Frequently Asked Questions: FAQ
Q: How Much Does House Cleaning Cost in San Jose, CA?
A: In February 2025, San Jose CA was determined to be the most expensive city in the US—even topping New York City, and others that have previously held this title. Being the most costly city in the nation, house cleaning is understandably more expensive as well.
In short, Fees for home cleaning in San Jose, and the surrounding area, can vary from $40/hour to $155/hour for 1-2 professional cleaners (April 2025). However, services vary-widely-with each cleaning company, so be sure to ask and understand exactly what the cleaning service will include.
When looking for home or apartment cleaning in San Jose, CA, be sure to ask the following questions, so that you’re easily able to compare the cleaning companies, and the services they offer, in an equitable way:
What insurance coverage does the cleaning company have?
A detailed cheklist (in writing) specifying exactly what will be cleaned.
Do they have a customer satisfaction guarantee? What is the guarantee (re-clean, or refund of paid fees)?
Do they charge by the hour? A flat fee? By the square foot?
How many technicians are included in their price quote?
Is there a time limit (minimum or maximum number of hours)?
Be cautioned if you’re tempted to hire the cheapest house cleaners in San Jose, CA, as they may not have a legitimate business, business license, or appropriate business insurance-leaving you and your financial well-being in danger.
Many homeowners, and renters, do not know that they, personally, may be financially liable for any damage caused, or injuries that occur during the cleaning service, unless their personal insurance policy covers damage caused by workers, or injury of workers, or, the business has liability and worker’s compensation insurance.
Meaning that you can become liable for replacing broken glass shower doors, for example, or worse, you can be legally liable for paying an injured worker’s salary if they are injured on your property while cleaning your home (or, performing any service in or around your home).
Protect yourself, as the owner or renter, by checking with your insurance company exactly what your insurance policy will cover in the event of damage or injury. Next, ask the cleaning company to provide you with evidence of insurance coverage for broken or damaged items, as well as worker’s compensation insurance in the event of a worker’s injury.
Home and apartment cleaners will have lower prices if they do not have a legitimate business, a business license, and/or if they don’t carry business liability and worker’s compensation insurance. Thus, allowing the cleaning service to offer “cheap” or “inexpensive” fees, in the short run; but leaving you vulnerable to very expensive financial liabilities in the long run. Single person cleaners often are uninsured, leaving you no recourse for damage and or injury caused during cleaning services.
To protect yourself, hire only licensed, insured, background checked, and formally trained home cleaners in your home. Doing so, reduces the risk of theft, compromised personal information, damage to property, and your personal liability in the event of injuries and/or accidents.
Q: How long will it take house cleaners to clean my whole home or apartment?
A: The amount of time needed to clean a home is dependent upon the following factors:
What is the square footage of your space?
How many bathrooms are in your home?
How many people live in your home?
Do you have pets? How many?
Do any children live in your home?
How dirty is your home? Especially, what is the soil level of the showers/tubs/stovetop/and floors?
Are daily cleaning chores performed regularly and consistently? Washing dishes, wiping spills immediately, wiping countertops, and tidying rooms?
What percentage of your floors is hard surfaced?
Based on collected and analyzed data, over a two year span, using the clean times recorded by Cleantopia House Cleaning Technicians, the following average cleaning times were obtained:
Full Bathroom-Cleaned Regularly* = 20-30 minutes (each)
Half Bathroom-Cleaned Regularly* = 10-15 minutes (each)
*Moderately to heavily soiled, add 30 minutes, and 15 minutes, respectively.
Small-to Medium-Sized Kitchen—Cleaned Regularly* = 30-40 minutes
Large-Sized or Gourmet Kitchen—Cleaned Regularly* = 50-70 minutes
*Moderately to heavily soiled, add 15 minutes, and 20 minutes, respectively.
Bedrooms—tidy—make bed only; no linen change* = 10-20 minutes each
Living / Great Room—Cleaned regularly* = 20-45+ minutes
*Tidying before cleaning: add 20+ minutes
Keep in mind, the above estimates of time, are based on data collected when techs were cleaning recurring and regularly cleaned client’s spaces. First time cleans will likely be double or more the amount of time needed to clean, versus recurring cleans thereafter.
Discussion on Factors to Consider for Time Estimation to Clean Your Home:
In order to most accurately estimate time it will take to clean your space, you must provide the square footage as well as the number of bathrooms, etc. Sq feet alone will not always provide an accurate picture for estimation since a 4k sq ft home that has 3 bathrooms is vastly different compared to the same size home with 5 en suite bathrooms.
The 5 bathrooms will logically take more time to clean than the 3 baths, however, maybe not! For example, those 3 bathrooms are significantly larger than the same sized home with 5 en-suite bathrooms. The three bathrooms probably have both a shower and a tub, a large double sink vanity area, possibly a garden tub (or jacuzzi), and larger floor area etc. So, in reality the five smaller baths, may be faster to clean than the three large bathrooms since they only include a stall shower, small sink and vanity, no bathtub, and are smaller in square feet.
Which leads to one of the criteria listed above, how many people live in your home, and are any children? Four people living with five bathrooms likely means that only 3 bathing areas are used daily, which results in faster cleaning times on the bathrooms that are used less frequently ( or, possibly not at all).
A 4k square foot home, likely has a large gourmet kitchen, or, possibly two kitchens. It may have two - three ovens, a professional stovetop which is more difficult to clean, tall cabinetry, two sinks, and the list goes on, You get the point, however, the size matters really only in relation to the number of bathrooms relative to size, and the number and ages of residents in the home.
Pets contribute significantly to the amount of dirt, hair and dust in your home, as do toddlers who often eat finger foods, and play with a multitude of smallish toys that will inevitably need to be put away.
Percentage of hard surfaced floors affects time needed to clean- quite significantly-since hard surfaced floors are literally cleaned twice—first, they’re vacuumed or swept, and second, they’re mopped. Compared to a carpeted living space, hard surfaced floors can add over an hour of needed clean time. I learned this lesson the hard way when I provided a phone estimate without inquiring how much of the client’s newly renovated 4400 sq ft multi-level home had hard wood or other surfaced flooring. I gave them an estimate of 10 cleaning hours, when it in fact, took us 12 and 1/4 hours to complete due to the wall-to-wall (rainforest) solid-wood flooring. That client’s home would take two cleaning techs 2.5 hours to clean the floors alone! Needless to say, I lost a good deal of money on that first clean, but I gained invaluable experience.
In short, Cleaning is laborious work, and in reality, an experienced house cleaner will save a little time by recognizing a surface’s material composition, assessing the level and type of debris/soil on surfaces, and equally imporatant, they’re able to access their mental “database” and therefore, know about that surface’s proper care and what cleaning methods and/or solutions will work best. But, if it takes me 2 solid hours to clean my car, inside and out, thoroughly, then, a large multi room home is going to take significantly longer!
It’s important to remember that professional cleaners are efficient at what they do, but they are not superhuman, as some clients will assume. What a house cleaner does not have in their arsenal, is short-cuts. Why? Because to be blunt, there are no super fast short-cuts in house cleaning, or in any labor intensive trade for that matter.
Yes, professional house cleaners know how to save a little time because they likely don’t need to spend time researching how to clean something. However, the results and the time needed to clean the area will only be shortened by a bit if you’re hiring a professional house cleaner, because, again, there aren’t any magical shortcuts in house cleaning. What took months (or, yikes! years?!) to soil, will not easily be removed in one hour.