Employing a W-2 cleaner in the US costs significantly more than their hourly wage. You must stack Employer FICA (Social Security & Medicare), FUTA & SUTA unemployment taxes, Workers' Compensation insurance, paid travel time, and supplies to find your true breakeven cost.
Opso does this for your whole team and every client, showing you exactly which jobs are profitable and which are losing money.
See Your Margins in OpsoAt Office Sparkle LLC, we pay our W-2 staff $15.00 per hour. If a cleaner works 16 hours a week, and spends 2 hours travelling between jobs, their gross pay is $270.00.
We pay a fixed 7.65% for FICA ($20.66), roughly 1.5% for unemployment taxes ($4.05), and 6% for our workers' compensation policy ($16.20).
Adding $25 for supplies and mileage reimbursement, our true cost for that cleaner is $335.91 per week. To break even on their 16 hours of actual cleaning (excluding travel), we must charge the client at least $21.00 per hour. To hit a 30% gross margin, we need to charge $30.00 per hour.
By a US commercial cleaning operator
In the US, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), travel time between jobs during a normal workday must be paid. Additionally, many states require mileage reimbursement if they use their own vehicles.
W-2 employees are fully employed by your company: you control their schedule, provide supplies, and pay half of their employment taxes. 1099 independent contractors are their own businesses: they set their own hours and pay their own self-employment taxes. This calculator is for W-2 employees.
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