Professional mattress cleaning in the UK typically costs £25 to £45 for a single, £40 to £70 for a double, £50 to £85 for a king and £60 to £100 for a super king, per mattress. A divan base or a fabric headboard is usually £25 to £50 each. Most firms also hold a minimum call-out of £60 to £90, so one single mattress on its own rarely costs the single price. London and the South East run roughly 20% to 30% above these numbers, and Nottingham sits in the lower half of every band.
Those are market ranges rather than any one company's price list. The gap between a £40 and a £70 quote on the same double bed is almost always the staining, the size of the visit and whether the base and headboard are in scope.
Cost by mattress size
| Mattress | Typical price | Time on the bed |
|---|---|---|
| Cot or child's mattress | £15 to £30 | 20 to 30 minutes |
| Single | £25 to £45 | 30 to 45 minutes |
| Double | £40 to £70 | 45 to 60 minutes |
| King | £50 to £85 | 45 to 75 minutes |
| Super king | £60 to £100 | 60 to 75 minutes |
The national cost guides sit at the lower end of each band. The Fantastic Services 2026 guide puts the rest of the UK at £20 to £40 for a single and £55 to £80 for a super king, with London and the South East 20% to 30% higher. Published price lists from individual carpet and upholstery firms sit at the upper end: ProLux list £45 for a single and £65 for a super king against an £80 minimum visit, and other regional firms publish £50 to £100 depending on size.
Both are true: a cost guide quotes the per-item rate inside a larger booking, a price list quotes a standalone visit that has to cover travel and setup.
The minimum charge nobody mentions
A mattress clean takes forty minutes. Getting the van to your door, carrying the machine up your stairs and packing it away again takes longer than the cleaning, which is why almost every firm applies a minimum of £60 to £90 to the visit rather than the item.
The practical consequences:
- One single mattress alone will be quoted at the minimum, not at £25
- Two or three mattresses in one visit are far better value, and most firms discount the second and later items by 20% to 30%
- A mattress added to a carpet cleaning booking is the cheapest way to buy one, because the call-out is already paid for
Moving out, put it on the end of tenancy clean rather than booking it separately.
Add-ons and what they cost
| Item | Typical |
|---|---|
| Divan base or fabric headboard, each | £25 to £50 |
| Both sides of the mattress cleaned | £10 to £20 |
| Set stain treatment, per area | £10 to £30 |
| Deodorising treatment | £10 to £25 |
| Anti-allergen treatment | £15 to £35 |
| Second and later mattresses, same visit | 20% to 30% less each |
The base and headboard are not an upsell. A divan base is upholstered fabric that has been collecting dust for as long as the mattress has, and its top platform sits directly under the part you are paying to clean.
The anti-allergen line deserves more scepticism. It is a spray on a surface, and the boring interventions do more: bedding washed weekly at 60°C and a barrier encasement. Read our piece on dust mites and what actually helps first.
What actually moves the price
The staining, not the dirt. Mattresses are not dirty the way a carpet is dirty. What is on them is perspiration, sebum, skin and body fluid, and the yellow-brown rings people ring up about are mineral salts from sweat rather than soil. Salts and set protein need pre-treatment and dwell time, and dwell time is what you are paying for.
Urine. The most common single reason for a booking, and the most labour. Uric acid crystals survive ordinary detergent, which is why a cleaned mattress can still smell in the first humid week of the year. Proper treatment means an enzyme with real dwell time and a slower dry, and it is normally an extra.
Construction. A sprung mattress takes moisture and gives it back. Memory foam takes far less and holds what it takes, so it is vacuumed, spot treated and dried rather than extracted. Foam is not dearer to clean; it is more limited in what cleaning can do.
Region. London and the South East add 20% to 30%. The Midlands runs at or slightly below the UK average.
What cleaning will and will not do
Fresh spills come out well. Dust, hair and skin come off with a HEPA vacuum before any liquid is involved, and odour sitting in the surface responds to treatment.
Old set stains usually lighten rather than disappear. A yellow tidemark five years in the making is mineral and protein deposit that has migrated down into the filling, and cleaning reaches the top layer, not the depth. Any firm telling you an old mattress will come back white either has not seen it or is planning an awkward conversation on the day. Ask for the verdict before the booking, not after.
Nothing removes bleach marks, dye transfer or sun fading, which are damage to the fibre rather than soil on it. And nothing rescues a mattress that has already been soaked.
Is hiring a machine cheaper?
A carpet cleaning machine hires for around £25 to £35 a day. On a carpet, that maths sometimes works. On a mattress it is the classic way to turn a stained bed into a ruined one.
A carpet sits on a floor and can be dried from above and below. A mattress cannot be lifted, stood on its edge and aired, so every drop of water that goes in has to come back out through the face it went in. Hire machines put down far more water than they recover, the filling holds it for days, and what develops in the middle cannot be reached, dried out or cleaned. The visible symptom appears about a week later as brown watermarks wicking to the surface, by which point the cheaper option has cost you a mattress.
Drying time is part of the price
Budget four to eight hours in a ventilated room, longer for memory foam. Book a morning slot, open the window, and do not make the bed up until the surface is dry to the back of your hand. Sheets and a duvet on a damp mattress seal the moisture in and undo the job.
If your quote does not mention drying at all, ask. A firm that has thought about drying is a firm that has thought about over-wetting.
What is not a cleaning job
Bed bugs. No cleaning company can treat an infestation, and moving an infested mattress through the house spreads it. Bites in a line, small dark spots along the seams and a sweet musty smell are pest signs, and they need a pest control contractor qualified to use the products involved. Look for a British Pest Control Association member, and ask what qualification the technician holds. Treat the infestation, then book the clean afterwards if you still want one.
Getting a fair quote
Say what the marks are and how old. Sweat, urine, blood and an unknown stain from 2019 are four different jobs.
Say what the mattress is made of. Sprung, memory foam, latex or hybrid changes both the method and the honest expectation.
Ask about the base and headboard, which are quoted separately as often as they are forgotten.
Ask for the drying time in the quote.
Bundle the visit, so you are not paying a second minimum call-out for forty minutes of work.
Frequently asked questions
How often should a mattress be professionally cleaned? Every six to twelve months if anyone in the house sweats heavily, has young children or lets a pet on the bed. Every one to two years otherwise. In between, a monthly HEPA vacuum and weekly bedding washes do most of the work.
Is a mattress protector worth it? It is the best value item in this entire article. A decent waterproof, breathable protector costs £20 to £40 and takes the sweat, the spills and the accidents instead of the mattress. Fitted after a clean, it is what makes the next clean unnecessary.
Does it kill dust mites? A clean physically removes skin, dust, hair and mite debris from the top layer and the seams through a HEPA filter. That is a description of what leaves the mattress, not a health claim. For allergen, hot bedding washes and a barrier encasement do more.
Will the smell come back? Only if the source was not removed. A fragrance laid over a urine mark returns as soon as the weather gets humid. Removal means an enzyme breaking down the uric acid, which is a different job from masking and is priced differently.
Should I just replace it? Mattresses typically last seven to ten years. If yours is eight years old, sagging and stained, a £60 clean postpones a decision rather than solving it. Three years old with one accident on it, cleaning is obviously the cheaper answer.
