We price hundreds of builders cleans a year, and we do not publish a rate card. Not as a sales tactic: because any flat number would be wrong for most jobs, and wrong numbers become variations, and variations are how cheap quotes turn expensive. What we can do is show you exactly what sets the number, so you can read any quote, including ours, like someone who prices them.
The 7 factors that set the price
1. How many stages the program needs. A builders clean is usually three cleans: initial after rough out, final after the detail trades, sparkle before handover. A single home near completion might need one visit. A staged multi residential program needs all three, per building, sequenced over months. Stage count moves the price more than any other factor.
2. Floor area and layout. More floor costs more, but layout matters as much as area. Twenty apartments of 80 square metres clean slower than one warehouse of 1,600, because every apartment has its own kitchen, two wet areas and its own glazing.
3. Glazing. Glass is the slowest surface on a construction site. Walls of glass, high atriums, glass balustrades and framed shower screens all add hours. A home with heavy glazing can out cost a bigger home without it.
4. Access. Ground floor windows need a squeegee. A facade needs an EWP, a ticketed operator and possibly a road or footpath permit. If any part of the scope is at height, access is a real line in the price and a contractor who has not priced it will be adding it later.
5. Finish level. Prestige finishes clean slower on purpose. Natural stone, brushed metals, coated glass and dark joinery all show what lesser finishes hide, and they punish rushing with scratches that become defects. Higher finish, more hours, more care.
6. Program pressure. A clean booked three weeks out slots into the program at normal rates. A crew mobilised overnight because handover moved carries a premium, and weekend or overnight work to save a PC date costs more than weekday work. The earlier you book, the less you pay.
7. Location and repetition. Metro sites in our five cities price sharpest. Regional sites carry travel. And repeat programs price better than one offs, because a crew that knows your standard wastes no time relearning it.
How to make your quote smaller
- Book early. The single biggest saving. Early bookings are programmed work; late bookings are emergencies.
- Finish before we start. Areas genuinely clear of trades clean once. Areas where trades return clean twice, and someone pays for the second time.
- Power and water on. Without them, productivity halves and the price knows it.
- Protect finished surfaces. Film on benchtops and board on floors means cleaning, not restoration.
- Bundle the caulk. Cleaning and caulking through one contractor removes a whole layer of sequencing cost.
Red flags in a cheap quote
A suspiciously low number usually means one of these: a single clean quoted where the program needs three, glazing counted as wipe downs instead of scrape and squeegee work, no access equipment priced, no supervisor and no sign off process, or no comeback if the client finds something. Ask one question of every cheap quote: what happens if something is missed? If the answer is vague, the real price is the quote plus your own time chasing rectifications.
What we do instead of a rate card
Send plans, site details or a short video walkthrough. Within 24 hours you get an itemised quote: each stage priced separately, glazing and access called out, inclusions and exclusions in writing, with a supervisor sign off and a rectification at no cost if anything is found after it. Fixed price, no variations for things we should have seen.
If you want to see exactly what those hours buy, the room by room checklist is the scope behind every number, and our builders clean service page explains the staged program. That is the honest version of a builders clean price in Australia: not a number, a method. The number comes out of your plans in 24 hours.
The Builders Clean team