Cleaning Quote and Estimate Software: Instant Quotes vs. Bids

Most cleaning business owners lose more money on prices than on software. A quote that’s $20 too low on a biweekly clean costs over $500 a year for that one client, and a commercial bid that misjudges the hours can run at a loss for the whole contract. Quote software won’t pick your prices for you, but it makes you price every job the same way, and it lets customers say yes faster.

This guide covers how cleaning businesses price their work, when an instant online quote works and when you need a walkthrough, and which tools do each. Prices and features come from each vendor’s official website as of October 27, 2026, using regular prices, not promotions.

How cleaning businesses price their work

Before choosing software, be clear on your pricing method, because each tool supports some methods better than others.

Per bedroom and bathroom

The most common model for residential maid services: a base price plus an amount for each bedroom and bathroom, with extras (inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows, laundry) added on top. Customers understand it, and it works well on a website form because they know how many rooms they have. The weak spot is size: a three-bedroom condo and a three-bedroom house with a finished basement get the same price.

Per square foot

Pricing by square footage tracks the actual work more closely, especially for larger homes, move-outs and commercial spaces. Homeowners often don’t know their exact square footage, so many residential businesses combine it with bedrooms and bathrooms, or use square-footage ranges.

Hourly

You charge for the hours worked, sometimes with a minimum. It protects you on unpredictable jobs (first cleans, very dirty homes), but customers can’t see the final price in advance, which makes online booking harder to sell.

Flat rate per service

A fixed price per package: standard clean, deep clean, move-out clean. Simple to sell and simple to book online. It works as long as your packages are clearly defined and you have a rule for homes that fall outside them.

Commercial bids: per visit or per month

Office and janitorial work is usually bid, not booked. The usual method is to measure the cleanable area, estimate how many square feet per hour a cleaner can cover in each type of space (offices, restrooms, break rooms, hallways), multiply by the number of visits, and then add labor burden, supplies, overhead and profit. The result is usually presented as a price per visit or a monthly contract price. These bids are where specialized bidding software earns its cost. For running the contract after you win it (night crews, GPS check-ins, inspections), see our janitorial software guide.

Whatever the method, check the math against your costs. Our free job quote calculator builds a price from labor, supplies, overhead and a target profit margin, so you can test your rates before you load them into any app.

Instant online quotes vs. on-site estimates

There are two ways to get a price to the customer, and most cleaning businesses use both.

Instant online quotes work for standard residential cleans. The customer enters bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, frequency and extras, sees a price, and books. No phone tag, no visit, and bookings come in at night and on weekends. The risk is that the home turns out bigger or dirtier than described, so say on the form that the price may change after the first visit, and set that policy before you need it.

On-site (or video) estimates are better for jobs that vary a lot: move-outs, post-construction cleans, homes that haven’t been cleaned in a long time, carpet cleaning with stains or pet damage, and any commercial site. You walk through, then send a written quote the customer approves and, ideally, pays a deposit on.

The tools split the same way. Booking-form tools (Launch27, BookingKoala) are built around the instant price. Field service apps (Jobber, Housecall Pro) are built around written quotes, with online booking added. Bidding tools (CleanGuru) are built around commercial proposals.

The options compared

Launch27: instant prices by bedrooms, bathrooms or square feet

Launch27 is designed around the online booking form. Its features page lists pricing by number of bedrooms and bathrooms, by square feet (or meters), hourly, and custom pricing for special cases. It can give discounts based on how often clients book, and its real-time pricing updates the total for discount codes, sales tax and gift cards. The Base plan also includes a contact form for commercial leads, so office jobs can come in as requests rather than instant bookings.

As of October 27, 2026, Base is $75/month ($765 a year), Pro $150/month and Plus $299/month, with unlimited users. Pro removes the Launch27 branding from the form and adds QuickBooks, Zapier and Google Calendar; Plus adds different pricing by location and automatic card charging. There’s a 14-day trial.

Launch27 is the right fit if most of your residential work can be priced from a form. It’s not a tool for written estimates after a walkthrough.

BookingKoala: the low-cost booking site with prices

BookingKoala says you can set prices “based on quantity, parameters, hours, minutes, packages”, and its forms can price by zip code. You can add expedited fees for same-day appointments, and you can also create quotes and send them to potential customers for jobs that don’t fit the form. That flexibility is also how a carpet cleaner could price per room or per area online; test your own price list in the trial.

