Yes. If your lease says the unit comes back clean and it did not, a cleaning charge is an ordinary deduction — decided by someone else, after you hand back the keys. Hiring a cleaner cannot promise your deposit back. What it changes is which number you choose, and what you can hand over as proof.
That is the whole question, and it is arithmetic, not advice. Below: what each number is made of, what a move-out clean actually buys, and the four situations where the honest answer is to keep the money and clean it yourself.
Two numbers, and you only choose one
The first is the charge. You do not see it before the work — you see it on a statement, after a walkthrough you may not have attended, in whatever detail your landlord chose. You cannot shop it, schedule it, or scope it. The second number is a booking you make yourself, and our Terms put it in one line: we price before you commit: you request a quote, see it, and then request a time. There is no payment at booking; after each completed visit we invoice the quoted amount, and the paid invoice serves as your receipt.
On the published table, move-out cleaning in Miami starts at $450 for one bedroom and one bath and runs to $750 at four bedrooms and three baths — the price for a vacant property in normal condition. The six rows in between, and what condition and access do to them, are in what a move-out clean costs. The point here is narrower: that number exists before you agree to it. The other one does not.
“A charge arrives afterward. A quote arrives first. That is the entire difference you are able to buy.”
What hiring actually buys
Not the deposit. The move-out page says it plainly and we will not say anything stronger here: eligible completed visits include a CleanCheck photo report you can forward at handoff, and the deposit decision itself always rests with your landlord.
What you are buying is a scope, a document and a day. The scope is 38 items — kitchen through common areas: cabinet and appliance exteriors, bathrooms, empty cabinet, drawer, closet and shelf interiors, doors, switches, baseboards, cobwebs and floors — worked by a 2–3 person team across a 5–7 hour visit. The document is the full photo archive PDF plus the CleanCheck Report after, with one-tap forward to landlord, and an invoice that reads line by line because you approved the lines. The day is the thing a tenant mid-move almost never has spare.
The lines that are not in the base price
Three of them are the first things a landlord opens, so decide them when you book rather than on the day: empty refrigerator $65, inside oven $65, the oven + refrigerator bundle $115, interior windows from $10 per pane, and trash/junk removal by separate quote. Add them and you have raised a number you are still choosing. What the charge on the other side turns on is a different subject — we take it up in whether a landlord can deduct cleaning from your deposit.
Four times hiring is not worth it
A cleaning company that never says this is selling, not answering.
- You kept the place clean all lease and it is a studio or a one-bedroom. Condition is what buys hours, and there are not many to buy.
- You have the days. If your movers are out on the 27th and the walkthrough is on the 30th, you already hold the scarcest input in this arithmetic.
- What worries you is not dirt. Chipped tile, a hole in the drywall, a scorched countertop, a burned patch of carpet — those are repairs. No clean touches them, and paying for one does not make them smaller.
- The unit is not safe to work in. The Terms reserve the right to refuse or stop service where conditions are unsafe for our team — such as mold, infestation, biohazards. A cleaning visit is not remediation, and we say so before taking the booking rather than after.
The Miami version of this math
Everyone’s lease ends on the same day
Booking needs at least 24–48 hours of lead time, and end-of-month dates fill first because most leases turn over then. This part of the arithmetic is not about money: a date you cannot get is how a plan turns into a charge. If you hand back the keys on the 31st, book the day your walkthrough is set — not the week of the move.
The building has an opinion too
In Brickell and Miami Beach towers, most associations require a reserved freight elevator and a firm move-out window, so the clean goes in the gap between your movers leaving and your walkthrough. Buildings also ask vendors for paperwork a tenant cannot produce alone: JAS carries $2,000,000 general liability coverage with every cleaner background-checked, and a certificate is requested by email with “COI” in the subject — most return within 2 business hours.
The gap between the clean and the walkthrough is not neutral
Salt air, humidity and year-round pollen mean a sealed, empty unit does not hold still: slider glass and window tracks pick up a fine film, and in hurricane season, June through November, windows stay shut for days at a time. Cleaning three days early and leaving the place sealed can cost you a second pass you had not budgeted. Empty is best — after the last box is out, before the walkthrough.
Quick answers
Is move-out cleaning worth it just to protect the deposit?
It is worth it when condition, time or proof is the problem — a unit that never had a professional clean during the lease, or a walkthrough three days after your movers leave. It is not worth it when you kept a small place clean and still have free days before the handoff. No cleaning company can promise the deposit: that decision rests with your landlord.
Can a landlord deduct a cleaning fee from a security deposit?
Commonly yes, when the lease says the unit comes back clean and the documented condition says it did not. What such a charge turns on is its own question, answered in our post on cleaning deductions. JAS is a cleaning company, not a law firm: whether a particular deduction is proper belongs to your lease and to a qualified attorney.
Is hiring cheaper than whatever my landlord would charge?
We cannot answer that honestly, because we cannot see the other number and we will not invent one. What we can do is publish ours: move-out cleaning starts at $450 and runs to $750 at four bedrooms and three baths, for a vacant property in normal condition, and you see your exact quote before you request a time.
Does the unit have to be empty, and when should the clean happen?
Empty is best — cleared, we reach inside every cabinet and drawer and along every baseboard without working around boxes. If your movers finish in the morning, schedule the clean for after the last box is out and before your final walkthrough. Booking needs 24–48 hours of lead time, and end-of-month dates fill first.
What if I pay for a clean and they charge me anyway?
Then you hold what you did not have before: a dated photo archive, a CleanCheck report on eligible completed visits with one-tap forward to your landlord, and a paid invoice that serves as your receipt. That is evidence, not leverage, and we will not call it more than that. What to do with it belongs to your lease and, if it goes further, to a qualified attorney.
The short version
Yes: a landlord can charge you for cleaning when the lease asked for a clean unit and did not get one, and no cleaning company can promise your deposit back. The real choice is between a number decided once the keys are back and one published from $450 that you see before you commit — 38 items, a photo archive, a report you can forward. If you have the days, a small unit and nothing built up, keep the money.
JAS Cleaning is a cleaning company, not a law firm — nothing here is legal advice. What your lease allows to be withheld belongs to your lease and, if it comes to it, to a qualified attorney.