How Much Does Carpet Cleaning Cost? Prices, Rooms and the Catch

There are two ways a carpet cleaner can quote you, and only one of them respects your time. The first is a form that takes your details and promises a price later. The second is a published rate you can check against everyone else before you pick up the phone. We use the second, and here is the whole of it.

What carpet cleaning actually costs

Our minimum visit is £95, and the part people miss is that it covers up to two rooms for that price. A lounge and a dining room together cost the same as the lounge on its own, which is why most customers end up getting more cleaned for their money rather than less.

• Up to two rooms: £95, the minimum visit
• Each room after that: £25
• Hall, stairs and landing together: counted as a single room
• Sofas or chairs added to the same visit: 10% off the combined job
• A typical three-bed house: usually £170 to £195

A room is a room, within reason. A standard bedroom, lounge or dining room each count as one. Hall, stairs and landing come as a set, because they are cleaned as one flowing job rather than three separate ones. The £25 rooms only begin once you are past the first two, so the sum stays easy: £95, then £25 a room.

Why the cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest clean

You will find quotes at £15 or £18 a room. On paper that beats us across a big house. In practice we get called into a lot of those houses a few months later, because the machines behind the cheap quotes are weak extractors that leave chemical behind in the pile. The residue dries stiff, attracts fresh dirt the way spilt sugar water does, and the carpet looks tired again by the time the season turns. Cleaning it twice was never cheaper than cleaning it once.

We wrote a longer, honest comparison of hire machines and professional cleaning, including the trade word for what goes wrong, if you want the full picture before you decide.

What actually moves the price

Size sets the base and condition adjusts it. Pet accidents, heavy traffic lanes and old set-in stains take longer and sometimes need a second pass, and we would rather tell you that from a photo than spring it on you at the door. Wool and delicate fibres want a gentler dilution, which is a matter of skill rather than a surcharge. Moving heavy furniture is priced separately, though if you clear the room yourself the price stays put. The one thing that never touches the price is your postcode. Everywhere inside our 50-mile radius pays the same rate, with no callout fee bolted on the end.

For a fresh spill, honestly, you do not need us at all. Blot it rather than rub it, lift what you can with a little plain water or a splash of white vinegar, and get to it before it sets. What DIY cannot undo is months of grit worked down into the base of the pile, and that is the job we are actually for.

The calculator on our carpet cleaning page prices your own visit in about ten seconds, room by room, before you commit to anything, and it works out the sofa saving for you if you add one.