How much to tip a Housecleaner?

[wildbeast]

DH and I (and our 3 pets) live in a HCOLA which is a popular travel destination.  All of DH's family lives across the country and a group of his friends lives in another state.  So, we have lots of visitors throughout the year.  They mostly come to visit the area and they stay with us for the free lodging.  DH is very hospitable and would never think of turning them away.  However, the bulk of the cleaning, prepping, grocery shopping, etc. falls to me. 

We recently came up with an agreeable solution:  every time we have house guests, I will bring in a professional house cleaner either before or after the visit, whichever I choose.  This seems like a good offset to my schedule disruption and added work load.  So I plan on using a wonderful house cleaner I found on a regular basis.

Now, this house cleaner is just great.  She is professional, prompt, hard working, creative (has removed stains on appliances I'd give up on years ago) and has a lovely personality.  She also brings all her own cleaning supplies, tools and equipment.  And her prices are a bargain!  She gave my house a 6-hr deep cleaning for $100.  I was home and saw that she worked non-stop the whole time.

So, how much to tip?  I know that hairdressers are a typical 20% tip.  But a house cleaner works so much harder than a hairdresser that I feel stingy doing 20%.  I don't want to devalue this person's labor.

Any suggestions?

[GizmoTX]

I hate tipping as a general rule; if you're dealing with a self-employed person, s/he should already be setting the amount expected for services. I've used housecleaning services for over 30 years & have never tipped them. I have given year end or special service bonuses, but that's not the same as tipping. I don't tip my hair stylist either. However, $100 for 6 hours of amazing service is a bargain. Assuming that this person is legal, I'd pay what I thought was fair to keep her returning rather than calling it a tip.

[BlueHouse]

I've had Three different housecleaning services over the past few years.  The first one was one of the large services and you never know who will show up to your house (unless you specifically ask for someone).  On those occasions, I tipped $20 on $100 service (typically about 4-5 person-hours of work). I only used them twice before I found recommended teams.
I asked both teams about tipping and the bosses of both groups said "nothing.  You pay me, and I pay my people".  They really don't want their people dealing with money other than as a paycheck. 

Twice a year, I give an extra payment -- I used to do this only once a year, at xmas time, but I like my people, I trust them, they're pretty helpful to me, and I want them to appreciate me as a customer.  So yeah, I give them an extra $100 two to two and a half times per year.  I know they appreciate it.  But I can also tell you that I'm pretty sure my cleaning lady appreciates it more (in a different way) when I text her occasionally and tell her how much I love coming home to a clean home and that I appreciate that she performed some random cleaning service that I didn't even know had to be done and wouldn't know it had been except that I found evidence of it.  (For instance, they clean the ball-bearing grit of my door hinges).  I didn't know that was a thing, but I must have really cheap door hinges because they expel something that looks like graphite all over my white doors. 

 

[Hadilly]

I don't tip, but I do give a large holiday gift and pay extra for any additional work.

[Dee18]

I just do the Christmas bonus.  But I do give my cleaning lady a raise every couple years. 

[joonifloofeefloo]

I would give her the tip of charging more. It sounds like she's doing the all-too-common thing of undercharging. I did the same until a women's entrepreneurship mentoring program supported me to get my rates up.

$25/hr is the minimum going rate for good, solo-contractor housecleaning where I am.

If you didn't want to do that, I'd tip 20-50% :)

[wildbeast]

Since her work for me is sporadic, and I don't celebrate Christmas, I'll just give her a big tip each time she comes, like I did before. 

I do think she is undercharging and selling herself short, but I've noticed that people really undervalue physical labor, so she probably does it in order to remain employed.  Luckily, she's built up a good base of regular clients who love her (that's how I found her) so hopefully they tip her generously as well.