As of October 27, 2026, plans start at $27/month for 5 providers (Starter), $57/month for 15 (Growing) and $197/month for 50 (Premium), with no contracts and a 14-day trial. Multi-step forms are on Premium. It’s the cheapest way here to put instant prices on your own booking site.

Jobber: written quotes, approvals and job costing

Jobber’s cleaning page focuses on quoting after a request: you pre-load your common cleaning services, pricing and upsell options, add photos, past client reviews and optional add-ons to a quote, and the client picks add-ons while the quote total updates automatically. Clients approve quotes and pay online in the client hub, and request forms on your website feed new jobs into Jobber.

As of October 27, 2026, Core is $49/month for one user ($29/month billed annually), and Core includes sending quotes and online booking. Automated quote follow-ups start on Connect ($139/month for one user, $199 for five). Optional line items and job costing are listed on Grow ($199/month for one user, $299 for five). There’s a 14-day trial with no card.

Jobber fits a cleaning company that quotes many different jobs (deep cleans, move-outs, post-construction, small commercial accounts) and wants quotes, scheduling and invoicing in one app.

Housecall Pro: estimates plus 24/7 booking

Housecall Pro describes itself as “cleaning estimate software” for building quotes in minutes from anywhere. Its online booking page can show your cleaning services, prices and service areas, so customers book 24/7 “with your pricing and availability”, including through Reserve with Google.

As of October 27, 2026, Basic is $79/month ($59 billed annually) for one user, Essentials $189/month ($149) for five and Max $329/month ($299) for eight. Estimates, a price book, online booking and job costing are on every plan; flat-rate pricing starts on Essentials; the Sales Proposal Tool is included on Max. There’s a 14-day trial with no card.

If job costing is the reason you’re looking (“am I making money on this client?”), Housecall Pro includes it on the cheapest plan.

CleanGuru: bidding software for commercial cleaners

CleanGuru is built for cleaning bids and proposals. Its site lists a bidding calculator, price recommendations, area/room measurements, cleaning tasks, a consumables calculator, sample proposals and proposal customization, and bidding from your phone. It works by modules: janitorial (commercial office cleaning), construction, disinfecting, move in/out, maid, tile, carpet and window.

As of October 27, 2026, Basic is $79/month for 5 users and one module, with unlimited bids, invoicing, scheduling and timekeeping; Guru is $129/month for 10 users and Guru Plus $159/month for 15 users, both with all modules. Additional cleaners are $5/month, and there’s a 14-day trial. The pricing page doesn’t show annual prices.

CleanGuru suits a commercial or specialty cleaner whose work is won with a written proposal. It doesn’t list a homeowner booking form with instant prices, so residential businesses that sell online still need one of the booking tools above.

Square Invoices: free estimates for a solo cleaner

If you send only a few written estimates a month, Square Invoices’ Free plan includes estimates and contracts, and invoices and recurring invoices. Plus adds payment schedules and custom templates. It has no cleaning pricing rules and no recurring cleaning schedule, so treat it as a starting point, not a system.

Job costing: check that the quote was right

A quote is a guess until the job is done. Job costing compares what you charged with what the job really took: cleaner hours, travel between sites, supplies and any subcontractor pay. For cleaning businesses it answers practical questions:

• Which recurring clients take longer than the price assumes?
• Are move-outs and deep cleans earning as much per hour as standard cleans?
• Is a commercial contract still profitable after the client added a floor or changed the frequency?

Housecall Pro includes job costing on every plan; Jobber includes it on Grow and Plus. If your quoting tool doesn’t track costs, compare hours from your scheduling software and costs from your accounting software once a month. When a client is consistently over, re-quote at renewal.

How to choose

If you…	Start with
Sell standard residential cleans from your website	Launch27 or BookingKoala
Quote after a walkthrough (move-outs, deep cleans, post-construction)	Jobber or Housecall Pro
Want job costing on the cheapest plan	Housecall Pro Basic
Bid offices and janitorial contracts by area	CleanGuru
Run carpet, tile or window cleaning with written proposals	CleanGuru (choose the module)
Send a few estimates a month on your own	Square Invoices Free

For more on booking forms, see our cleaning booking software guide; for following up on quotes that didn’t close, see cleaning CRM.

The bottom line

Choose quote software by how you price. Launch27 and BookingKoala put an instant price on your website for residential cleans. Jobber and Housecall Pro send written quotes customers approve online, and both offer job costing. CleanGuru is the specialist for commercial and specialty bids. Prices and plans change often: the figures here come from each vendor’s official pages on October 27, 2026, so check them again before you sign up.