Gutter cleaning looks like the simplest job on the board. Show up, pull the muck out, flush the downspouts, leave. Then you get to the two-story colonial with a 10/12 pitch, 40 feet of gutter you can only reach from a roof you shouldn’t be standing on, and three years of compacted pine needles. Same “gutter cleaning” line on the invoice, triple the work.
This guide covers how much to charge for gutter cleaning in 2026: the per-linear-foot rates the market supports, the height and difficulty multipliers that make the job profitable, and why the flat “$150 per house” price is quietly costing you money.
2026 gutter cleaning rates
The trade prices this work per linear foot of gutter run, and for good reason — footage tracks the actual work better than the house’s square footage does. Consumer cost guides put residential gutter cleaning around $0.95 to $2.50 per linear foot in 2026, with Angi data landing most jobs between $119 and $234 and a national average near $170.
Rates scale with height and access, not just length:
| Property type | Per linear foot |
|---|---|
| Single-story, easy access | $0.95–$1.25 |
| Single-story, difficult access | $1.10–$1.50 |
| Two-story, standard pitch | $1.25–$1.85 |
| Two-story, steep pitch | $1.50–$2.10 |
| Three-story | $1.75–$2.50 |
| Multi-level with dormers | $1.85–$2.75 |
Translated into whole jobs, since that’s what you’ll actually quote:
| Job | Typical total |
|---|---|
| Single-story ranch (~150–200 linear ft) | $150–$300 |
| Two-story (~200–250 linear ft) | $250–$450 |
| Three-story or complex roofline (250+ ft) | $350–$700+ |
| Commercial | $0.75–$2.00 per ft, or $200–$1,500+ per building |
Most homes have between 125 and 200 linear feet of gutter. Regional spread matters: Midwest and rural South operators sit near the bottom of these ranges, while coastal metros and low-competition markets routinely run 30–50% above the midpoints.
Why the flat “$150 a house” price fails
Flat per-house pricing feels simpler and it’s what most operators start with. It systematically undercharges big homes and overcharges small ones, which means you lose the easy money and win the jobs that hurt.
Look at two jobs at a flat $175:
| Single-story ranch | Two-story with dormers | |
|---|---|---|
| Gutter run | 160 ft | 240 ft |
| Ladder resets | ~8 | ~20 |
| Time on site | 1.2 hrs | 3.5 hrs |
| Price | $175 | $175 |
| Effective rate | $146/hr | $50/hr |
You didn’t have a pricing problem on the ranch. You had one on the colonial, and a flat rate hides it until you’ve done twenty of them and can’t figure out why a busy fall didn’t produce any money.
Per-foot pricing with a height multiplier fixes this in one step, and it’s easy to explain to a customer: more gutter, more money; higher and steeper, more money.
Build your number from the ladder up
Start with what an hour on site has to earn. Total your monthly costs — truck and fuel, ladder and blower replacement reserve, gutter scoops and tarps, disposal, insurance, phone, software, marketing. Say $1,300.
Then count genuinely billable hours. Gutter work has brutal non-billable overhead: drive time, setup, teardown, and hauling debris. If you work 40 hours a week and 24 are actually on ladders, that’s about 96 billable hours a month.
$1,300 ÷ 96 = about $14/hour of overhead. Add the wage you want for climbing ladders all day — call it $45/hour, because this is genuinely hazardous work and should pay better than mowing — and add 20% margin. Your target is roughly $71/hour of on-site production.
Now the per-foot rate is just arithmetic. If you clean 140 linear feet an hour on single-story work, you need about $0.51/ft to break even at that rate — so charging $1.10 gives you real margin and room for the jobs that go sideways. If two-story work drops you to 70 feet an hour, that same $71 target needs about $1.02/ft just to match, which is exactly why the two-story rate has to be higher. The multipliers in the table above aren’t market convention for its own sake. They’re production math.
Charge for the things that actually eat the day
Quote these as separate line items rather than absorbing them:
- Heavy or compacted debris. Gutters that haven’t been touched in years are a different job. Add 25–50%.
- Downspout flushing and unclogging. A packed downspout can take longer than the whole gutter run. Price it per downspout.
- Gutter guard removal and reinstallation. This is the most underquoted item in the trade. Guards have to come off, get cleaned, and go back on, and some are fastened. Charge per foot.
- Debris haul-away. Bagging and disposal costs you time and often a dump fee. Bagging on site and leaving it is a different price than taking it with you.
