How much should gutter cleaners charge?
Gutter cleaning is usually quoted as a flat price per job (often built up from a per-linear-foot rate), not an hourly number the client sees — but knowing your real effective hourly rate keeps a steep roof, second story, or heavily clogged gutter system from quietly becoming underpaid. Set your real hourly rate here and use the default visit length as a starting point for a typical single-story home.
Estimate your rate
A starting point for gutter cleaning — adjust to your own numbers.
~$93.30 / visit
Based on a 90-minute visit at an effective rate of ~$62.20/hour. Formula: (target income + expenses) ÷ (billable hours/week × 50 working weeks), converted to a per-visit price. This is a starting estimate, not a guarantee — adjust for local market rates.
What moves the rate
- Pricing method — most residential jobs are quoted per linear foot ($0.80-$2.25/ft depending on height and access) or as a flat project price ($120-$350+); hourly ($50-$175/hr) is used less often but is common for time-and-materials or unusually difficult jobs
- Home height and story count — a one-story home runs $0.95-$1.25/linear foot while a two-story home runs $1.00-$1.85/linear foot or more, since ladder setup, extension length, and fall risk all increase
- Roof slope and pitch — a steep or complex roofline adds meaningful time and risk, commonly adding 15% or more to the quote
- Debris buildup — gutters that haven't been cleaned in a year or more (heavy leaf pack, standing muck, plant growth) commonly add 10-50% over a routine seasonal clean
- Downspout condition — clogged or disconnected downspouts require extra flushing, snaking, or minor repair time beyond just clearing the trough
- Add-on services — gutter guard installation ($6-$8/linear foot), minor gutter/fascia repair, and window or roof inspections are common upsells booked alongside the base cleaning
- Seasonality — fall (post-leaf-drop) and spring are peak demand windows in most climates, and many operators book a discounted biannual (spring + fall) maintenance contract to smooth out the rest of the year
- Local cost of living and competitor rates
- Minimum job fee — most operators charge a minimum regardless of linear footage to cover drive time, ladder setup, and teardown
baseHourly of $75 sits in the middle of the nationally cited $50-100/hr labor-time range (some markets run as high as $175/hr), and the 90-minute default visit length models a typical single-story home clean, landing the calculator's default output ($112.50) near the low end of the $120-350 typical per-job range (national average $160-180, with two-story, steep-roof, or heavily-clogged jobs pushing well past $350 toward $500+) — actual jobs should be quoted per linear foot or as a flat project price using the factors above, with this calculator mainly protecting against underpricing tall, steep, or neglected gutter systems. The $2,200/yr expense default reflects a lean-but-real solo setup: general liability insurance (commonly $500-1,500/yr for $1M coverage, though ladder-heavy operators have reported paying up to $3,800/yr, so shop around), amortized equipment (extension ladder, harness/fall-protection gear, blower or gutter-vacuum attachment system, hand tools — a few hundred to low thousands to acquire, spread over several years of use), and scheduling/quoting software (~$300-500/yr) — closer to window washing's overhead than pressure washing's, since most solo gutter cleaners work from a ladder off a personal vehicle rather than running a dedicated trailer rig, though a gutter vacuum system is a common mid-career upgrade that raises this figure.