The summer my aunt started renting out her lake cottage, I was her cleaner. Unpaid, mostly. She’d text me a checkout time, I’d drive up with my own vacuum in the trunk, and I’d have the place reset before the next family pulled in at four. By August I knew her vacation rental cleaning cost down to the dollar, because I’d done it myself eleven times and then sat in on her calls with three people who wanted the job.
The cottage is two bedrooms, one bath, about 950 square feet on a small lake in northern Wisconsin. It sleeps six if two of them are kids on the bunk bed. Nothing fancy. And the number that surprised both of us was the laundry.
What a vacation rental cleaning cost usually covers
A turnover clean is closer to a hotel room reset with a deadline than to a weekly house cleaning. Between one checkout at 10 and the next check-in at 4, somebody has to:
- strip every bed and start the laundry (or bag it for a service)
- clean the bathroom and kitchen top to bottom, including inside the microwave and the fridge
- empty the trash and recycling, and haul it to wherever the bins live
- remake the beds, lay out fresh towels, restock toilet paper, soap, coffee and dish tabs
- walk the place and report anything broken, missing or stained
That last one is the part I underrated. A cleaner who texts you a photo of a cracked mug is worth more than one who throws it out without a word.
If you’ve ever priced out a normal weekly clean, house cleaning prices is where I compared those. Turnovers price differently because of the time window, the laundry and the checking.
Doing it myself: 3 hours and 10 minutes, the first time
My first turnover took 3 hours and 10 minutes. I timed it on my phone because my aunt wanted to know what she’d be paying for if she hired someone.
About 70 minutes of that was laundry. Two queen sets, the bunk bed sheets, eight bath towels, four hand towels, dish towels and the bath mat. The cottage has one stacked washer and dryer, so I was stuck waiting on the dryer while everything else was done. By my fifth turnover I had it down to about 2 hours 20, mostly because I started the first load before I touched anything else.
I used the same order I use at home, bathroom and kitchen first, bedrooms last, from my deep cleaning checklist, trimmed down. You don’t wash walls between guests. You do wipe every light switch and doorknob, because the CDC’s home cleaning guidance says to clean high-touch surfaces after you have visitors, and a rental has visitors every weekend.
The three quotes for a 2-bedroom cottage
By July I had a job and a toddler and could not keep driving up every Saturday. My aunt got quotes. Same cottage, summer 2025:
- A local woman who already cleaned two other cabins on the lake quoted $140 flat per turnover. She’d do the laundry on-site in the cottage machines. About 2.5 hours, she said.
- A cleaning company from the nearest town quoted $115 per turnover plus laundry through their linen service at $1.75 a pound. My aunt weighed one turnover’s worth on her bathroom scale: 29 pounds. That’s about $51, so roughly $166 a turnover.
- A property manager offered to take over everything, including cleaning, for a percentage of each booking. We didn’t price that one out fully. It’s a different decision.
Those line up with what I’ve seen in national rate guides since. RapidEye’s 2026 rate guide puts a 2-bedroom turnover at $130 to $180, a studio or 1-bedroom at $85 to $130, and a 3-bedroom at $180 to $250. It lists laundry at $15 to $40 a turnover and supplies at $10 to $25 on top.
Why a vacation rental cleaning cost runs higher than a regular clean
Per hour, turnover cleaners earn about what house cleaners do: the same guide puts them at $20 to $30. What pushes the price up is everything around the hour:
- The deadline. Six hours between guests, sometimes less. A cleaner who can guarantee that window turns down other work to hold it.
- Saturdays. Almost every checkout on the lake was Saturday morning. Everyone wants the same four hours.
- Laundry. Either she washes it on-site and waits on your dryer, or you pay a service by the pound.
- Restocking. Someone has to buy the coffee and toilet paper. My aunt ran about $15 a turnover in consumables.
- Surprises. Sand in every bed. A grill nobody cleaned. One family left a whole fish in the freezer.
