How to Choose a Cleaning Company in London

If you've never hired a cleaner, there's nothing obvious to compare. Here's what to ask, and what the answers actually tell you.

Farhana, founder of London Cleaning Wizard · 15 September 2026

A London living room after a clean, sofa, rug and surfaces clear

Hiring a cleaner for the first time is oddly difficult.

Everyone sounds the same. Insured. Reliable. Attention to detail. Every website has some version of it.

So what are you actually supposed to compare?

Most people end up comparing the only number they can easily see: the price. But price on its own tells you very little about what you're actually getting.

I run a cleaning company, so take this with the appropriate pinch of salt. But I've also spent years on the other side of customer service, watching companies say things they didn't mean.

These are the questions I'd ask if I were choosing a cleaner myself.

1. How do you price the cleaning?

There are two common approaches, and they tell you different things.

An hourly rate tells you what an hour costs. It doesn't necessarily tell you what the finished job will cost, or what will actually get done in that time.

Two cleaners charging the same hourly rate can produce very different results in three hours.

And if your home needs five hours but you've booked three, you need to know what happens next.

A fixed price based on the size and type of home gives you the figure before anyone arrives. The focus is then on completing the agreed work rather than watching the clock.

It is how most trades already work.

You don't normally call an electrician and say, "I'd like three hours of your time." You explain what needs doing, they work out the job and give you a price.

Cleaning can work the same way.

It is how we price at London Cleaning Wizard, but I'd still ask the question even if I weren't using us.

What happens if the cleaning takes longer than expected?

Does the cleaner stay until the agreed work is complete? Do you pay for additional time? Does the company stop at the booked time?

There isn't necessarily one right answer. You just want to know before the cleaner arrives.

It's worth knowing what a fixed price does and doesn't cover.

It covers the work taking longer than expected. That's the company's problem, not yours.

It doesn't cover a home that turns out to be nothing like the one that was quoted for. Any company will need to revisit the price then, and you'd want to be told that up front rather than on the day.

Which is why, if you're asked for photos, send the worst ones.

Most people send the tidiest corner because they're embarrassed. Nobody is judging your house. The photos are what make the price certain, and the tidy corner is what makes it wrong.

2. What happens when something goes wrong?

Eventually, something probably will.

A cleaner might become ill. A train could be cancelled. There could be a problem with access to your property. Something could accidentally get damaged.

That's normal when you're running a service involving real people.

What matters is how the company handles it.

Ask:

You don't need a company that promises that nothing will ever go wrong.

You need to know what happens when it does.

3. How do you treat your cleaners?

This is one I'd genuinely ask.

Your cleaner is the person who is actually going to be standing in your home, doing the work. Their experience with the company matters.

Ask how cleaners are trained, supported and given enough time to do the job properly.

You don't need to interrogate them about their employment model. You're simply trying to understand whether the company sees cleaners as people who need to be supported, or just as a way of filling bookings.

A cleaner who has clear instructions, the right equipment, realistic expectations and enough time to do the work properly is in a much better position to give you a good clean.

And if something goes wrong, you want a company that supports both sides rather than immediately putting the blame on the cleaner or the customer.

At London Cleaning Wizard, this is one of the things I've deliberately built into the company.

Our cleaners are central to the service. Without them, there is no service.

4. What is actually included?

This sounds obvious, but ask for the cleaning checklist.

"Regular clean" can mean different things to different companies.

So can "deep clean".

Things such as the inside of an oven, inside a fridge, kitchen cupboards, windows or moving furniture may or may not be included.

None of those exclusions are necessarily a problem.

The problem is assuming they're included and discovering otherwise when the cleaner arrives.

If you know exactly what you're paying for, you can compare companies properly.

And if you're not sure which type of cleaning you need in the first place, ask. A good company should be able to explain the difference rather than simply pushing you towards the most expensive option.

Our regular cleaning and deep cleaning services each have their inclusions listed so you can see exactly what you're booking.

5. How easy are they to deal with?

This one is easy to overlook until you actually need something.

Then it becomes the only thing that matters.

How do you book?

How do you reschedule?

Who do you contact if you have a question?

You already know the version of this that doesn't work.

You ring, and you get a menu. Press one for this, press two for that, and none of the options are the reason you called. You wait on hold. You finally reach a person and have to explain the whole thing from the beginning.

Or you email, and then you wait. A day. Two days. You have no idea whether anyone has read it, so you email again.

Meanwhile all you wanted was to move Thursday to Friday.

Do you have to log into an account every time you need something, or can you simply speak to somebody?

There is nothing wrong with a good booking system. In fact, it can make things much easier.

But technology should remove work from your life, not create more of it.

At London Cleaning Wizard, you can book online if that's what you prefer. Or you can simply WhatsApp us.

Need to change a booking?

Message us.

Have a question?

Message us.

Sometimes the easiest system is a person.

The short version

If you're choosing a cleaning company for the first time, I'd ask these five questions:

You don't need a company with the flashiest website or the cheapest price.

You need to understand what you're actually buying.

And since you're here, who are we?

I'm Farhana, founder of London Cleaning Wizard.

I started the company in London, where I've lived my whole life, after spending more than twenty years working in and around customer service.

I've always been unusually particular about what good service should feel like. At seventeen, before my first job interview, I actually looked up what customer service was supposed to mean.

I've been thinking about it ever since.

When I built London Cleaning Wizard, I wanted to bring together two things that had shaped my working life: service and technology.

My development background allowed me to build our systems myself, while my customer-service background shaped what I wanted those systems to achieve.

Not less human service.

More of it.

The technology handles the administration and complexity behind the scenes so that the customer experience can stay simple.

And the other half of the company is our cleaners.

They are the people who make everything we promise possible, which is why we take their experience seriously too.

The result is the kind of cleaning company I wanted to be able to use myself: straightforward to deal with, clear about what you're paying for, focused on the result and built around the people on both sides of the service.

If you ask us those five questions, we'll answer all of them.

And if you decide we're the right fit, we'd be very happy to look after your home.