The text comes in at nine in the evening. "Sorry, forgot to say, I don't need you tomorrow."
You read it twice, because tomorrow's clean was 3 hours of your week and it's now a gap you've got no chance of selling to anyone else at that notice. Then you type back "no problem!", because what else do you say.
The other version is worse. You drive over, the gate's locked, nobody's in, and when you finally get hold of them it's "oh, was that today?". A morning gone, and you paid for the petrol to lose it.
Every cleaner has both of these, and almost nobody has a plan for them.
What the cleaning companies charge
Search this and the answer looks settled, because every agency publishes the same kind of ladder.
Hello Cleaners charge 30% of the job for a cancellation between 48 and 24 hours before the start, 50% between 24 and 10 hours, and 100% under 10 hours. The English Cleaning Company charge 40% for anything under a day's notice, plus the full price of the job if their cleaner turns up and can't get in. The advice blogs all say the same thing: pick your percentage, put it in your terms, charge it to the card on file.
That works for an agency. They have 40 cleaners and a scheduler, so a cancelled job means moving one person to a different house, and they have the client's card on file to charge it against.
You have neither of those things. You lose the money and you keep the client, which is a different problem and needs a different answer.
What an empty slot costs you
Do the sum before you copy a percentage off somebody else's website.
Say it's a 3-hour clean at £20 an hour. That's £60. You save maybe £3 of petrol and a couple of quid of products by not going, so if you can't refill the slot you're down about £55.
If you do refill it, you're down nothing. If you fill it with a shorter job, you're down the difference.
That range is your policy, and it's why a flat percentage is somebody else's arithmetic rather than yours.
How much notice should a cleaning client give?
The industry standard is 24 or 48 hours. Ask for 3 days.
The reasoning matters more than the number. The only realistic way to fill a Tuesday morning is a client who's already on that side of town on a Tuesday, and that person has a job, or kids, or a day already planned. At 24 hours they can almost never take it. Given a few days they often can, and you get to ask 2 or 3 of them rather than whoever happens to be free tonight.
3 days is also short enough that clients don't push back. A week sounds like a contract; 3 days sounds like a courtesy.
How to word it, and when to say it
Say it once, at the start, and put it in writing where they'll find it again.
Spoken, at the point of booking: "Just so you know how I work, I need 3 days' notice to move a clean, otherwise I can't fill the slot and I'd have to charge for it."
Written, in your welcome message or on your booking page: "Cancellations and changes need 3 days' notice. Under that, I'll do my best to move the clean instead, and where I can't fill the slot the visit is charged in full."
Introduced at the start, that's just how you work. Introduced after the first cancellation, it reads as a telling-off, and now you're having an awkward conversation with someone who's already annoyed with themselves.
When to charge, and when to let it go
Lead with moving the clean rather than the fee. "No problem, can we do Thursday instead?" keeps your money and your client, and it works far more often than people expect.
The first time it happens and you can't move it, give a free pass and name it as one: "no charge this time, but a heads up, I do need 3 days or I can't refill it." You've kept the goodwill and put the policy on the record.
The second one within a couple of months is where you charge, and you send it the same day rather than letting it sit. "Sorry, I couldn't fill Tuesday, so that one's on the invoice as we agreed. Same time next week?" You invoice it like any other clean, because a one-person round has no card on file and no way to take the money unless the client pays it.
Some won't. The real risk here is a client who thinks the charge is unfair refusing to pay it and drifting away, rather than anything that ends up in a court, and that's the practical reason to keep the fee tied to what you genuinely lost.
It's the legal reason too. A cancellation charge on a householder has to reflect what you genuinely lose: Citizens Advice tells people to push back when a charge seems unfair, and the CMA's guidance on unfair terms under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says a charge should be a genuine estimate of the direct loss, should take account of what you save by not doing the job, and should be written in plain language. Charging the full £55 for a slot you couldn't refill sits comfortably inside that. Charging it for one you filled with another client doesn't.
When a client locks you out
This is the one to charge for without flinching.
You've driven there, you've spent the slot, and there's nothing left to save, so the whole visit is a real loss by anyone's measure. Most clients know it the second they realise what they've done.
Prevention is worth more than the fee, though. A lot of what looks like a last-minute cancellation is somebody simply forgetting, and a short reminder the day before every clean quietly takes most of those off the table. The client who'd have forgotten gets a nudge while there's still time to leave the key out.
Filling the gap
When a hole does open, the only realistic filler is a client who's already near that day's route.
A fortnightly you could pull forward a week. A regular a few streets away who'd take an extra hour before Christmas. Ask 2 or 3 people who are near that day rather than messaging your whole list, and you'll fill more slots with less noise.
If you've got people working with you
The sum changes when it isn't your Tuesday. A cancelled clean is now somebody's pay, and whatever you do the first time becomes the rule.
So decide it before it happens: do you move them onto another job, pay the slot anyway, or does the shift just go? Any of those can be fair. Deciding it in the moment, differently each time, is what causes the trouble, because your cleaners talk to each other and they'll notice.
The short version
Work out what an empty slot costs you, ask for 3 days, tell people at the start and put it in writing, offer to move the clean before you mention money, charge on the second one rather than the first, and charge the lock-out every time.
You'll charge fewer fees that way, and you'll lose fewer mornings, which is the bit that was costing you.