Home › Guides › Home & deep cleaning › The complete home cleaning guide: what to book, how often, and what it costs
GuideA clean home is the single highest-impact, lowest-cost way to feel better about where you live — and the service most people under-book or over-pay for. This guide breaks down every type of professional cleaning, exactly what each includes, how often to book it, what drives the price, and how to get a consistently great result instead of a hit-or-miss one.
A standard (recurring) clean keeps an already-clean home fresh: floors, counters, bathrooms, kitchen surfaces, dusting and tidying. A deep clean adds the build-up a standard clean skips — inside the oven and fridge, baseboards, behind furniture, grout, window tracks and detailed scale removal. A move-in/move-out clean is a deep clean done empty, focused on getting a deposit back or handing over a spotless place. A post-renovation clean tackles fine construction dust that ordinary cleaning just spreads around.
Most homes do best with a standard clean every one to two weeks, a deep clean two to four times a year (spring and fall are natural resets), and a move or renovation clean only as needed. Homes with pets, kids, allergies or heavy foot traffic lean toward the more frequent end. Recurring plans almost always come with lower per-visit pricing, so if you know you want it monthly, book it as recurring rather than one-off.
Cleaning is priced on time, which comes down to home size (square footage and number of bathrooms), current condition, and add-ons like inside-oven, inside-fridge, interior windows or wall washing. A deep clean takes roughly 1.5–2x a standard clean because of the detail work. A first-ever clean is almost always priced as a deep clean, because that's when years of build-up get addressed.
Cleaners clean; they shouldn't be tidying your clutter on the clock. Clear counters and floors, put away valuables, secure pets, and leave a short note on priorities ("kitchen and bathrooms matter most"). Ten minutes of prep can redirect 30–45 minutes of paid time from tidying to actual cleaning.
Decide up front whether the pro brings supplies or uses yours — both are fine, but it changes the price and the products used. Flag any surfaces that need special care: natural stone, unsealed wood, delicate fixtures, or anything where a standard all-purpose cleaner would cause damage. A good pro will ask; a great one will adjust.
The biggest complaint with cleaning services is inconsistency — a great clean one week, a rushed one the next. The fix is a vetted pro, a written checklist of what's included, and recurring bookings so the same standard is repeated. On Genie every cleaner is background-checked for in-home work, the scope is captured in the booking, and payment is held until you confirm the result, so there's accountability on every visit.
Book a deep clean for first-time service, seasonal resets, before or after hosting, after any renovation, and whenever a standard clean stops feeling like "enough." Add specialty services — carpet and upholstery, mattress, grout and tile, pressure washing, dryer-vent — on their own cadence, since those address build-up that regular cleaning never reaches.
Every task in this guide is something you can book on Genie — vetted, insured pros at an upfront price:
Most homes do a standard clean every one to two weeks and a deep clean two to four times a year. Pets, kids and allergies push toward more frequent service. Recurring plans usually lower the per-visit price.
A standard clean maintains visible everyday surfaces; a deep clean adds hidden build-up like inside the oven and fridge, baseboards, behind furniture, grout and window tracks. First-time cleans are usually priced as deep cleans.
It's your choice — many pros bring supplies, or you can provide your own. You'll see the option when you book on Genie, and it affects both the products used and the price.
