Job pricing guide
How to price a dryer vent cleaning job
Price dryer vent cleaning around vent length, routing, access points, blockage, appliance movement, exterior termination, and cleanup.
How should you price this job?
Identify the vent route, approximate length, number of turns, appliance access, exterior termination, and signs of severe blockage before pricing. Estimate moving and protecting the dryer, disconnecting and reconnecting accessible ducting, cleaning the run and termination, airflow checks, lint cleanup, and setup. Add travel, equipment cost, overhead, access difficulty, uncertainty, and your target margin.
What affects the price?
- Vent length, turns, and termination location
- Blockage severity and duct condition
- Dryer, exterior, crawlspace, or roof access
Pricing considerations
- A short wall-through vent and a long concealed run with several elbows should use different time and difficulty assumptions.
- Define whether dryer movement, transition-duct replacement, exterior cover cleaning, roof access, airflow checks, and lint disposal are included.
- Build your minimum service charge from dispatch, equipment loading, setup, cleaning, documentation, and overhead rather than copying an advertised market price.
What costs should you include?
Count every hour the job occupies—including paid travel—then add raw materials, vehicle cost, allocated overhead, and job-specific expenses. Add visible pricing adjustments and a risk reserve before using margin math to find the selling price. The pricing methodology explains each allocation and the difference between markup and margin.
Pricing workflow
- Ask where the dryer and exterior termination are located, how the duct is routed, and whether airflow or drying symptoms suggest a severe blockage.
- Inspect appliance clearance, transition duct, exterior cover, access points, roof or crawlspace exposure, and the equipment needed.
- Estimate protection, movement, disconnection, cleaning passes, termination work, reconnection, checks, and lint cleanup.
Scope checklist
- Include stated access points, dryer movement, cleaning method, exterior termination cleaning, reconnection, checks, and cleanup.
- State whether a transition duct, exterior cover, roof access, photos, or minor fastening is included.
- Exclude concealed duct repair, fire or moisture remediation, appliance repair, inaccessible sections, and unsafe access unless separately handled.
Common scope variables
- Dryer movement and reconnection
- Interior and exterior cleaning points
- Transition-duct replacement
- Airflow check and cleanup
Costs commonly forgotten
- Inaccessible or disconnected duct sections
- Roof or confined-space access
- Heavy blockage requiring extra passes and cleanup
Quoting every vent as the same service call without asking where it terminates, how long it is, whether the dryer can move, or whether the duct is damaged or inaccessible.
Flat rate or hourly?
Use a flat rate for a verified accessible route and a clearly defined cleaning scope. Add visible difficulty for long runs, tight appliance access, or exterior access. Refer unsafe roof work, damaged concealed ducting, or appliance faults to an appropriate specialist when needed.
In either case, calculate every planned allocation first. A flat rate should still pay for estimated working time, travel, overhead, risk, and target-margin surplus.
Worked pricing example
These hypothetical assumptions run through the same pricing engine as the calculator:
- Labor time
- 1.50 hours × 1 worker
- Travel time
- 0.75 hours
- Desired hourly compensation
- $52.00 per worker-hour
- Planned labor compensation
- $117.00
- Raw materials
- $12.00
- Material pricing adjustment
- 0% = $0.00
- Overhead allocation
- $900.00 ÷ 90 billable hours × 2.25 hours = $22.50
- Vehicle and job expenses
- $10.00
- Difficulty adjustment
- 10% = $14.95
- Contingency / risk reserve
- 5% = $8.82
- Target margin
- 22%
- Calculated minimum price
- $237.53
- Rounded suggested quote
- $240.00
The rounded quote contains $54.73 of target-margin surplus after all listed allocations. Replace every assumption with your own job numbers.
Frequently asked questions
How should a long vent run affect the quote?
Increase the labor estimate for setup, cleaning passes, bends, access points, and verification rather than applying an unexplained generic surcharge.
Should moving the dryer be included?
State it explicitly. Tight spaces, stacked units, fragile flooring, or required disassembly can materially change the time and risk.
What should establish a minimum charge?
Use your travel, loading, equipment setup, cleaning, documentation, overhead, and margin for the smallest viable service call.
Use your actual numbers
Calculate your dryer vent cleaning quote
Travel time is paid business time in this calculator. No local or national price averages are used.