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How Much Does a Bed Bug Exterminator Cost?

Average National Cost
? All cost data throughout this article are collected using the RSMeans construction materials database.
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$300 - $5,000

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Updated On

December 31, 2023

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Finding an effective bed bug exterminator is crucial, especially considering the potential health risks and the significant costs associated with eliminating bed bugs. Once these unwelcome passengers hitch a ride on your luggage or clothing, they infest your bedroom and the rest of your home and can be difficult to get rid of without paying for professional help from a reliable pest control company.

With bed bug treatment prices ranging from $300 to $5,000 depending on the scope of the infestation, you’ll want to know all your options for how to make it the most affordable.

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How Much Do Bed Bug Exterminators Cost?

The national average cost of a bed bug exterminator is around $1,500, but the total price range sits at $300 to $5,000. Specifically, you can expect to pay between $50 and $200 for an initial inspection and a service cost based on an hourly, flat, or room-by-room rate. Here are some approximate breakdowns of these costs:

  • One room: $300–$1,000
  • Two rooms: $500–$1,200
  • Three rooms: $1,000–$2,500
  • Whole house: $1,700–$5,000
  • Per square foot: $4–$7.50
  • Per hour: $145–$225

What Are the Most Common Types of Bed Bug Treatments and Their Costs?

You can choose from multiple treatment options when signing on with a pest control company or bed bug exterminator. Each treatment has a different price. The most common treatments exterminators use to get rid of bed bugs include heat treatment, chemical treatment, freezing, or fumigation.

Bed Bug Inspection
In general, you can expect to pay between $50 and $200 for an initial bed bug inspection.
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Bed Bug Heat Treatment
In general, these treatments cost $1 to $3 per square foot or about $150 to $395 per room
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Bed Bug Fumigation
In general, fumigation costs an average of $4 to $8 per square foot or $528 to $1,056 per room
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Chemical Treatments

Chemical treatments use insecticide sprays and powders to eliminate bed bugs. While highly effective, chemical treatments can be dangerous to children and pets, so homeowners with kids or four-legged friends shouldn’t use them. These treatments cost $2 to $5 per square foot or $264 to $775 per room.

Freezing

Freezing, or Cryonite treatment, applies carbon dioxide (CO2) gas to bed bug-infested areas, typically the cracks and crevices around the bed. This gas freezes bed bugs on contact, instantly killing them and their eggs.

This treatment method is chemical-free and safer for heat-sensitive surfaces (like vinyl, plastic blinds, cords, etc.). Expect to pay $3 to $6 per square foot or $396 to $792 per room for this type of treatment.

Fumigation

With a fumigation treatment, a pest control company uses a gas called sulfuryl fluoride to kill bed bugs. During this treatment, your home is vacated, sealed, and gas is pumped, killing all bed bugs and their eggs.

Fumigation is the most effective option for bed bug extermination, but it’s also expensive, costing an average of $4 to $8 per square foot or $528 to $1,056 per room.

Heat and Steam Treatments

Heat and steam treatments are the most common ways to exterminate bed bugs. Both methods are chemical-free, low-cost, and highly efficient at killing bed bugs, making them ideal for many homeowners.

Some pest control companies use portable heat chambers to kill bed bugs in infested household items and professional heating systems to treat entire rooms and structures. However, these treatments can damage items and surfaces susceptible to high heat, like vinyl floors, blinds, and cords. Homeowners must remove these items from their rooms before the treatments begin. These treatments cost $1 to $3 per square foot or about $150 to $395 per room.

Treatment MethodCost For an Average Sized Bedroom (132 Square Feet)
Heat$150–$395
Chemical treatment$264–$775
Freezing$396–$1,250
Fumigation$528–$1,056

What Factors Affect Bed Bug Exterminator Pricing?

