The short answer
A regular clean is maintenance. The same cleaner comes every week or fortnight and does the kitchen, the bathrooms, the dusting and the floors in roughly two to three hours, so the house never gets far from clean.
A deep clean is a reset. It is a one-off, longer visit that does everything a regular clean does plus the jobs that only make sense once or twice a year: inside the oven, grout and sealant, limescale on screens and taps, skirting boards and door frames, inside windows, under and behind moveable furniture.
If your home is already at a standard you are happy with, book a regular clean. If you would be embarrassed to have someone see the oven, start with a deep clean and switch to regular afterwards. That is what most of our customers in Altrincham and Hale do, and it is the cheapest route to a home that stays clean.
Side by side
| Regular clean | Deep clean | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Keeping a home at a standard | Getting a home back to a standard |
| How often | Weekly or fortnightly | Once or twice a year, or one-off |
| Hours, 3-bed house | About 2.5 | About 4 |
| Hours, 4-bed, 2 bathrooms | About 3.5 | About 6 |
| Our hourly rate | £24.99 weekly, £28.99 fortnightly | £30.99 |
| Oven inside | Add-on | Included |
| Limescale on screens and taps | Surface wipe | Removed |
| Grout and sealant | No | Scrubbed |
| Skirting boards and door frames | One or two rooms, on rotation | Every room |
| Inside windows, sills, frames | Add-on | Included |
| Behind and under furniture | No | Vacuumed |
| Tops of wall units, cobwebs | No | Included |
| Same cleaner each time | Yes | Not applicable, it is one visit |
Those hours are the time allowances we actually book, taken from our deep cleaning and regular cleaning pages, where you can see the room-by-room price before you confirm anything.
Why a deep clean costs more per hour
Two reasons, and neither is a markup for the word "deep".
The first is pace. A regular visit is a rhythm the cleaner knows: wipe, spray, vacuum, mop, move on. A deep clean is slow work. Scrubbing grout with a brush, taking oven racks out and soaking them, descaling a shower screen that has had six months to build up, lifting a sofa to vacuum behind it. Our deep clean takes roughly three-quarters longer per room than a regular one.
The second is that it is a single booking. A regular clean is a standing appointment with a predictable route and no travel surprises, which is why our weekly rate (£24.99 an hour) sits below our fortnightly rate (£28.99), and both sit below the deep clean rate of £30.99.
For context, Checkatrade's 2026 house deep cleaning guide puts the UK average at around £31 an hour and about six hours of work for a typical whole-house job, roughly £186, with after-builders cleaning nearer £32.50 an hour. Its own directory listings for deep cleaning average £227 and run from about £160 to £325. Fantastic Services' 2026 guide gives £25 to £35 an hour for deep cleaning outside London and £13 to £25 an hour for regular domestic cleaning. Our £30.99 sits in the middle of the deep clean range with products, equipment and insurance included rather than added on.
A worked example at our normal rates: a 3-bed house in Hale is about 4 hours as a deep clean, so around £124 as a one-off, then about 2.5 hours a visit on a fortnightly rota, which is around £72 a visit. New customers currently get an introductory discount on both; the current rate is shown on the service page.
When to book a deep clean
- Before a regular cleaner starts. The most common reason, and the one that saves money. One long visit clears the backlog so your regular cleaner spends their 2.5 hours maintaining instead of catching up. Without it, the first few regular visits get eaten by the oven and the bathroom grout and the rest of the house feels neglected.
- Spring, or a year that got away from you. Guides generally suggest a whole-home deep clean every three to six months. For most households once or twice a year is realistic, with the kitchen and bathrooms getting the attention in between.
- Before guests, a party or a house viewing. Book it two or three days ahead, not the morning of, then a regular clean the day before if you want it perfect.
- After builders or decorators. Plaster dust travels through a whole house and settles twice. This needs a top-down, two-pass approach, and it is worth asking the builder to vacuum and bag their own debris first.
- After an illness, or when a property has stood empty.
When a deep clean is not what you need
If you are moving out, you do not want a deep clean; you want an end of tenancy clean, which is priced and checklisted against what a letting agent inspects on an empty property. If the house is basically fine and you just want to stop doing it yourself, go straight to a regular cleaner. And if the problem is clutter rather than dirt, no clean of either kind will fix it; clearing surfaces first is what makes a clean look dramatic.
Carpet steam cleaning, exterior windows, walls and ceilings, mould treatment and rubbish removal sit outside both services. Mention anything specific in your booking notes and we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot do.
The local bit
United Utilities says most of its North West supply is soft, drawn from upland reservoirs, so homes across Cheshire and South Manchester get off lightly on limescale compared with the South East. Lightly is not the same as never: shower screens, kettles and taps still fur up over a year, and that is one of the jobs a regular visit wipes over and a deep clean actually removes.
The other local reality is the housing. A lot of what we clean in Altrincham and Hale is Victorian and Edwardian semis and villas with original features, which means picture rails, deep skirting boards, bay window sills and tiled hallways. All of those are deep clean territory, and all of them are why a 3-bed here can take longer than a 3-bed new build.
Whichever you book, the same things are true: the cleaner has been interviewed by us in person and holds a valid DBS certificate, they are insured, they bring their own products and equipment, we take no card details, and your invoice arrives by email after the clean with seven days to pay. If anything is not right, tell us within 24 hours and we will put it right.
Frequently asked questions
Is a deep clean worth it before starting a regular cleaner?
Usually yes. It is the single piece of advice we give most often. A regular visit is a set number of hours, so if the house has a backlog those hours go on catching up rather than cleaning. One deep clean first means every regular visit afterwards is maintenance.
How often should a house be deep cleaned?
Once or twice a year is realistic for most homes, and cleaning guides commonly suggest every three to six months. If you have a regular cleaner, you can go longer, because the rotation items on a regular visit cover some of the same ground.
How much more does a deep clean cost than a regular clean?
With us it is £30.99 an hour against £24.99 weekly or £28.99 fortnightly, and it takes longer. A 3-bed house is about 4 hours as a deep clean and about 2.5 hours as a regular visit, so the one-off is roughly twice the cost of a single regular clean.
Does a deep clean include the inside of the oven?
Yes. Inside the oven, the hob, the extractor and the splashback are all part of a deep clean. On a regular clean the oven is an optional add-on, because most weeks it does not need it.
Is an end of tenancy clean the same as a deep clean?
No. An end of tenancy clean is done on an empty property to the standard a letting agent inspects against, and we price it separately at £32.99 an hour. A deep clean is for a home you are living in.
Do I need to be home for a deep clean?
No, though it helps to be there at the start of the first one so you can point out what matters most. Most customers leave a key or a key-safe code in their booking notes, which only their matched cleaner sees.