CarpetBossPro Blog — Estimates & Quotes

Pricing Stairs and Hallways on a Carpet Cleaning Estimate

Stairs are the most forgotten part of a carpet cleaning quote. The customer says “three bedrooms upstairs,” and nobody mentions that getting to them means a full flight of carpeted steps and a hallway. Then the tech arrives, and either the stairs get cleaned for free or the price changes at the door. Both outcomes are worse than just putting them on the estimate.

Stairs and Halls Are Their Own Lines

Room pricing and the minimum that sits under it are covered in Room Minimums: Setting a Floor Under Every Carpet Cleaning Quote. Stairs and hallways are the next thing to settle, because they do not fit neatly into room pricing.

Stairs take more time per square foot than any room. Each step has a tread and a riser, the edges need a hand tool, and the tech is working at an angle. Hallways are narrow and often the dirtiest carpet in the house because everyone walks them. Both deserve their own price on your service list.

Pricing Stairs: By the Step or by the Flight

There are two common approaches:

• Per step. The fairest method. A short run of five steps to a split level costs less than a full flight. Works well when you can count the steps on a walk-through or the customer can count them for you.
• Per flight. Simpler on the phone. Define a flight in your policy, such as up to a set number of steps, and price anything longer as extra.

Either works. What matters is that the service list has the one you use and that its description says what is included. Decide too whether landings go with the stairs or with the hallway, and whether you treat open-sided stairs or wrapped edges differently.

CarpetBossPro lets services be priced off the property's measurements, including counts. If stairs are priced per step, the quote can show the count and the price per step, so the customer sees the math.

Pricing Hallways

Most companies handle hallways one of three ways:

• Count a hallway as a room. Simple, and fine for typical hallways.
• A separate hallway price. Usually less than a room, since halls are narrow.
• Include one hallway free with a set number of rooms. A small sweetener that also makes the quote easier to accept.

Long upstairs halls in larger homes may deserve to be priced by the linear foot or square foot. Your room policy should say what happens with an unusually long or wide hall.

Ask About Them Every Time

The surest way to catch stairs and halls is to ask. On every residential call, add two questions to the script: “Are there carpeted stairs, and how many steps roughly?” and “Is there a hallway, upstairs or down?”

The carpet job details on a CarpetBossPro estimate include checkboxes for Hallway and Stairs right next to the rooms. Treat them as reminders. If both boxes are empty on a two-story house, something is probably missing. More on the phone script in Quoting Carpet Cleaning Over the Phone: The Questions to Ask Before You Give a Price.

Stairs Inside Whole-House Packages

If you sell a whole-house package, decide whether it includes stairs and hallways. Most customers who choose a whole-house price expect everything carpeted to be included, stairs and halls too. If yours does not, the package description needs to say so in plain words.

Many owners include one flight and the halls in the package and price additional flights separately. That keeps the package simple for a typical two-story home while protecting you on the big house with front and back staircases.

From the Estimate to the Tech

Once the customer approves the estimate online, the estimate becomes the scheduled job and the job details carry over, including the Stairs and Hallway checkboxes. The tech sees them on the job card and on the carpet cleaning checklist, so the stairs get done because they were sold, not because the tech guessed.

If the tech finds a second staircase nobody mentioned, the written quote makes the conversation simple: “The quote has one flight. This back staircase would be extra. Want it done today?” The office updates the job, and the invoice matches what was agreed.

Never Clean Stairs for Free by Accident

Stairs and halls are where small amounts of unpaid work quietly add up over a season. Put them on the service list, ask about them on every call, check the boxes on every estimate and let the job carry them to the tech. To see how stairs and hallways fit with room pricing and packages, visit the carpet cleaning estimate software page.