Alongside your chosen treatment method, numerous other cost factors affect the price of your bed bug extermination. These cost factors include:

  • The size of your home
  • The location and accessibility of the infestation
  • The severity of the infestation
  • Furniture
  • Number of visits

Size of Your Home

The size of your home affects nearly every aspect of the extermination, including the cost of inspection, preparation for treatment, treatment application, type of treatment, labor hours, crew size, and need for follow-up visits. Simply put, the larger the home, the bigger the job and the price tag.

Depending on the severity of the infestation, even non-infested rooms may need preventative treatment. If one room is infested, a pest control company may recommend that every adjoining room also be treated — this means that, even if all the rooms of your home aren’t infested, the more rooms you have, the more expensive your extermination.

Here is a quick breakdown of the cost of bed bug extermination for different home sizes and the national average cost of treatment.

Number of RoomsAverage Cost per Visit
1 Bedroom$300–$650
2 Bedrooms$700–$1,000
3 Bedrooms$1,050–$1,450
Whole House$1,500–$5,000

Location and Accessibility of the Infestation

The location of an infestation and how easy it is to access will affect the labor costs, equipment needed, and available treatment methods for the extermination. If bed bugs have wormed their way between your walls, inside of your closets, or into other hard-to-reach areas, you’ll need more invasive (and expensive) treatments.

Cost-efficient treatments like heat, steam, and CO2 application should suffice for easy-to-access infestations. However, if bed bugs have gotten into difficult locations or a large portion of your home is infested, you must use methods like fumigation.

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Severity of Infestation

If you have a severe infestation, extermination costs will be higher due to the additional labor hours and treatments needed to complete the job. If your bed bug problem is small, only affects one room, and is easy to access, you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars. If exterminators must form a more extensive treatment plan to eliminate bed bugs from your house, you’ll need to pay much more.

Whole-house treatment methods usually cost around $1,000 but can cost upwards of $25,000 in the most severe cases. This high cost is why calling a professional for bed bug treatments as soon as you think you have an infestation is vital.

A severe, single-room infestation of bed bugs may cost up to $3,000 to eradicate. This cost includes inspection, heat treatments, pesticides, and other chemical treatments.

Furniture

One of the worst things about bed bugs is their tendency to infest everything they can access. Once inside your home, bed bugs can enter your bed, furniture, closets, and even your walls. While it’s possible to salvage furniture, it’ll still need to be treated, typically using heat or freezing temperatures. The more furniture that becomes infested, the more you’ll have to pay for the extermination.

Number of Visits

Depending on the severity and nature of the infestation, a pest control company may need to return for follow-up treatments to completely exterminate the bed bugs. The more times they need to return, the more expensive your final bill will be — most companies charge on a by-visit, monthly, quarterly, or semi-monthly for bed bug treatments.

Here is a breakdown of how much you can expect to pay for each professional treatment plan:

Treatment PlanTotal Cost
Single Visit$850–$1,150
Monthly$4,700–$6,800
Semi-monthly$5,100–$7,800
Quarterly$1,700–$2,300

How To Minimize the Cost When Hiring a Bed Bug Exterminator

Reducing the cost of pest control can be difficult, especially when experiencing an emergency infestation. However, there are several things you can do to reduce the size of your final price tag.

Taking Proper Precautions When Traveling

The most valuable cost-saving tip for bed bug extermination is to avoid getting bed bugs in the first place. When traveling, always check your hotel room or home rental. Look along the bottom of the mattress where it meets the box springs, including under the fitted sheet. Look for small, pepper-like spots and rust color streaks.

Do Your Own Inspections

You can save on inspection costs by identifying the infestation locations and severity beforehand. If you suspect you have a bed bug infestation, check the following locations:

  • Bed frames
  • Box springs
  • Baseboard and walls behind the bed
  • Nearby furniture (especially couches)
  • Closet
  • Luggage
  • Clothing
  • Sheets and mattress covers
  • Surrounding rooms

Shop Smart When Picking a Pest Control Company

When picking a professional bed bug exterminator, shopping intelligently and researching beforehand pays off big time. I recommend you thoroughly research the best local pest management companies by checking Better Business Bureau pages, Google My Business pages, and Yelp pages for customer reviews and complaints. Then, schedule appointments for free bed bug inspections and quotes from each. Once you have several quotes, you can compare them to find the best company for the lowest price.

