What should a cleaning company charge per hour in Denmark? 2026 rates

A Danish cleaning company with staff on the collective agreement should charge at least DKK 375–425 an hour incl. VAT (DKK 300–340 excl. VAT) for recurring cleaning and DKK 450–525 for one-off jobs. The market pays DKK 300–450 for recurring cleaning, so the rate only holds if driving between customers is short and planned.

I've spoken to plenty of cleaning business owners who match their competitor's price and then wonder why nothing is left over. The answer is rarely in the hourly rate. It's in the mileage log.

What does cleaning cost per hour in Denmark in 2026?

Here's what Danish customers pay today. Private prices include 25% VAT.

Two real price lists show the same pattern. Øko Rengøring charges DKK 360 for weekly or fortnightly cleaning, DKK 380 for monthly and DKK 425 for a one-off. Jacobsens Rengøring charges DKK 375 on a fixed agreement and DKK 449 for a single booking.

Two things stand out. The less often a customer is visited, the higher the price. And a one-off costs 18–20% more than a recurring agreement. That's no accident. What's being priced is the planning.

What does one hour cost you as an employer?

Before you set a price, know your floor. With staff on the Danish Serviceoverenskomsten, one paid hour looks like this from 15 March 2026:

That's before ATP, sick days, insurance, vehicle, supplies and your own office time. Evening and weekend supplements come on top.

The line that matters most for your rate is a different one: transport time is paid at DKK 138.18–144.16 an hour depending on seniority. With pension, free-choice and holiday pay, that's about DKK 185 per driving hour. And you can't bill it.

Compare that to the market. DKK 360 incl. VAT is DKK 288 excl. VAT. Subtract DKK 224 in wages and you have DKK 64 for everything else. And only if every single paid hour gets invoiced.

Why does driving time decide whether your rate holds?

Here's a worked example: same employee, same wage, same four customers a day. The only difference is the route. I've set vehicle, fuel, supplies, insurance and admin at DKK 400 a day. That's my assumption, so plug in your own figure.

The scattered route needs DKK 473 an hour just to make a 10% margin. No private customer accepts that for recurring cleaning. The tight route can compete.

The difference is 0.9 billable hours a day. Over 20 working days that's 18 hours per employee per month. At DKK 320 excl. VAT, that's DKK 5,760 you don't bill, for every employee. Every month.

So I'll say it plainly: you don't set your hourly rate in your price list. You set it when you decide which customers share a day.

Recurring agreement or one-off job: what should you charge?

Recurring agreement

A regular customer can be slotted in where the route is tightest. You know the home, the job takes the same time each visit, and there's no quoting. That's why recurring cleaning can be sold cheaper.

My recommendation: DKK 375–425 incl. VAT for weekly or fortnightly cleaning. Add DKK 25–50 for monthly visits, because the home is dirtier and the customer takes a route slot that won't repeat next week.

One-off job

A one-off arrives when it arrives. It rarely sits near your other customers, you've spent time on the quote, and you don't know what's waiting.

My recommendation: DKK 450–525 incl. VAT, minimum 3 hours. That's 20–25% above your recurring rate. The market already shows that customers accept it.

Commercial

Commercial cleaning is priced lower per hour, but with more hours per visit and no driving between lots of small addresses. The Handyhand price for a 6-hour office and shop clean works out to about DKK 167–267 an hour. With a wage floor of DKK 224, the bottom of that range loses money for a company on the collective agreement. Don't bid there.

What pushes the price up or down?

Use the Danish service deduction (servicefradrag) when you sell. In 2026 each adult can deduct up to DKK 18,300, worth about 26%. A DKK 400 rate costs the customer about DKK 296 after the deduction. That's a better argument than cutting your price.

How to set an hourly rate that holds

1. Work out your floor: Wage, pension, free-choice and holiday pay per paid hour. On the agreement that's about DKK 224 before anything else.
2. Measure your driving: How many paid hours go to driving? Under 10% is good. Over 20% means the route is the problem, not the price.
3. Divide by billable hours: Add up all costs and divide by the hours you actually invoice.
4. Add your margin: 10% is the minimum. Without it you have no buffer when someone calls in sick.
5. Separate recurring and one-off: Two prices. The one-off rate 20–25% higher.
6. Adjust every year: Agreement wages rise every year. So should your price.

How does Clientflow help with your hourly rate?

This is where we've built most of Clientflow for cleaning companies.

Under Indstillinger → Services (Settings → Services) you'll find Priskonfiguration (pricing configuration). Set your Timepris (DKK/t) once, and Clientflow works out prices from each job's time estimate in quotes and the booking portal. You can set a minimum price per service so short visits never get too cheap. The yearly price increase is handled with the Prisregulering button, which raises prices on your subscriptions by a chosen percentage. See the pricing configuration guide.

Driving is where the money is. Route optimization weighs driving time and distance and accounts for the drive out to the day's first customer. Visits close to each other are kept on the same day when the route is replanned. Under Workflows you can analyse every active recurring agreement and get suggestions for a new start week or frequency that cuts driving time, with the total gain in minutes per week.

Pricing starts at DKK 199/month plus DKK 99 per user excl. VAT, with route optimization included. For a company with three employees that's DKK 496 a month. Less than two billable hours.