On the checklist, almost nothing. At JAS a move-in clean and a move-out clean are the same published service — the 38-item empty-property list, starting at $409. What changes is who the work is for: a move-out clean answers your landlord’s inspection and your deposit; a move-in clean answers you, before the boxes arrive.
That’s worth saying flatly, because the two phrases sound like two products. They are one service holding two positions on a calendar — the same 5–7 hour visit with a 2–3 person team, the same 38 items, the same photo archive at the end. We’ve already walked that list from each side: what a move-out clean covers and what a move-in clean covers. This article does the thing neither can: set them beside each other and name the differences that are actually real.
That’s what the walkthrough actually looks for. If you’d rather not do it during the week you are moving, send us the address and the move-out date and we’ll come back with a price.
The four differences that are real
Not one of them is a line on the price sheet. Every one of them changes what you do around the visit.
- Who grades the result. On the way out, the service page publishes what the visit is aimed at: “the items landlords check most — the kitchen, bathrooms, empty cabinet and drawer interiors, reachable surfaces, and spot-cleaning of wall scuffs” — and it publishes the honest ceiling too: the deposit decision itself always rests with your landlord. On the way in, the same page points somewhere else entirely: cabinets, appliances and bathrooms clean “before you unpack a single box.” Same crew, same list, a different person deciding whether it worked.
- Where the photo archive ends up. Both visits end the same way — 38 items plus a full photo archive PDF on eligible completed visits — and the move-out page publishes a one-tap forward to landlord. Leaving, that archive is evidence you hand to somebody else against a deadline. Arriving, the same archive is a dated record of the condition you accepted the unit in: not a legal instrument, but dated, and almost no renter holds one from day one. The three sums people call “the deposit” are pulled apart in the move-in article.
- Who has to manufacture the empty home. “Empty is best,” the page says: cleared, the team reaches inside every cabinet and drawer, around appliances where safely accessible, and along every baseboard. Leaving, that condition is something you have to engineer — movers out, cleaners in, final walkthrough after; the page schedules it in exactly those terms. Arriving, the emptiness is free: between the key handoff and the truck, nobody has to do anything to produce it.
- Which separately priced lines are worth buying. The add-on menu on the service page is identical in both directions — empty refrigerator $49, inside oven $49, oven + refrigerator bundle $89, interior windows from $10 per pane, trash/junk removal by separate quote. The buying logic isn’t. Leaving, you pay for the doors your landlord is going to open. Arriving, you pay for the ones the last turnover’s budget left out — because those same lines were add-ons then too.
What doesn’t change — and what that should make you ask
JAS publishes one list for both directions and one table: $409 at one bedroom and one bath, then $461, $538, $590, $667, and $719 at four bedrooms and three baths. There is no “move-in route” that quietly skips baseboards because nobody is going to inspect them. Which is why, if another company quotes a move-in noticeably cheaper than a move-out on the same empty unit, that isn’t a discount — it’s a scope question. Ask which lines came out.
The other thing that doesn’t change is what actually moves the price. The service page is blunt about it: condition matters as much as size, and a home that was cleaned regularly moves through the checklist noticeably faster than one getting its first serious clean since move-in day. That sentence cuts both ways. The apartment you hand back and the apartment you inherit were each somebody’s daily life.
“The cleaning doesn’t change with the direction of the move. What changes is who is looking at it, and against what deadline.”
When the move-in clean is honestly overkill
Here is the case against buying one. If the unit had a proper move-out clean a few days ago and has stood empty and locked since, a second empty-property pass from $409 is largely re-cleaning work that is still holding. We would rather you spent that money once.
Find out for yourself at the walkthrough. These four spots are where a rushed clean shows first:
- Open the oven and pull out the refrigerator drawers. Both are separately priced lines on every move-out clean, which makes them the two most likely to have been declined.
- Run a hand along the top of a door frame and the baseboard behind where a sofa stood — the places reachable only while the room is empty.
- Look at the shower door track, the base of the toilet, and the caulk line. In South Florida, hard-water buildup keeps a record of whatever wasn’t scrubbed.
- Open every cabinet, drawer, and closet shelf. Empty interiors are inside the base price in both directions — so if they are dusty, nobody cleaned this unit; somebody wiped it.
If those four come back clean, you don’t need a move-out-grade clean to move in. The honest smaller purchase is a residential cleaning — starting at $189, a 2–3 hour visit with a 2-person team, 28 items verified by photo, the maintenance routine of kitchen, baths, floors and surfaces — booked for the day before the truck. Or nothing at all, and the money stays in the move. If they come back dirty, you now know what the previous tenant’s landlord accepted, and the empty window is the only one you get — the reasoning is in whether to hire cleaners before moving into a new house.
What this article won’t do is tell you the unit is clean when you can’t verify it. A “professionally cleaned” line in an email is not a scope. Two questions — what date, and did it include the refrigerator and oven interiors — will tell you more than any assumption.
In Miami, both dates land in the same week
If you’re moving inside Miami-Dade, you’re buying the same service twice at two addresses, and the calendar is the hard part. Booking needs at least 24–48 hours of lead time, and end-of-month dates fill first because most leases turn over then. Your exit clean wants the slot after the movers and before the final walkthrough; your entry clean wants the slot after the keys and before the truck. Often those are the same 48 hours. Budgeting the double bill is covered in what both cleans of a Miami move cost.
Condo buildings tighten it further: the elevator window you’re assigned on the way out, and the one on the way in, are usually the fixed points everything else has to fit around. Reserve both cleans the day your dates are set. And if you’re the one handing back keys, what landlords inspect after you move out is the list your exit clean is really being graded against.
FAQ
Is a move-in clean cheaper than a move-out clean?
No. It is the same service on the same published table — from $409 at one bedroom and one bath up to $719 at four bedrooms and three baths. Price follows the size and condition of the property, not the direction you are moving.
The landlord says the unit was professionally cleaned. Do I still need a move-in clean?
Maybe not — and it is worth two questions before you spend. Ask what date it was cleaned, and whether refrigerator and oven interiors were included; those are separately priced add-on lines on every move-out clean, so they are the two most often declined. Then open the oven, the refrigerator drawers, and a few empty cabinets yourself at the walkthrough.
I am moving out of one Miami apartment and into another. Can one visit cover both?
No — two addresses means two visits, each priced from the same table for the home it is in. Booking needs at least 24 to 48 hours of lead time and end-of-month dates fill first, so the practical move is to reserve both slots the day your move dates are set.