How Handpicked works

£25 an hour, all in. That splits two ways:

• £20 an hour to your cleaner, paid by you into their own account.
• £5 an hour to us. We use it to find and check your cleaner, and to arrange cover or put things right when you need it.

The same rate applies to weekly and fortnightly cleans. There's no joining fee, no contract and no charge for the home visit. A 3-hour fortnightly clean works out at £75 a visit: £60 to your cleaner and £15 to us. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.

Two separate payments, out of the same £25 an hour. You pay your cleaner their £20 an hour directly, by bank transfer into their own account, and we'll set that up with you at the home visit. You pay us the £5 an hour service fee separately. We use it to find and check your cleaner, and to arrange cover or put things right when you need it. The cleaning money never passes through us. And our fee is only ever charged for cleans that happened, so if your cleans pause, the fee pauses with them.

Yes. References, ID and a basic DBS check on file for every cleaner, plus a paid trial clean before they reach your home.

We are an introduction agency, so we do not insure the cleaning itself. Every cleaner we introduce is self-employed and holds their own public liability policy of £2m or more, and we check it before they start and again each year. If something is accidentally damaged, their policy responds and we pay their excess, so neither you nor your cleaner is left out of pocket over it. We also carry our own professional indemnity and public liability cover for the work we do: the vetting, the introduction, and our own visits to your home.

The way we like our own home cleaned is a personal thing, and no two people mean quite the same by it. Every cleaner we introduce meets a good standard, and even so a cleaner's way of working and your preferences can sit slightly apart. That's nobody's fault.

So tell us within 48 hours and we'll put it right, and that clean's service fee is on us. Most of the time it's a short conversation and a note on your file, and it settles.

If it's still not working after that, we'll introduce you to a cleaner whose way of working suits yours better. There's no charge and no awkwardness for you, because having that conversation is part of what you pay us for.

Yes. We match you with one regular cleaner and keep it that way, so your cleaner gets to know your home. We keep a record of your preferences too, so nothing is lost if anything changes.

If your cleaner is away, unwell or their circumstances change, we'll try to arrange cover, handpicked in the same way, and brief them from those notes so you're not starting from scratch. Because you pay whoever cleans your home, we'll send you the cover cleaner's payment details for that visit, as a one-tap link. It takes a few seconds and only happens on cover days.

If we can't arrange cover, or you'd rather skip that visit, you don't pay our fee for it. We only charge for cleans that take place.

Then you pay us nothing. We only charge our fee for cleans that have happened, so there's nothing to pay until your cleaner has started.

90 minutes for a weekly clean and 2 hours for a fortnightly one, because two weeks of dust takes longer to clear. Below that the travel starts to cost your cleaner more than the visit is worth. How long your own home needs is something we agree at the home visit, and for most homes it's longer than the minimum.

Only the big kit. Keep a working vacuum in the house and a mop and bucket for hard floors, and your cleaner brings the rest (cloths, wipes, dusters and sprays), so there's no shopping list to keep on top of. The vacuum and mop stay in your home for hygiene, so nothing travels between homes. If you have a product you'd rather they used on a particular floor or surface, leave it out and they'll use that.

Of course. There's no long contract. Let us know in good time and we'll adjust, pause or cancel your schedule.