"Ball-parking" estimates for initial cleaning assignments is not for the faint of heart. If you can find someone who has really bothered to keep track of their own accuracy in quoting initial cleaning assignments, you'll find that they won't be bragging much about their record. This is because it is very difficult to accurately predict cleaning times for initial cleanings.
The simple solution is to charge an hourly rate for initial cleanings. Unfortunately, a significant percent of home owners won't even invite a company to perform an in-home visit if the company is unwilling to provide a fixed price quote. So to compete, many house cleaning companies comply with consumers' requests and provide their best guess as to how long the initial assignment might take.
Providing quotes for Initial Cleaning assignments over the phone is particularly challenging; one might have more luck answering the question, "How long is a piece of string?"
Of course, we did not consider performing a statistical analysis of how long it takes to perform initial cleanings. The initial cleaning formula included in the model provides a "better than nothing" tool to assist someone performing an in-home estimate to arrive at a ball park estimate.
Better to overstate the limitations, so let's step out on a limb on this one: 1) the HCA Pricing Tools are totally devoid of any insights into how much time it's actually going to take for the initial cleaning; and 2) the HCA Pricer cannot be used to determine the true meaning of life. Sorry, you 're still on your own for both.