How to Price Window Cleaning Jobs: A 2026 Guide

A homeowner calls and asks what you charge per window. You quote $12, do the math on 24 windows, and tell them $288. Then you show up and find second-floor double-hungs with painted-shut tracks, four screens caked in pollen, and a dog that won't stop barking at your ladder. Two and a half hours later you've made less per hour than the guy who mows their lawn.

That's the trap with window cleaning pricing: it looks like simple math — count the windows, multiply by a rate — but the real cost driver is time and access, not glass. Get those two things wrong and every job quietly loses money, even the ones that look profitable on the invoice.

Here's how to price it so the number you quote actually covers what the job takes.

What window cleaners actually charge in 2026

Rates vary by region and by how the job is structured, but a few patterns show up across most markets:

Pricing method	Typical range	Best for
Per window	$8–$18	Standard residential, single-story to two-story
Per pane	$4–$8	Older homes with multi-pane or divided-light windows
Per hour	$40–$75 residential, $50–$170 commercial	Odd jobs, construction cleanup, high-access work
Per square foot (commercial)	$0.50–$2.50	Storefronts, office buildings, curtain-wall glass
Whole-house flat rate	$150–$450	Full interior + exterior residential clean

A typical three-bedroom home with 20 to 25 windows, cleaned inside and out, lands around $220 to $300 in most markets. That's the number to anchor on, then adjust up or down for the specifics below.

Per window, per pane, hourly, or flat rate — pick the right one

Per-window pricing is the easiest for customers to understand, and it works fine for straightforward single-pane modern windows. But the moment you're dealing with older divided-light windows — six, eight, even twelve panes per sash — charging the same flat rate per window stops making sense. That's when per-pane pricing earns its keep: it scales with the actual labor instead of punishing you for quoting a job with ornate windows the same as one with plain slider glass.

Hourly pricing is your fallback for anything you can't estimate confidently up front: construction cleanup, a first-time client with unknown window condition, or a commercial space you haven't walked yet. Quote a range, track your time on the first visit, and convert to a flat rate once you know what the space actually takes.

Flat-rate, whole-job pricing wins once you've done enough of these to know your numbers. It's also what customers prefer — nobody wants a line-item invoice for cleaning their windows. If you want the broader argument for flat rates over billing by the hour, we cover the trade-offs in flat rate vs. time and materials, and the logic holds here just as much as it does for remodeling work.

What pushes the price up

Four things separate a quick $200 job from a grueling $450 one, and all four need to show up in your quote before you commit to a number.

• Height and access. Anything past a standard extension ladder — second-story bay windows, rooflines, lift-dependent commercial glass — adds $3 to $5 per window on residential jobs and pushes commercial work into hourly territory fast.
• Screens and tracks. These are separate labor, not a courtesy add-on. Charge $2 to $5 per screen and $3 to $6 per track, and list them on the quote as their own line so the customer sees what they're paying for instead of wondering why the total is higher than "windows times rate."
• Dirt and buildup level. Hard water spots, paint overspray, or years of neglect mean a second pass with different tools. If you can't inspect before quoting, build in a range and confirm the final price on site — don't eat the overage.
• Construction cleanup. Post-construction glass with paint, caulk, or drywall dust on it runs $200 to $500 per job and needs razor scrapers, not a squeegee. Price it as its own category, not a slightly-dirtier version of a standard clean.

This is the same discipline behind pricing exterior cleaning work generally — our pressure washing pricing guide walks through a near-identical set of variables (access, surface condition, add-ons), because the underlying problem is the same: flat per-unit pricing breaks down the moment the job isn't standard.

Residential vs. commercial: different math entirely

Residential window cleaning is priced around the home — window count, stories, screens. Commercial is priced around the building, and the unit of measurement usually shifts to square footage or straight hourly billing, because a storefront's glass doesn't map cleanly to "number of windows." A small retail storefront might run $0.50 to $1 per square foot for a basic exterior clean. A multi-story office building with curtain-wall glass, where you need a lift or rope access, climbs toward $1.50 to $2.50 per square foot — and that's before factoring in the insurance and certification commercial accounts expect you to carry. High-rise work with rope access or swing-stage equipment commonly bills $75 to $170 an hour once crew size and liability coverage are priced in.

Recurring commercial contracts (weekly or monthly storefront cleaning) are where the real money sits — they're predictable, they fill your slow weeks, and they're worth quoting slightly below your one-off rate in exchange for the volume and the schedule stability.

How to write a quote that wins the job without a race to the bottom

Here's a worked example. Say you're quoting a two-story colonial: 28 windows total, 10 on the second floor, 4 screens, all exterior plus interior on the ground floor only.

1. Base rate: 28 windows × $12 = $336
2. Second-floor access surcharge: 10 windows × $4 = $40
3. Screens: 4 × $3 = $12
4. Total: $388

Break that out on the quote line by line instead of handing over "$388 for windows." Customers who see the math trust the number more than they trust a flat figure with no explanation — and it makes the screens-and-tracks upsell feel like a choice rather than a hidden fee.

If you want to offer options without racing to the bottom on price, structure three tiers: exterior-only, exterior-plus-interior, and a full package with screens, tracks, and a sill wipe-down. We go deep on why tiered offers outperform a single take-it-or-leave-it price in our guide to good-better-best pricing — the short version is that most customers pick the middle tier, and it's usually your most profitable one. Software that builds this kind of itemized, tiered quote in minutes — rather than a sticky note and a guess — is exactly the gap PRISM is built to close.

FAQ: window cleaning pricing questions

How much does it cost to clean windows on a two-story house?

Most two-story homes run $250 to $450 for a full interior-and-exterior clean, depending on window count and how much ladder or lift work the second floor needs. Add $3 to $5 per window above ground level on top of your base rate.

Should I charge extra for screens and tracks?

Yes. Treat them as their own job, not a free add-on to the glass. Charge $2 to $5 per screen and $3 to $6 per track, listed as separate line items so the customer sees exactly what they're paying for.

How do I quote high-rise or ladder-required jobs?

Switch to hourly or square-foot pricing once a job needs a lift, rope access, or anything past a standard extension ladder. High-rise and lift-dependent work commonly runs $75 to $170 per hour once insurance, equipment, and crew size are factored in.

Is window cleaning a profitable business to run?

It can be — material costs are low and repeat customers are common. The profit comes from pricing by time and access instead of a flat per-window number that ignores travel, dirt level, or height.

How often should customers get their windows cleaned?

Twice a year, spring and fall, is the standard recommendation for most homes. Houses near construction, coastal salt air, or heavy tree cover often need quarterly visits — worth pitching as a maintenance plan rather than a one-off call.

The bottom line

Window cleaning rewards contractors who price for access and condition, not glass count alone. A flat per-window number works until it doesn't — the first painted-shut sash or second-story bay window will cost you real money if your quote didn't already account for it. Build your base rate around a standard job, then add for height, screens, tracks, and buildup every single time, even when it feels like you're nickel-and-diming a nice customer. You're not — you're pricing the job you're actually doing.

If writing that itemized quote on the spot, from your phone, in the driveway, sounds better than doing it from memory back at the shop, that's what PRISM is for. Paste in the details and get a professional, line-itemized quote in minutes.