You cleaned the bathroom on a Friday morning, didn't you? Or your cleaner did. We can be fairly confident about that, because we looked at every completed professional clean in Simply Maid's records from our first booking in August 2015 to the switch-over from our old booking system in 2025, and Australians turn out to be remarkably predictable about their cleaning.
Quick answer: We analysed 56,712 completed professional home cleans across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and the Gold Coast between August 2015 and early 2025. Friday is the busiest cleaning day (20.5% of cleans), fortnightly cleans outnumber weekly 3.5 to 1, November rather than September is the real "spring cleaning" month, the average clean across the decade cost about $185 including GST, and the average price rose about 15% between 2018–19 and 2023–24, while the consumer price index rose 22.8% between June 2018 and June 2024.8% between June 2018 and June 2024.
That's about 9,260 households and $10.4 million of household spending on cleaning. It is one company's customers, four-fifths of them in Sydney, so it describes who books a cleaner, not Australia as a whole. With that said, here are the ten things it tells us.
1. Friday is cleaning day, and Sunday barely exists
One in five completed cleans (20.5%) happened on a Friday, the busiest day of the week. Add Thursday and four in ten cleans fall in the last two weekdays: people want the house done before the weekend, not during it.
Sunday is a near-total dead zone. Just 0.2% of cleans, about one in every 500, took place on a Sunday. That partly reflects our own rostering rather than demand, but the pattern on the other six days is customer choice.
Day | Share of all cleans |
|---|---|
Monday | 13.3% |
Tuesday | 15.9% |
Wednesday | 16.5% |
Thursday | 19.3% |
Friday | 20.5% |
Saturday | 14.3% |
Sunday | 0.2% |
2. Spring cleaning is a myth. Australia Christmas-cleans.
September, the supposed spring-cleaning month, runs about 3% below an average month. The real peak is November, 15% above average, as households get the place guest-ready for the Christmas season, with October and December also strong.
Across the decade we counted 138 cleans on Christmas Eve, and four households that had a professional cleaner in the house on Christmas Day itself.
The quietest months are April, with Easter and school holidays, and the long January hangover, each around 6–8% below average.
Month | Seasonality index (100 = average month, 2017–2024) |
|---|---|
January | 94 |
February | 98 |
March | 103 |
April | 92 |
May | 102 |
June | 95 |
July | 93 |
August | 100 |
September | 97 |
October | 107 |
November | 115 |
December | 106 |
3. The fortnight is Australia's cleaning rhythm
Of every completed clean, 42% was part of a fortnightly schedule, by far the most common arrangement. Among cleans booked on a recurring schedule, 60% were fortnightly, 17% weekly and 23% monthly.
Australia runs on the fortnight: it's how most of us are paid, and it's how we clean. Fortnightly cleans outnumber weekly cleans 3.5 to 1.
Seven in ten cleans (69.8%) belonged to a recurring schedule rather than a one-off booking. Professional cleaning, for our customers at least, is a habit rather than an emergency.
4. Cleaning prices rose less than the cost of living
In the 2018–19 financial year the average completed clean cost $178. By 2023–24 it was $204, a rise of about 15% over five years that included the sharpest cost-of-living squeeze in a generation. Over the same period the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ All groups Consumer Price Index rose 22.8%, from 113.0 in the June quarter of 2018 to 138.8 in the June quarter of 2024, so in real terms a professional clean cost less in 2024 than it did in 2019. The averages below cover every service type and every city, so they move with the mix of jobs as well as with prices.
Financial year | Average price per completed clean |
|---|---|
2017–18 | $180 |
2018–19 | $178 |
2019–20 | $177 |
2020–21 | $179 |
2021–22 | $177 |
2022–23 | $192 |
2023–24 | $204 |
2024–25 (to the switch-over) | $202 |
5. Sydney is, surprisingly, the cheapest city to get your house cleaned
From July 2022 to the end of the historical data, the average completed clean in Sydney cost $195, the lowest of any city in the dataset. Perth averaged $258 and Melbourne $266. The likely reason is straightforward: Sydney has by far the deepest pool of cleaners in our network, and competition does what competition does.
City | Average clean, July 2022 onwards | Completed cleans, 2015–2025 |
|---|---|---|
Sydney | $195 | 44,918 |
Brisbane | $211 | 4,005 |
Canberra | $219 | 557 |
Adelaide | $226 | 1,645 |
Perth | $258 | 1,294 |
Melbourne* | $266 | 4,126 |
*Melbourne's recent average comes from a smaller sample (about 400 cleans) that skews toward larger jobs. Treat it as indicative. The Gold Coast had too few recent cleans to average.
6. Sydney's cleaning capital moved from Mosman to the Inner West
From 2016 to 2019, postcode 2088, Mosman, was the busiest cleaning postcode in our data four years running. In 2020 Surry Hills and Darlinghurst (2010) edged ahead, and from 2022 the crown moved down Parramatta Road: Leichhardt and Lilyfield (2040) became the busiest postcode in the country, with Newtown, Glebe, Erskineville and Marrickville all in the top ten of recent years.
Professional cleaning stopped being a North Shore luxury and became an Inner West utility, which is as clear a signal as we have of who is time-poor in Sydney now.
