The ranges, and what they are worth
No primary source publishes cleaning prices for Ottawa. Nobody surveys them, no regulator collects them, and any figure presented as an authoritative local rate has been assembled from advertisements. What follows is therefore a set of planning ranges built from cost drivers that can be named, and every one of them is before 13 per cent HST and assumes a walk-through sets the final price.
An insured company commonly charges $45 to $70 per cleaner-hour for residential work. On a flat rate, a standard three-bedroom, two-bathroom house is often $150 to $250 a visit fortnightly and $120 to $200 weekly, because there is less to do each time. A one or two bedroom condo is often $100 to $170. A deep clean on that same house is $400 to $800, or $250 to $450 for a condo, and $800 to $1,600 where the house is larger or has not had one in years. An empty three-bedroom move-out clean is $450 to $900.
Use them to recognise an outlier rather than to argue with a quote. A number well outside these ranges in either direction is information about the company.
The six things that actually move the number
Bathrooms, first, and they matter more than bedrooms. A bathroom is fifteen to thirty minutes of detailed work every visit no matter how small the house is, so a 1,600 square foot townhouse with three bathrooms takes longer than a 2,200 square foot bungalow with two.
Stairs, second. A three-storey house takes noticeably longer than the same floor area on one level, because a vacuum gets carried and every tread and riser is hand work. Third, clutter: time spent moving objects is time not spent cleaning surfaces, and clearing counters and floors before the crew arrives can cut a deep clean by about a fifth. Fourth, pets, which add hair, and hard floors that need more passes.
Fifth, travel. The east end adds thirty to fifty minutes of return driving from most companies' bases, and downtown adds parking with no loading zone, so a surcharge for either is legitimate when it appears in the quote rather than on the invoice. Sixth, winter. Five months of road salt and grit through an entrance hall is genuinely extra work, and salt residue needs a neutral cleaner rather than more water. Entrance matting reduces the cost more than any product.
Why the cheapest quote is cheap
Labour is essentially the whole cost of this trade. Once you subtract wages, statutory costs, insurance, WSIB premiums, travel and products, there is not much left to compete on, so a rate far below the ranges above is usually funded by leaving something out.
The three usual omissions are insurance, WSIB coverage and employment status. Most businesses in Ontario must register with WSIB within 10 calendar days of hiring their first worker, and sales and services businesses are in the mandatory group (WSIB). Verification is a clearance number, valid for up to 90 days (WSIB). An injury in your home with no coverage behind it becomes your problem rather than a discount.
There is a further trap in paying an individual directly in cash. WSIB lists homeowners or residents who hire domestic workers such as babysitters, nannies, cooks, gardeners or housekeepers among those who must register (WSIB). If you engage a cleaner as your own worker, directing their work and paying them yourself, you may be an employer with an obligation. Engaging an incorporated company that carries its own coverage removes the question, and that is the practical argument against the cash rate rather than a moral one.
Hourly or flat, and which to ask for
For recurring work, a flat rate per visit is usually better for the household. It makes budgeting simple and it puts the efficiency risk on the company, which has every reason to get quicker at a house it knows. The thing to insist on is a written task list with explicit exclusions, because a flat rate with a vague scope is where nearly every complaint in this trade begins.
For a deep clean or a move-out clean, ask for a time budget instead: how many cleaner-hours, how many people, and a priority order for what gets done first if the time runs short. Nobody can see inside your cupboards from the doorway, so a flat price for a one-off with no hours attached is a guess that later becomes an argument.
The items that are normally extra, and should be priced as line items rather than assumed: inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows, blinds, walls and baseboards beyond spot cleaning, laundry, dishes, carpet steam cleaning and anything involving pet mess. None of them is unreasonable to ask for. All of them cost time.
What goes up next
Ontario's general minimum wage rises from $17.60 to $17.95 per hour on 1 October 2026 (Hicks Morley). In a trade where labour is nearly the entire cost base, that flows through to residential rates and commercial renewals in the following season rather than being absorbed.
Commercial contract pricing sits on a different basis and is worth knowing for comparison: small office nightly cleaning is commonly $0.10 to $0.25 per square foot per month, or $30 to $55 per cleaner-hour on smaller sites priced hourly, with a 2,000 square foot professional office cleaned three nights a week often landing between $700 and $1,500 a month. Periodic floor work is separate, with carpet extraction commonly $0.25 to $0.60 per square foot.
One thing that does not change with price is whether a company can answer questions. No licence exists for cleaning in Ontario, and cleaning is not among the 23 compulsory trades where certification is required (Skilled Trades Ontario). A certificate of insurance with its limit, a bond amount, a WSIB clearance number and a written task list are the whole of what can be verified, and a company that produces all four in an afternoon is worth more than one that is twenty dollars cheaper.