The short answer for most Victoria homes: somewhere between $165 and $245 every two weeks. That’s the real, GST-included, biweekly-discounted price range for the home sizes we see most often at Oak Bay Clean.
The longer answer is what this post is for. Cleaning industry pricing can feel murky, and “I just want to know what it costs” is a fair question that deserves a fair answer. Here it is, with the actual numbers from our booking page, the factors that move the price up or down, and a few things I wish every Victoria homeowner knew before booking their first clean.
The real numbers for Victoria homes
These are live biweekly prices straight from our booking page, after the 15% recurring discount and including GST. The biweekly recurring rate is what you’ll pay every two weeks, ongoing.
| Home size | Per visit (one-time, with GST) | Biweekly recurring |
|---|---|---|
| 2 bed / 2 bath apartment | $194.25 | $165.11 |
| 3 bed / 2 bath apartment or townhome | $215.25 | $182.96 |
| 3-4 bed / 2 bath house (1700-1999 sq ft) | $257.25 | $218.66 |
| 2000-2499 sq ft / 2 bath | $267.75 | $227.59 |
| 2000-2499 sq ft / 3 bath | $288.75 | $245.44 |
That last row, the 2000 to 2499 square foot home with three bathrooms, is our most common booking. So if you’re sitting in a typical Victoria family home and wondering what the realistic budget is, plan around $245 every two weeks, or about $530 a month.
For a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom home, pricing starts at $145 for a one-time clean, which lands around $123 biweekly after the recurring discount.
Final price scales with bedrooms and bathrooms, and the booking page will show you yours instantly before you commit to anything.
What pushes the price up or down
The bedroom and bathroom count is the foundation. A few other things move the number:
- Pets: Add $25 per visit. Pet hair, dander, and the extra vacuuming time it takes to keep things truly clean.
- Square footage: Bigger homes step up through tiered pricing. A 2000 square foot home prices differently than a 2500 square foot home, regardless of bed and bath count.
- Condition of the home: If your home hasn’t been professionally cleaned in the last 30 days, you’ll need a First Time Clean (more on this in a minute). That’s a one-time add-on of roughly $125 to $175, not an ongoing charge.
- Clutter: The less the cleaner has to tidy and organize, the more time they spend actually cleaning. If clutter is the real problem, you can book one of our cleaners who also runs organization sessions ($80/hour, 3-hour minimum). A lot can happen in three hours when someone helps you see that everything in your home deserves a place to live.
Add-ons biweekly clients actually book
Once you’ve been a client for a while, the bill usually includes a few add-ons biweekly clients tend to love:
- Laundry for bedding ($25/load): The cleaner starts a load when they arrive, flips it to the dryer mid-clean, and makes the beds with fresh linens before they leave. The first time it happens you realize you’ve been chronically underestimating how good it feels to climb into a freshly made bed on cleaning day.
- Inside the oven ($45): A common one before guests come to visit. Worth it.
- Inside the fridge, interior windows, organization sessions: Available as needed. Most clients book these a couple of times a year, not every visit.
Why the first clean costs more (and isn’t a penalty)
The First Time Clean is the most common surprise for new clients. They see the line item, do a double-take, and ask why the first visit costs more than the recurring price they were quoted.
Here’s the truth: the first clean takes more time. The team is wiping down baseboards, door frames, window sills, getting under furniture, spot-cleaning fingerprints off walls, hitting the fine details that a regular maintenance clean doesn’t include. We’re setting the baseline that every recurring visit after that holds.
Professional cleaning companies all do this. Some call it a deep clean. We call it a First Time Clean because “deep” is subjective, and we’d rather be specific. “First time in the last 30 days” is a clearer standard than a word that means something different to every person.
Once that baseline is set, your biweekly Standard Clean keeps it there.
Is biweekly actually the right cadence for you?
Honest answer: not always.
Weekly is right if you’re a busy, Type A homeowner who can’t relax when the toilet has a watermark. Any visible dirt causes you stress, and you’d rather pay for the cleaner to come every week than feel that low hum of “I should be cleaning” in the back of your mind.
