A 120-room limited-service hotel running at 68 percent occupancy (81.6 occupied rooms per night) with a housekeeping cost of $28 per occupied room spends $2,285 per day on housekeeping labor, or approximately $834,000 per year. If the general manager brings that same scope to a contracted housekeeping service and receives a bid at $21 per occupied room, the apparent savings of $571,000 per year requires a hard look at what changed: MPOR (minutes per occupied room), wage rate, supervisor ratio, and whether linen/terry service is included. Those four variables explain almost every significant variance between hotel housekeeping bids.
Typical Price Ranges by Hotel Tier and Service Model
Hotel housekeeping costs are most usefully expressed per occupied room per day rather than per square foot, because occupancy variation means the cost per square foot of total hotel area changes daily. The ranges below reflect 2024–2025 market data from AHE hospitality productivity guidance and BOMA hospitality property benchmarks.
| Hotel Tier | In-House Cost/OCC Rm/Day | Contracted Cost/OCC Rm/Day | Includes Linen? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy / limited-service | $22–$32 | $18–$28 | Usually no; laundry separate |
| Select-service / mid-scale | $28–$40 | $24–$36 | Partial; varies by contract |
| Full-service / upscale | $36–$52 | $32–$46 | Typically included |
| Luxury | $48–$80+ | Less common; specialty vendors | Included + turndown |
The most common room service cadence post-2020 is opt-in daily service for stays of 2+ nights, versus automatic daily service pre-pandemic. This change reduced effective MPOR demand by 15–25 percent at mid-scale properties where opt-in rates run 30–45 percent of occupied rooms. New BSC bids on hotels should confirm whether the current opt-in policy is expected to continue, as a reversion to automatic daily service significantly changes the labor model.
MPOR: The Core Productivity Benchmark
Minutes per occupied room (MPOR) is the single most important housekeeping productivity metric. For the full reference, see MPOR staffing model for hotel housekeeping It measures the total labor time allocated per occupied room turnover, including travel time between rooms on the same floor. MPOR varies significantly by service level and room configuration. The rates below are drawn from ISSA 447 Cleaning Times adapted for hotel room service formats and from AHE hospitality productivity benchmarks.
| Service Type | MPOR Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full checkout (strip and remake) | 28–45 min/room | Full linen change, full bathroom, full floor |
| Stay-over, full service | 18–28 min/room | Fresh linen, bathroom refresh, vacuum |
| Stay-over, light refresh (opt-in) | 8–14 min/room | Towel swap, trash, bed straighten |
| Turndown service (luxury) | 6–10 min/room | Evening; bedding fold, amenities reset |
| Public area attendant (per shift pass) | 15–25 min/1,000 sf | Lobby, corridors, elevator cabs |
At the BLS OEWS 2024 SOC 37-2011 median of $17.62/hr and with a 32 percent benefit load, a fully loaded room attendant costs $23.26/hr. At a 35-minute full checkout MPOR, each room costs $13.57 in direct labor for the turnover. Supervisor allocation, linen, supplies, and overhead bring the total per-room cost to the ranges in the table above.
Line-Item Cost Build: 100-Room Limited-Service Hotel, Full Contracted Service
| Cost Line | Basis | Monthly Total (70% occ.) |
|---|---|---|
| Room attendants | 70 rooms/day × 35 min avg × $24.00/hr loaded | $24,640 |
| Housekeeping supervisor | 1 FTE × $30.00/hr loaded × 173 hrs/mo | $5,190 |
| Public area attendant | 1 FTE × $24.00/hr × 8 hrs/day × 30.4 days | $5,837 |
| Room cleaning supplies | $1.20–$1.80 per occupied room/day × 2,128 room-days | $2,554–$3,830 |
| Equipment depreciation | Carts, vacuums, steam unit | $280–$420 |
| Overhead + management (18–22%) | $7,200–$8,700 | |
| Total before margin | $45,701–$48,617 | |
| Target margin (8–12%) | $3,950–$6,350 | |
| Cost per occupied room/day | ÷ 2,128 occupied room-days | $23.30–$25.86 |
Variables That Move Hotel Housekeeping Cost
- Average room size: Suites at 650 sf require 55–70 minutes to turn versus 35 minutes for a standard 360 sf room, adding $8–$14 per occupied suite in labor cost.
- Linen program ownership: If the BSC provides and launders linen, add $4–$8 per occupied room/day; if the hotel provides linen, that line disappears from the cleaning contract.
- Occupancy swing: A contract priced at 70 percent occupancy that runs at 85 percent occupancy during peak season requires surge staffing that should be addressed in the contract's variable-occupancy pricing clause.
- Union market: UNITE HERE contract rates in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Chicago add $6–$12 per occupied room/day versus non-union market labor costs for equivalent service levels.
Tradeoffs: In-House vs Contracted Housekeeping
Hotel housekeeping is one of the more genuinely contested in-house vs contracted decisions in facilities management. In-house programs give the general manager direct control over room attendant scheduling, training standards, and brand-specific processes. The tradeoff is HR complexity: recruiting, managing turnover (which runs 60–80 percent annually at most properties), and carrying labor costs during low-occupancy periods without the ability to flex crew size quickly. Contracted programs solve the flex problem but introduce a quality-consistency issue when the contractor's bench crew (the workers filling turnover gaps) is less experienced than the tenured staff. Properties that have tried both models and settled on contracted service typically cite occupancy variability and turnover management as the deciding factors, not cost per se. The IREM Operations benchmarks for hospitality properties provide in-house vs contracted cost comparisons by property size.
Red Flags in Hotel Housekeeping Bids
A limited-service hotel housekeeping bid below $18 per occupied room per day for full checkout service at current wages should be examined for MPOR assumptions: if the bidder is using a 22-minute MPOR for full checkout rooms, the rooms will not be cleaned to brand standard. At 22 minutes, a full linen change, full bathroom scrub, floor vacuum, and amenity reset cannot all be completed at the quality level most hotel brands specify. Ask for the bidder's MPOR target and supervisor ratio. For related hospitality pricing benchmarks, see fitness club cleaning cost and coworking and flex space pricing. The Opora Pricing by Facility hub indexes all 25 facility types. The hospitality and retail cleaning hub covers housekeeping program design. The Opora Account Profitability Auditor tracks per-room margin across a hotel portfolio. External references include BLS OEWS SOC 37-2011, ISSA hospitality benchmarks, and SBA hospitality operational benchmarks.
By the Opora Editorial Team · Last updated: 2026
- Industry Playbooks · Field Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
What does $28 MPOR actually cost a 120-room hotel?
At 68 percent occupancy, 120 rooms produce about 81.6 occupied rooms a night. Multiply that by $28 and you are spending roughly $2,285 per day, which lands near $834,000 a year. That annual figure is the one worth carrying into budget conversations, because the nightly number is small enough to feel harmless.
A vendor quoted $21 MPOR against our $28 — what should I check?
Find out what changed to produce the gap. Ask specifically about minutes per occupied room, linen standards, and how much public-area scope the bid actually covers. Apparent savings in housekeeping are frequently scope cuts wearing an efficiency label, and the difference shows up in guest complaints long before it shows up in the invoice.
Is per-occupied-room the right way to measure housekeeping cost?
For housekeeping labor, yes. Vacant rooms do not generate the same clean as occupied ones, so tying cost to occupied rooms tracks the work being performed rather than the square footage sitting empty. Per-square-foot math will mislead you here.