- Second-story-only access. Sections reachable only from the roof or requiring a 32-foot extension ladder deserve a premium — or a decline.
- Minor repairs. Resealing a joint, re-hanging a sagging section, replacing a downspout strap. Easy add-on revenue while you’re already up there.
Set a minimum and take the whole route
Every gutter job costs you the same unload, ladder setup, walkaround, and reload no matter how small the house. A 60-foot detached garage is not a $60 job — it’s a full stop with very little billable footage in it.
Set a hard minimum. Most solo operators land between $125 and $150, and holding it is what keeps small jobs from being charity.
Route density matters here as much as it does in lawn care. Gutter cleaning is seasonal and concentrated, which means neighbors are your best lead source — if you’re already set up on a street, the next house costs you almost nothing in travel. Knock on doors while you’re there, or leave a card. Three houses on one street beats one house across town at a premium, every time.
Sell the second visit, not just the job
Most homes need gutters cleaned twice a year — once after spring seed drop, once after leaves finish falling. Heavy tree cover pushes that to three or four.
So the real product isn’t a cleaning, it’s a maintenance plan. Offering 15–25% off per service on a recurring schedule is standard practice and it’s good business on both sides: the customer stops thinking about it, and you get predictable revenue plus a route you can plan around instead of chasing one-off calls every October.
Book the next visit before you leave the driveway. It’s the single highest-return thirty seconds of the job.
Take the safety and insurance part seriously
This is not a lecture, it’s a pricing point. Gutter cleaning is ladder work at height, often on wet surfaces, sometimes over concrete. It is one of the higher-risk services a solo operator can offer, and that has three consequences for your business.
Your rate should reflect the risk. Work that can put you in a hospital should pay better than work that can’t. Underpricing hazardous work is the worst trade in this industry.
Carry general liability, and get quotes before you assume you can’t afford it. Exterior and height work can also affect your eligibility and classification with some carriers, so be straight with your agent about what you actually do.
And know your decline line in advance. Some roofs aren’t worth any price — three stories with no safe ladder setup, wet moss on a steep pitch, or a job that needs equipment you don’t own. Deciding that on the ground, before you’ve quoted, is a lot easier than deciding it when the customer is watching.
Check the estimate against reality
After each job, log the footage, the time on site, and the disposal cost. Two things will show up fast.
You’ll find your true production rate — feet per hour on single-story versus two-story — which turns every future quote from a guess into a calculation. And you’ll find the specific properties that pay badly, which are usually the ones with the roofline you can’t quite reach. Those get repriced next season or dropped.
If you also do pressure washing, compare margins across both services. Most operators discover one is carrying the other, and that changes what they market.
That job-level comparison is what SupaHandi does: log the job, snap disposal and supply receipts, and see profit per property instead of a lump number at the end of the season. There’s a free plan, and the free estimate generator will produce a clean itemized quote today.
FAQ
How much should I charge to clean gutters on a two-story house?
Most operators charge $1.25–$1.85 per linear foot on standard two-story work, or $250–$450 for a typical 200–250 foot run. Push toward the top of that range for steep pitches, dormers, or heavy debris.
Should I charge per foot or per house?
Per linear foot with a height multiplier. Flat per-house pricing loses money on large or complex homes and prices you out of the easy small ones. Per-foot also gives you a defensible answer when a customer asks why their quote is higher than their neighbor’s.
How do I quote without visiting the property?
You can estimate roofline footage from satellite imagery and confirm the story count from street view, then quote a range with stated assumptions: standard pitch, normal debris, no gutter guards. Confirm the final number on site. Never give a firm price sight-unseen on a multi-story home.
Do I charge extra to remove gutter guards?
Yes, always, and as a separate line. Removing, cleaning, and reinstalling guards can easily double your time on a run. Some are screwed or clipped in ways that add real labor, and some will break — set that expectation in writing before you touch them.
What’s a fair minimum charge?
$125–$150 for most solo operators. Your fixed cost per stop — drive, unload, set up, tear down, reload — doesn’t shrink just because the house does.
The short version
Price per linear foot, apply a height and pitch multiplier, and line-item the guards, downspouts, heavy debris, and haul-away. Set a minimum that covers your cost per stop. Sell the twice-a-year plan before you leave. Price the risk honestly, and know which roofs you’ll walk away from.
Start tracking jobs and profit free — one fall season of real footage-per-hour data will make every quote you write next year better.