Biweekly is right if you can handle a bit of dirt around day 10 or 11, and you love the relief of walking into a refreshed home after the team has been through. This is by far our most common cadence. It fits busy working professionals, families with kids, dual-income households, and anyone who wants the home reset without paying for weekly service. The math works because you’re paying for the cleaning your home actually needs.
Monthly is right if budget is the deciding factor. You’ll see the dirt building toward the end of the month, and you’ll do some basic upkeep on bathrooms and kitchens in between, but the bones of the home stay maintained.
If you’re choosing between weekly and biweekly and you’re on the fence, biweekly is the better starting point. You can always move to weekly later. Most clients who try biweekly stay on biweekly.
A real Victoria biweekly client
Here’s the household I think about when I picture biweekly. A working professional living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo, working from home most days, paying $165.11 every two weeks.
She told me once that she sees it as the cost of eating out once. The difference is the impact of a good meal fades by morning. The impact of the clean stays with her for almost two weeks.
Working from home means she sees the dirt more than someone who’s at an office all day. And she’s clear that her weekends aren’t going to become cleaning days. Her free time is for the gym, walking around Cook Street Village, hosting friends, exploring Sidney on a Saturday. Biweekly cleaning is the thing that lets her have a beautiful home and the life she’s built around it.
That’s the actual ROI. Time back. Mental space. Weekends.
Red flags when you’re shopping around
A biweekly quote that sounds too good to be true probably is. Three things to check before you book the cheapest option:
Are they paying a living wage? In Victoria, the standard hourly wage in our industry is under $22 an hour. The actual living wage in this city is over $27. If a company is charging rates that don’t allow them to pay above the living wage, their cleaners turn over fast. They leave when they can’t pay rent, and you end up with a new face in your home every few months. Professional cleaning is a career, and companies that treat it that way charge accordingly.
Do they carry insurance? Specifically, general liability insurance for damages and WorkSafe BC coverage for the cleaner. If a cleaner gets hurt in your home and there’s no WorkSafe coverage, that exposure can land on you. Ask the question before you book.
Who provides the supplies? Real cleaning companies bring their own products, vacuums, mops, and cloths. If you’re supplying everything, you’ve hired an individual, not a service.
The cleaner-versus-company myth
The biggest pricing misconception I hear: “I can hire someone off Facebook Marketplace for half the price.”
Yes, you can. The reason it’s half the price is that you’re paying for half the service. You’ll supply your own products, vacuum, and mop. The cleaner usually has no insurance and no background check on file. There’s no backup when they’re sick or on vacation. Often the work happens off the books, which means no paper trail if something breaks or goes missing.
When you hire a company, you’re paying for the vetting that happens before a cleaner ever walks into your home. We criminal-record-check every cleaner. We reference-check them. We interview them ourselves. About 10% of applicants make it onto our team.
This matters. We’ve had cleaners apply to us after working at Victoria companies that don’t run criminal record checks. One of them carried serious accusations on his record that any check would have caught. The company he was working at was also the cheapest in town. You get what you pay for, and what you’re paying for at the bottom of the market is often the absence of safety.
Safety for our cleaners and safety for our clients is the floor, not a feature.
What ~$165 to $245 every two weeks actually buys you
Beyond a clean home, here’s what our biweekly clients tell us they got back:
- Free time. Saturdays are yours again.
- Free mental space. You stop thinking about cleaning. Reminders land in your inbox before each visit. Payments run automatically. The appointment shows up like clockwork.
- No chore fights at home. The single most underrated benefit of recurring cleaning. The mental load of household management still falls disproportionately on women, and the majority of our clients are women. Taking cleaning off the plate (and off the weekly negotiation with a partner) is worth more than the line item suggests.
- Hosting confidence. You can say “come over tomorrow” without doing a panic clean first.
- Sleep. Clean sheets, made beds, a tidy bedroom waiting for you on cleaning day.
Peace of mind is the thing clients name first when I ask what they got out of the service. Everything else flows from there.
One last thing before you book
Get your weekends back. Go explore Victoria, have fun, host the people you love, and remember why you’ve worked so hard to create your beautiful home.
You’ve earned this, and you deserve it.
When you’re ready, the booking page is live 24 hours a day. Pick a date, see your real price, and we’ll handle the rest.
Book your biweekly cleaning at oakbayclean.com/book-now.
Stay Updated
We will send you info about your business