How to Price a Green Pool Cleanup (Green to Clean)

Here is how to price a green pool cleanup as what it is: several visits over several days, with chemicals the weekly fee never covers. Work out the gallons, take the doses and prices from the product pages, count the visits the shock and clarifier schedules force, and quote it flat with a cap or by the visit.

Why a green pool is not a weekly visit

A weekly stop is tested, dosed and done in minutes. A green pool is a project: the retailer's guide says to run the pump at least 36 to 48 hours while treating green algae, to shock three times waiting 12 hours between applications, and not to swim while treating. That is a calendar, not a stop.

So the cleanup is its own quote, with its own visit count and a line for what is not included (a failed pump, a torn liner).

Step 1: Gallons and the first test

Every label dose is written per 10,000 or 15,000 gallons, so the gallons come first. Leslie's volume page gives a rectangle as length times width times average depth times 7.5, with round, oval and kidney shapes carrying their own factors. A 25 by 16 foot pool, 3 feet at one end and 7 at the other, averages 5 feet: 25 × 16 × 5 × 7.5 = 15,000 gallons.

Test before you touch anything, because the test decides whether this is a shock job or a drain job. The green algae guide's targets before shocking are total alkalinity of 80 to 120 ppm and cyanuric acid of 25 to 75 ppm. The CDC's home pool page, dated May 10, 2024, puts pH at 7.0 to 7.8 and free chlorine at a minimum of 1 ppm, or at least 2 ppm when cyanuric acid or a chlorine product containing it is in use. Write the readings on the customer record.

Step 2: The pool shock dose for algae, from the product pages

1. 1Step 1: Clean the filter (backwash sand or DE, rinse a cartridge) and leave the pump running for the whole treatment.
2. 2Step 2: Balance toward the targets, then brush the walls, floor, steps, corners and skimmer areas.
3. 3Step 3: Algae treatment: the Green to Clean label calls for 2 lb per 15,000 gallons, half around the perimeter, the rest on the worst areas, then a 5 minute wait.
4. 4Step 4: Shock: 2 lb of calcium hypochlorite per 15,000 gallons every 12 hours, three doses over 36 hours.
5. 5Step 5: Clean the filter again, more than once if the pool was very green; when the sanitizer drops below 5 ppm, add clarifier so the filter can catch the dead algae.

The prices are on the same site, on October 18, 2026. Leslie's Power Powder Plus shock, 73 percent calcium hypochlorite, is $8.99 a 1 lb bag and $5.99 each for 18 or more on an offer the page says ends 11/5. Green to Clean is $45.99 for 4 lb. Clear Aid clarifier is $33.99 for 2 liters at 2 oz per 1,000 gallons, every two days until clear, with circulation running 48 hours after each dose and no shock in that window. Algae Control, a 60 percent polyquat, is $37.99 a quart at 11 to 16 oz per 10,000 gallons to start. Your supplier's invoice replaces these figures the day you have one.

Step 3: Filter cleans, vacuum to waste and the return visits

Dead algae goes into the filter, and the filter is where a cleanup stalls. Pentair's support page for its Clean and Clear Plus cartridge filter says the cartridge is due for cleaning when the system is running at 10 psi higher than its starting pressure, so read the gauge on the first visit and plan a clean at every return. A cartridge that will not come clean is a replacement line; Leslie's lists a clearance four pack for that filter at $97.50, reduced from $389.99.

Vacuum the settled algae out of the pool, not through the filter. Leslie's vacuuming guide says that for an algae bloom the multiport valve goes to the waste position, sending the dirty water straight out the backwash line (typically sand and DE filters; a cartridge pool needs a bypass valve), and that the water level drops, so a hose runs while you vacuum; the refill goes on the quote.

How long a green pool takes to clear, and why visits are the unit

Add the schedules up and the visit count falls out. Three shock doses 12 hours apart cover 36 hours; the clarifier wants 48 hours of circulation with no shock, repeated every two days until clear; the filter needs a clean between. That is four days at the least, and a dark pool with a second clarifier round runs past a week. Each dose is a visit, or a dose the owner adds on your instructions, and the quote says which.

Green pool cleanup cost: chemicals and labor added up

Labor goes in at a loaded rate: the wage plus payroll taxes, insurance and the unbillable days. For a published starting point, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay of general maintenance and repair workers at $23.84 an hour in May 2025; pool technicians are not a separate line there, so your payroll figure replaces it.

When to drain and acid wash a pool instead

Sometimes shock is the wrong quote, and cyanuric acid is the usual reason. The CDC's home pool page says disinfection takes longer when cyanuric acid is present, and Leslie's cyanuric acid remover page puts a pool's ideal level between 30 and 100 ppm. A pool that has run on trichlor tablets for years can test far above that. The remover is one option, $79.99 for a skimmer pouch the page says lowers cyanuric acid by 15 to 20 ppm a week depending on flow and pump run time; a partial drain and refill is the other, and on a high reading the faster one.

A full drain with an acid wash is a different job, for stains and scale on plaster, pebble or quartz. Leslie's acid washing page describes it as removing mineral deposits and surface stains, restoring about 70 to 80 percent of the pool's original brightness. Its limits are the quote's conditions: a surface no older than 8 years with no visible cracks or hollow areas, no plaster pool drained when the air temperature is above 85°F because of the cracking risk, and no drain where a high water table prevents it.

Price a drain as its own lines: the pump hours to empty it, the acid, the labor on the floor in the right gear, the refill at the utility's rate, and the rebalance. Say where the drained water goes; the city usually has a rule about that.

Good to know: This is general information, not legal advice. Rules on discharging pool water and handling chemicals change; read the current text and ask your city or state before you rely on it.

Green to clean pool price: by the visit or flat with a cap

• By the visit: a first visit price, a return visit price, chemicals billed as used. Fair on a pool that surprises you, harder to say yes to because the total is open.
• Flat with a cap: one price up to a stated number of visits, chemicals included, and a price per visit past the cap. Easier to sell, so the cap goes in writing.
• Either way: a deposit that covers the chemicals, a line for the refill water, and the sentence that the weekly plan begins when the water is clear.

In MakeHay the cleanup is a quote with a deposit on it that the customer approves and signs online; the approved quote becomes the invoice in one click, a visit past the cap goes on as a line, and a longer job can be billed in stages. The customer pays by card or bank online, and a check is recorded against the same invoice. Free, every team member included.

The cleanup invoice lists the visits and the chemicals as the quote promised them.

The handoff to a weekly plan

A pool that goes green once will go green again without a routine. The retailer's prevention advice is weekly brushing and shocking with free chlorine held in range, and Algae Control's routine dose is 2 to 4 oz per 10,000 gallons every 5 to 7 days. That routine is the weekly service.

Pricing weekly pool service walks through that fee. A customer who just paid for five visits is the easiest sale a route gets: a weekly stop as recurring service, on the calendar, with autopay for the ones who never want to think about the pool again.