A customer came to us to redo everything. She had paid about half our price elsewhere for the same scope, yet her home still could not be moved into, so she then paid us in full. Her move-in was delayed, her delivery was affected and she had to pay extra to postpone it, and she was extremely tired after the renovation. Even before that extra cost, she had paid about one and a half times our price for a single job. We share her story, with no identifying detail, as a warning.
The warning comes down to a simple calculation. A post-renovation clean of a 4-room BTO, with floor deep cleaning included, takes 3 to 4 cleaners and 5 to 7 hours. That is a big part of why quotes for the same flat differ so much, because a price either pays for that crew and that time or it does not. Some companies charge nearly half of what we do.
Three cleaners working five hours is 15 hours of work, and four cleaners working seven hours is 28, so a single flat of this size asks for between 15 and 28 hours of labour. Every one of those hours has to be paid for, and a company also carries a long list of costs before it earns anything at all: manpower, levy, hostel costs for its workers, food, insurance and transportation. All of these have gone up, so a fair price has to cover them, and it cannot fall by half without something changing in the work.
Those 15 to 28 hours of work do not shrink because the price does, so when a quote comes in at about half ours, the hours have to be found somewhere, whether in a smaller crew, a shorter visit or areas of the home that are left out. None of that appears on the quote, so a low price can look like a good deal until the owner walks through the door. A very low quote is best read as fewer hours, because that is what the price offers.
A company that quotes a price it cannot do the job at is in the wrong, because the gap between the price and the work has to be settled somewhere, either by the company absorbing the loss or by the customer receiving less than the home needs. When it is the customer who ends up bearing the gap, the result is a delayed move-in or a second bill, both of which land on a person who trusted the number they were given. The damage spreads to companies that price the job honestly, because every dispute teaches homeowners to trust the whole trade a little less, so the problem hurts customers and companies alike.
Price is the easiest thing to compare and the hours behind it are the hardest to see, which is why choosing on price alone is a risk. We work with several companies that hold a higher price, and they do it because customers expect the same quality whatever they pay. No customer pays a lower rate and agrees to a lower standard, and a homeowner who has just finished a renovation wants the home to be perfect. That expectation is fair, but it can only be met when the price pays for the people and the time that it takes.
Stomp reported on 7 October 2026 that customers of a post-renovation cleaning company had complained of incomplete work and unfulfilled refunds, and that the company denies the allegations.
We are not in a position to judge that case. Reports like it are a good reminder that a homeowner should do their due diligence before paying anyone for a clean, whoever they choose.
Due diligence starts with the price itself. If you want cheap, you have to know what you are getting into, and the calculation above shows what that is: fewer hours somewhere in the job. A quote far below the work has been cut somewhere, and it is better to ask where before you pay a deposit than to find out once the cleaners have gone.
Start with two questions: how many cleaners will come, and how many hours will they work? For a 4-room BTO our own answer is 3 to 4 cleaners and 5 to 7 hours, so an answer far below that deserves a direct follow-up about where the difference went.
Cheap out on the crew and the hours and you get cheap quality, and the customer is the one left to deal with it. We hold our price because the job needs the people and the time, and because every customer expects a home that is perfect at every price. If you are weighing up a quote and would like to check the crew and the hours against your own flat, you can message us on WhatsApp at 8836 1340.