Our cleaner charged $25 extra if a party checked out late or the place was clearly trashed. She told us that before we hired her, which I liked.
| Line item | Me doing it (unpaid) | Local cleaner, on-site laundry | Company + linen service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor per turnover | $0, about 2 h 20 min once I got fast | $140 flat, about 2.5 h | $115 flat |
| Laundry | Cottage washer and dryer, about 70 min | Included, cottage machines | 29 lb x $1.75 = about $51 |
| Consumables restock | About $15 (my aunt bought them) | About $15, aunt supplies | About $15, aunt supplies |
| Late or messy checkout | My whole Saturday | +$25, told upfront | Billed hourly, rate not quoted |
| Real cost per turnover | About $15 plus gas and a day | About $155 | About $181 |
What didn’t work: the cheap sheets
My aunt bought the cottage linens on sale. White microfiber sheets, $22 a set. They looked fine in the listing photos.
By July, three sets had pilled so badly one guest mentioned it in a review. Two had a gray tinge from being washed hot every week. And because she only owned two sets per bed, the cleaner had to wash and dry everything during the turnover, which is why she was pushing 2.5 hours instead of 2.
What finally helped was boring: a third set for every bed, in cotton, so one set could be dirty, one on the bed and one in the closet. The cleaner could put the fresh set on right away and run the dirty load while she did the kitchen. My aunt spent about $240 on linens that fall. Her cleaner stopped mentioning the dryer.
If you’re setting up a rental, I’d do the linen math before you hire anyone. It changes how long the turnover takes, and so it changes the quote.
Three mistakes that raise a vacation rental cleaning cost
- Owning only two sets of sheets per bed. The cleaner ends up waiting on your dryer, and you pay for that time.
- Not writing down what “clean” means. For her first two weekends, our cleaner skipped the grill and the fridge because nobody had told her they were part of the job. A one-page checklist on the inside of the pantry door fixed it.
- Guessing the cleaning fee instead of adding it up. Labor, laundry and restock are three separate lines. Add them before you set what guests pay.
Grab the free printable: my one-page Turnover Checklist, the room-by-room list my aunt tapes inside the pantry door, with boxes for linens, restock and a line to note anything broken. Get the free checklist →
What to charge guests for cleaning
This is the part my aunt got wrong the first month. She charged a $75 cleaning fee because that’s what the cabin next door charged. Her real cost with the local cleaner was about $155. She was losing $80 every stay before counting a single night.
We added up her lines, labor, laundry, restock, and she raised it to $150. Bookings didn’t drop. Most of her guests stay a full week, so the fee gets spread over seven nights.
Since May 2025, the Federal Trade Commission’s fee rule says that for vacation rentals, the price guests see upfront has to include the required fees the host knows about. A mandatory cleaning fee is one of those. The fee can’t be a surprise at checkout anymore, and a big one shows up right next to the nightly rate.
How to keep turnovers fast (and the quote down)
- Buy a third set of linens and towels for every bed and bathroom.
- Keep a locked owner’s closet with backstock: toilet paper, soap, coffee, trash bags, a spare shower curtain.
- Put a written checklist where the cleaner will see it. Ours runs by room, the same way my cleaning schedule by room works at home.
- Declutter the rental. Every knick-knack on a shelf is something to dust and something to break. My aunt pulled 40-something decorative objects out of the cottage, and the turnover got faster.
- Ask guests to start the dishwasher and put trash in the bins before checkout. Most do if you ask nicely in the house manual.
My aunt kept the local cleaner. $140 a turnover, still, going into this season. Some Saturdays I still drive up, only now I sit on the dock with my kid while someone else strips the beds.
FAQ
How much does vacation rental cleaning cost per turnover?
For my aunt’s 2-bedroom cottage in 2025, the quotes were $140 flat with laundry done on-site and $115 plus about $51 for a linen service. Current national guides put a 2-bedroom at $130 to $180, a studio or 1-bedroom at $85 to $130 and a 3-bedroom at $180 to $250, before supplies.
Is laundry included in a turnover cleaning price?
Sometimes. Independent cleaners often run it in your machines and include it. Companies may send it to a linen service billed per pound or per set. Ask before you compare quotes.
How long does a vacation rental turnover take?
My first one took 3 hours 10 minutes for two bedrooms and one bath. After a few I was at about 2 hours 20. Our cleaner averages 2.5 hours, most of it waiting on laundry when there aren’t enough spare sets.
If you’re pricing this out now, start with the laundry. Count your sheet sets per bed and weigh one turnover’s pile on a bathroom scale. Then call two cleaners and ask each one whether laundry is in the price.
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