What a Professional Home Cleaning Actually Includes

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Updweller Team

We, the Updweller Team, are a group of writers and home renovation enthusiasts, and specialists. We love improving our home. We want to provide you with the best ideas for your home renovation. Our guides and reviews have you covered for your home projects. We guarantee we have what you're looking for. Let's create that empty space into a personalized project.

Latest posts by Updweller Team (see all)

• What a Professional Home Cleaning Actually Includes - August 12, 2026
• Questions to Ask Before Booking a House Cleaner - August 12, 2026
• How to Choose a House Cleaning Service - August 5, 2026

When I moved out of my last apartment, I was determined to get every penny of my deposit back. Not leaving anything up to chance, I hired a cleaning service and expected a miraculous transformation: fridge shelves being wiped down, my sliding glass door looking spotless, and every ceiling fan blade dusted.

To her credit, the cleaner did a thorough job on surfaces, floors, and bathrooms, but I walked in afterward feeling like she’d missed half the apartment.

She hadn’t. I just didn’t know what to expect and ended up disappointed.

As it turns out, what a professional home cleaning actually includes tends to vary more than most people realize. So to keep you from experiencing the same disappointment, let’s break down the usual baseline, what the difference is between standard and deep cleanings, which tasks typically cost extra, and why the type of cleaning service you use can have a major impact on your result.

What Standard Home Cleaning Includes

Generally speaking, no two cleaning services have identical task lists. What one company includes, another might charge extra for. That said, there are a few tasks that are virtually universal across different services:

Unsurprisingly, home cleaners typically won’t do any laundry, organizing, outdoor work, or dishes — those kinds of tasks are usually a housekeeper’s territory.

However, a few items that seem like essentials are in a bit of a gray zone, and it just depends on the policy of the specific cleaner you book. For example, baseboards, ceiling fan blades, and interior window sills may or may not be included. Some cleaners treat these as extras or deep-clean-only tasks.

Standard Cleaning vs. Deep Cleaning

Standard cleanings generally handle routine maintenance: the surfaces and floors that accumulate everyday grime between visits.

Deep cleaning addresses what doesn’t need attention every visit but eventually does, such as:

• Grout between tiles
• The inside of the oven
• The inside of the refrigerator
• The insides of kitchen cabinets
• Areas under and behind furniture that routine cleaning skips

If you’re worried about booking a regular cleaning service and missing out on these deeper tasks, don’t worry too much; most services require a deep cleaning for new clients before starting recurring standard cleanings.

This isn’t just a way to get more money from you. A home that hasn’t been professionally cleaned recently needs more time and effort to reach a consistent baseline. Once that baseline is established through a deep clean, recurring standard cleanings keep it there at a lower per-visit cost. Merry Maids, for example, quoted a first deep clean at $810 for my four-bedroom, three-bath home, discounted to $189 if I also signed up for biweekly cleanings at $300 per visit.

Here’s a full breakdown of which tasks are usually counted as “standard” versus “deep clean.”

What Professional Cleaners Typically Charge Extra For

Beyond standard and deep cleaning, most services have a category of tasks that don’t fit neatly into either tier. These extras can typically be added to a booking for an additional charge, but won’t be included unless you ask for them.

The most common extras include things like:

• Wall washing
• Hand-wiping blinds slat by slat
• Washing windows, tracks, and sills
• Cleaning the inside of kitchen or pantry cabinets
• Cleaning the inside of the refrigerator
• Cleaning the inside of the oven
• Folding laundry

These are usually considered extra just due to the time and resource requirements.

For example, wiping down the outside of a refrigerator takes just a couple of minutes. Clearing out the inside, removing shelves, and scrubbing down the walls is closer to an hour of work. Similarly, a full oven interior requires specific products and a level of attention-to-detail that adds substantial time to any visit.

For obvious reasons, it’s best to ask for these extras before your next clean, not during. Many services don’t even allow their cleaners to make modifications mid-service!

How the Business Model of Your Cleaning Service Impacts What’s Cleaned

Two people can book a “standard home cleaning” and end up with surprisingly different results. But all too often, this has nothing to do with one cleaner doing a better job; it’s just because each service defines a “standard home cleaning” differently.

So, let’s take a closer look at the most common business models, some examples of each, and how they differ in services provided.

National Franchise Services

With a national service like Merry Maids, the scope is defined at the corporate level, and cleaners typically go through a training or certification program before ever entering a client’s home. These companies almost always carry liability insurance and workers’ compensation, as well as conduct background checks on every hire.

All of these policies and trainings ultimately mean that you never discuss which items are included with the cleaners at your home. Instead, the employees do exactly what they were trained to do, and if you want to add or change anything, you have to set that up by contacting your local office.

As a result, what you get is fairly predictable, and customizing the task list or which cleaning products are used requires a bit of phone tag with your local office.

Gig-Style Quote Platforms

With gig-style quote platforms like Thumbtack, things are far less standard. The platform connects you with independent local cleaning professionals who each set their own pricing, task lists, and schedule.

This means one professional’s standard clean can look quite a bit different from another’s, but you won’t know the details until you message one of the pros to ask what’s included.

If it sounds a bit like the Wild Wild West of cleaning services, you’re not wrong! But there are protections in place to offset how much legwork you have to do. For example, Thumbtack requires all professionals to complete criminal background checks, you’ll pay no additional platform fees beyond what the cleaner quotes you, and the Thumbtack Guarantee covers up to $100,000 for property damage caused by a pro.

Membership Marketplace Services

Services like Homeaglow are a happy medium between national franchises and gig-style platforms. This is another platform that connects you with local cleaners who set their own rates and schedules.

However, Homeaglow still has a standard task list that includes kitchen surfaces, bathrooms, floors, bed-making, and trash across all rooms. If you want to request additional tasks like appliance interiors or laundry, you just mention them during booking with your chosen cleaner. They’ll let you know if they have time to complete the added tasks and how much extra those items will cost.

Because it’s a subscription service, you’ll need to sign up for a 6-month membership in order to use Homeaglow. For the price of $59 per month, you get access to cleaners at discounted rates of about $20/hr.

How to Confirm Specific Tasks Before You Book a Professional Home Cleaning

Task list information is usually available before you commit to a service. You just need to know where to look, and that differs from one company to another.

National franchise services like Merry Maids, for example, publish task lists on their website, and they can provide more details along with your custom quote.

For platform-based services, you may need to dig into help center articles. That being said, Homeaglow does have a dedicated page with room-by-room task lists.

For individual cleaning professionals found through a marketplace like Thumbtack, the tasks are entirely up to the specific cleaner themselves. So ask each candidate directly, and get the answer in writing before your first appointment.

If you find yourself evaluating a cleaner and can’t find a clear breakdown of what’s included, you can learn more by asking these questions:

• What counts as an extra, and what does it cost?
• What is included in a standard clean, room by room?
• What happens if a task isn’t completed during the visit?

Get those answers in writing, if possible. It’s hard to claim that a task was missed if you don’t have a written list of what’s included.

Preparing for a Clean Home and Knowing What’s Included

So, what does professional home cleaning actually include? In most cases, you can expect the same core services of kitchen and bathroom surfaces, floors, and dusting. Beyond that baseline, the details depend on the company or cleaner you’ve booked with, how often you have cleanings, and whether you’ve booked a standard or deep clean. If you need anything else, you can usually add on important services at an additional cost.

Before booking anything, find the service’s process page or ask for a list in writing. This can prevent most of the unpleasant surprises that can come with hiring a cleaner for the first time!

Frequently Asked Questions