How to calculate the hourly cost of a cleaning agent

Underpricing an hour of cleaning work is one of the fastest ways to lose margin without noticing. The gross wage is only part of the real cost. Here is a clear, reusable method to get to the true hourly cost of a cleaning agent.

Start from the loaded wage

Take the gross hourly wage and add employer social contributions (roughly 40–45% in France). This gives the loaded wage — the minimum an hour of work costs you before anything else.

Add the costs everyone forgets

• Paid leave, sick days and public holidays (non-worked but paid hours)
• Equipment, products and workwear
• Travel time and transport between sites
• Supervision, planning and administrative overhead

Turn cost into a billable rate

Once you know the fully loaded cost per productive hour, add your target margin to set the billing rate. The key is "productive hour": an agent paid 35 hours a week rarely bills 35 productive hours, because of travel and gaps. Divide real cost by billable hours, not paid hours.

Track real hours, not estimates

The biggest source of margin leakage is the gap between planned and actual time on site. With GPS-verified check-in and check-out — like Clokizi provides — you measure real time per intervention and per site, and you can recompute your true hourly cost from data instead of guesswork.