Today’s Homeowner Tips
Bed bugs are commonly picked up during travel, hitching rides on luggage or clothing. To avoid bringing bed bugs into your home, use metal racks when on the road and avoid leaving your suitcase on the ground or bed. Additionally, always inspect your suitcase when you get home and wash your travel clothes in hot water.
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DIY Vs. Professional Bed Bug Removal: Which One Is Better?

While some pests can be handled by yourself, some species reproduce too quickly and are too difficult to dislodge without professional equipment and techniques. Cockroaches, termites, fleas, and, unfortunately, bed bugs all fall under this category. These particular pests can be hard to spot, resistant to most conventional do-it-yourself treatment, and tend to infest homes quickly, making at-home management near impossible.

When It Comes To Bed Bugs, Opt for a Professional

If you suspect you have a bed bug infestation, it’s always best to contact a professional exterminator immediately, as bed bugs often resist many DIY methods. So, don’t waste your time and money on DIY methods that may or may not work. Instead, get a professional to assess the problem and come up with a solution as soon as possible to save you money and ensure these pests are eliminated before an infestation gets out of hand.


So, What’s Our Take on the Cost of Bed Bug Exterminators?

Bed bugs are some of the most challenging pests to eradicate. They creep in through your luggage or on your clothes, infesting your bedroom and home once they’re inside. They resist many DIY bed bug control techniques, leave nasty bites (which can lead to rashes and skin infections), and can ruin your bedspread with stains. While removing these nasty pests can be expensive, especially in extreme infestations, the cost is well worth it.

When picking the best bed bug exterminator, I recommend Terminix. Terminix is a well-established, trusted brand with high customer satisfaction ratings and decades of industry experience. More importantly, the company offers custom bed bug protection plans tailored to your home’s needs. Remember, bed bug protection and extermination plans are separate from general pest control services and must be purchased separately.

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FAQs About Bed Bug Exterminator Costs

How much does pest control for bed bugs cost?

The national average cost of a bed bug exterminator is around $1,500, but depending on the severity of the infestation, that price can be more than $4,000.


Can you successfully get rid of bed bugs without an exterminator?

In most cases, no. Complete bed bug removal requires the work of a trained and experienced exterminator. Bed bugs reproduce too quickly and ingrain themselves so deeply that they’re difficult to remove using DIY methods.


Why are bed bugs so difficult to get rid of?

It’s difficult to get rid of bed bugs because they’re hard to detect. Bed bugs leave few traces of their presence at first, and by the time most homeowners notice them, the infestation has grown too large to be easily managed with DIY methods. Bed bugs spread quickly to nearby rooms, furniture, and accessible spaces, making complete removal difficult.


What are the signs of bed bugs?

Early warning signs of bed bugs include:

  • Rust-colored stains or streaks on bed sheets, comforters, pillowcases, or night clothing
  • Small, raised red bumps (bed bug bites) along the body
  • A foul, musty odor coming from nesting areas
  • Fecal marks: dark brown or black spots about the size of a pen tip
  • Bed bug eggs and shell casing
  • Live bed bugs


Editorial Contributors
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Sam Wasson

Staff Writer

Sam Wasson graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Film and Media Arts with an Emphasis in Entertainment Arts and Engineering. Sam brings over four years of content writing and media production experience to the Today’s Homeowner content team. He specializes in the pest control, landscaping, and moving categories. Sam aims to answer homeowners’ difficult questions by providing well-researched, accurate, transparent, and entertaining content to Today’s Homeowner readers.

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Lora Novak meticulously proofreads and edits all commercial content for Today’s Homeowner to guarantee that it contains the most up-to-date information. Lora brings over 12 years of writing, editing, and digital marketing expertise. She’s worked on thousands of articles related to heating, air conditioning, ventilation, roofing, plumbing, lawn/garden, pest control, insurance, and other general homeownership topics.

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