The ten busiest cleaning postcodes, 2015–2025:
# | Postcode · suburbs | Completed cleans |
|---|---|---|
1 | 2010 · Surry Hills, Darlinghurst | 1,878 |
2 | 2088 · Mosman | 1,517 |
3 | 2040 · Leichhardt, Lilyfield | 1,434 |
4 | 2011 · Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay | 1,388 |
5 | 2026 · Bondi, North Bondi | 1,313 |
6 | 2034 · Coogee | 1,234 |
7 | 2021 · Paddington, Centennial Park | 1,227 |
8 | 2000 · Sydney CBD | 1,024 |
9 | 2017 · Waterloo, Zetland | 1,007 |
10 | 2066 · Lane Cove | 981 |
7. The 9am economy: two-thirds of cleans start before noon
Nine o'clock is the single most common start time, accounting for 21.6% of all cleans. Another 14.3% start at 7am, before the household leaves for work and school. In total, 68% of cleans begin in the morning, and the working day effectively ends mid-afternoon: fewer than one clean in 50 starts at 4pm or later.
8. COVID: the crash, the rebound and the lockdown effect
April 2020 cut our completed cleans by 53% almost overnight, from 938 in February to 440 in April. Recovery was quick, and the pattern repeated during Sydney's Delta lockdown: cleans fell 45% from June to August 2021 (687 to 381), then climbed above the pre-lockdown level by November (727) as households came out of lockdown and, apparently, wanted a professionally cleaned house to show for it.
9. Loyalty runs deep: one home, 247 cleans
Professional cleaning is a repeat relationship. Of the households that booked at least once, 43% booked again, and the average customer went on to have six cleans. The tail is where it gets remarkable:
- 1,346 households have had 10 or more professional cleans
- 208 have passed fifty
- 39 have passed one hundred
- The record is a single Sydney home with 247 completed cleans
- The longest relationship in the historical data began in July 2016 and was still going in November 2024, more than eight years later
10. The average Australian clean, in one sentence
The statistically typical clean in our records is a two-bedroom home, cleaned fortnightly, on a Friday, starting at 9am, for about $185.
Among cleans with a recorded bedroom count, two- and three-bedroom homes make up two-thirds (39% and 27% respectively). Hourly bookings, which don't record bedrooms, are excluded from that split.
About this study
All figures come from 56,712 bookings marked completed in Simply Maid's records between August 2015 and the migration from our previous booking system in 2025, across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and the Gold Coast. Cancelled and unfulfilled bookings are excluded. Prices are nominal Australian dollars including GST and cover all service types (standard, deep, end-of-lease and hourly cleans); averages exclude 393 records with recorded amounts outside the $30–$2,000 range. Day-of-week, start-time and seasonality figures use the booked service date and time; the seasonality index is built on calendar years 2017–2024. Suburb rankings use the postcode of the serviced address. City comparisons use completed cleans from July 2022 onwards. Repeat-customer figures use the customer record attached to each booking.
Two things this data cannot tell you. It says nothing about how long a clean actually took: the historical records carry no reliable duration, so an earlier version of this article that quoted an average of 101 minutes has been corrected. And it describes Simply Maid's customers, who are concentrated in inner Sydney, not Australian households in general.
Journalists, researchers and publishers are free to reproduce any statistic or table from this study with attribution and a link to this page. Suggested citation: Simply Maid, "The Great Australian Clean: A Decade of Home Cleaning Data", 2026. For media enquiries or the full data tables, contact hello@simplymaid.com.au.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a house clean cost in Australia?
Across 56,712 completed cleans between 2015 and 2025, the average was about $185 including GST, and $202 in the most recent financial year. That covers every service type and city in our data; a two-bedroom standard clean in Sydney sits below the average and an end of lease clean well above it. For current prices see our pricing page.
How often do Australians get their house cleaned?
Fortnightly is the rhythm in our data: fortnightly bookings outnumber weekly ones 3.5 to 1. The average customer went on to have six cleans, 43% of households that booked once booked again, and 1,346 households have had ten or more.
What day do most people book a cleaner?
Friday, by a clear margin: 20.5% of completed cleans, and two-thirds of all cleans start before noon.
Is spring cleaning actually a thing in Australia?
Not in spring. The busiest month in our data is November, and the run-up to Christmas outweighs the whole of spring. September is slightly below an average month.
Has house cleaning got more expensive?
Less than most things. Our average price per clean rose about 15% between 2018–19 and 2023–24, while the consumer price index rose 22.8% between June 2018 and June 2024.
How big is the average home that gets professionally cleaned?
Two- and three-bedroom homes make up two-thirds of the cleans that record a bedroom count (39% and 27%).
Related reading
- How often should you hire a professional house cleaner?
- Cleaning your home yourself vs hiring a professional
- What end of lease cleaning costs in Australia
- Spring cleaning checklist: room by room
- Is house cleaning tax deductible in Australia?
Sources and references
- Simply Maid booking records: 56,712 completed bookings imported from our previous booking system, re-queried read-only in the production database on 20 September 2026, with the historical export used to check repeat-customer figures.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Consumer Price Index, Australia: All groups CPI, weighted average of eight capital cities, index numbers 113.0 (June quarter 2018) and 138.8 (June quarter 2024), read from the ABS Data API on 20 September 2026.
Corrections
- 20 September 2026: every figure was re-computed from the production booking database. Most reproduced. The corrections: the day-of-week table had been computed with a time-zone offset that shifted afternoon cleans onto the next day, which overstated Sunday (now 0.2%, not 2%) and understated Monday and Thursday; the Christmas Day count is four cleans, not 21; Mosman was the busiest postcode for four years (2016–2019), not five; the decade-wide average price is about $185, not $195 ($195 is Sydney's recent average); the "single busiest day" claim could not be reproduced and was removed; and the average duration of 101 minutes and the 95,772-hours total were removed because the historical records contain no reliable duration. Financial-year and city averages were updated to the re-computed values (differences of $1–4).
