiors. Each step up in scope is roughly +30 to +50% over the recurring price for the same home.

Condition. A house that gets recurring service every two weeks cleans up fast. A house that hasn't been cleaned in six months takes substantially longer, especially in kitchens and bathrooms. We don't penalize you for this — we just need to see it before we quote.

Distance. If you're more than thirty minutes from our service core, we add a small distance premium. We're transparent about this. We'd rather quote you fairly than absorb it silently and cut corners on your job to make up for it.

Special asks. Inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows, baseboards as a one-time reset, pet hair (especially long-hair breeds and shedding seasons). Each is a discrete add-on with a discrete price.

What we do NOT do

We don't quote sight-unseen for anything bigger than a small recurring cleaning. We don't quote off Zillow square footage — Zillow is wrong more often than it's right, and what we charge has to match what we actually clean. We don't offer a $99 deep clean as a loss leader and then upsell you halfway through. We don't surprise you with "well, it took longer than expected" at the end of the job. If we underestimate, that's our problem, not yours.

The walkthrough is free

The fastest way to get a real number is a fifteen-minute walkthrough. We come to the property, we look at the actual space, we ask what's been bothering you most, and we hand you a quote on the spot. There's no fee, no obligation, and no high-pressure sales script.

For move-outs and post-construction jobs where you can't be on site, we'll take photos and video and quote from those, as long as you can give us a real square footage and an honest description of the condition.

A real example

Here's a recent one. Three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath colonial in Prince Frederick. 2,400 sq ft. Recurring biweekly cleaning. We quoted $185 per visit. That's two teammates, about 2.5 hours per visit, all standard rooms plus a finished basement, one half-bath, and a primary suite with two sinks. The first cleaning was a deep clean at $295 to reset baseline — we always recommend the first visit be a deep clean, because once everything is at a baseline we can maintain it efficiently.

A different one. Two-bedroom, one-bath rental turnover in Solomons. 950 sq ft. Move-out scope (inside oven, inside fridge, all cabinet interiors, all windows, baseboards). We quoted $325. That's a property-manager favorite job — predictable, fast, photographed at the end.

These aren't bait numbers. They're our average week.

How to get a quote

Three options. Text us a few photos and a square footage at the number on our home page, and we'll give you a same-day range. Book a free walkthrough — we usually have a slot within 48 hours. Or if you're a property manager or contractor handling repeat work, ask about our recurring partner pricing.

We'd rather you know the number before you book than after. That's how a service business should work.