How Much Does It Cost to Exterminate Mice?

What a mice job actually costs — and why most invoices land near $350

Mice work is quoted as a program, not a visit. The $150–$600 band comes from HomeGuide’s September 2025 rodent guide and Angi’s March 2026 data ($180–$600 there), and it prices the full sequence: inspection, trap placement, and 2–3 follow-up checks. Within the rodent category, HomeGuide puts mice at $150–$550 against $150–$600 for rats — close enough that species alone should never explain a big quote gap. Most completed jobs settle near the $350 average. Every figure on this page traces to a published national guide or real-job platform data — the full source list is in our methodology.

The outliers are worth decoding before you compare quotes. Fixr prices a mice job at $450–$600 with a $525 average — read that as a completed multi-visit program in a mid-size home, not a contradiction of the $150 floor. Bob Vila lists the simplest mice-only calls at $150–$200, which is the light end: small house, early sightings, traps plus one follow-up. On Thumbtack, real completed jobs in the rodent-and-wildlife category ran $276–$886 as of April 2026 — that bucket folds in squirrel and raccoon work, which drags it above a mice-only average. And Forbes stretching mice work to $2,500 is the severe tail: an established infestation with proofing and cleanup attached, priced as three jobs because it is three jobs.

Two smaller numbers frame the rest. A standalone rodent inspection runs $75–$150 per HomeGuide, and a same-day or after-hours call adds a $100–$200 surcharge. Mice are almost never a same-day emergency — skip the surcharge and book the normal slot.

Mice are not small rats

A mouse fits through a gap the size of a dime — about a quarter of an inch. A rat needs a hole closer to the size of a quarter. That one fact reshapes the whole invoice. Mice jobs involve more entry points, smaller ones, in harder places: cable and pipe penetrations, gaps under siding, the seam where the garage slab meets the framing. Each individual seal is a small job, but the hunt is longer — which is why the inspection with a written entry-point map is the part of the visit most worth paying for.

The nesting pattern differs too. Mice set up inside wall voids and attic insulation, usually within 10–30 feet of a food source, so the trap line goes along interior walls and runways rather than at outdoor burrows. And they breed faster than the scheduling backlog: a female mouse can breed at around six weeks old and produce a litter roughly every three weeks, which is how two mice in October become an established colony by January. Rat-specific pricing — burrow baiting, heavier exclusion hardware — is a different job, covered in our rat exterminator cost guide. The two price bands look similar; the work under them is not.

How the trapping program is structured

The standard job is one initial visit plus 2–3 checks. On the initial, the technician inspects, maps entry points, and sets trap lines along walls and runways, sometimes with exterior bait stations. On each check they reset traps, count catches, and move placements — the catch count should fall visit over visit. If it does not, a competent company changes the plan instead of selling a fourth check: a flat catch curve means mice are still coming in, and the money should move from trapping to sealing.

This structure is also why a “$150, one visit, done” quote is not the same product as the $350 program. The cheap visit buys placement; you become the person doing the follow-up checks. That can be a perfectly fair deal — see the DIY section below — but compare like with like. Ask every bidder the same question: how many visits are in this price, and what happens if I am still catching mice at the last one?

When the $150 visit is enough — and when you need the proofing plan

The bottom of the band is genuinely enough in a specific situation: first sightings, activity confined to one area, a newer and tight house, and you willing to monitor traps yourself. The full program near $350 is the right buy when there is activity in more than one room, noise in the walls or ceiling at night, or droppings along multiple runways — signs the population is established rather than exploratory.

The $600–$1,400 proofing plan is a different decision, and the math is simple. Exclusion is priced at $200–$400 per entry point, so once the map shows three or more gaps you are already at $600–$1,200 in per-point pricing — ask for the flat whole-home plan instead and make the company commit to sealing everything it found. Buy proofing when this is not your first infestation: mice every winter is an access problem, not a mouse problem, and repeated $350 trapping programs are the expensive way to not fix it. Older homes with pier-and-beam foundations, original siding, or unscreened vents are the classic case.

Cleanup is the third line. If insulation is contaminated or droppings have accumulated, attic or crawl-space remediation runs $600–$1,000 — a legitimate service that should always be quoted separately so you can bid it out on its own. At the far end, severe rodent fumigation exists at $2,000–$6,500, but it is rarely the right first move for mice and belongs nowhere in an opening quote.

DIY honesty: snap traps work

Snap traps are not the amateur version of the professional tool — they are the professional tool. Set them perpendicular to walls where droppings and rub marks show traffic, bait with a small dab of peanut butter, and set more than feels necessary: a dozen traps in one room outperforms three traps spread through the house. A hardware-store trap line costs less than the $75–$150 an inspection alone runs, and for a first sighting in a tight house it usually ends the problem. Skip loose rodenticide indoors — a poisoned mouse dying inside a wall void trades a trapping problem for an odor problem, which is exactly why professionals confine bait to tamper-resistant stations.

Give DIY a deadline. If you are still catching mice — or still seeing droppings — after two weeks, you do not have a trap problem, you have a supply problem: something keeps coming in. That is the point where the pro fee earns itself, because the hard half of mice work is not trapping, it is the entry-point hunt. Finding a quarter-inch gap behind a gas line, getting hardware cloth and sealant into it, and doing the same on a ladder at the roofline is where the $350 goes — and at $200–$400 per sealed point, it is the half with lasting value.

Winter is the busy season — buy in fall

Mice pressure is seasonal in most of the country: the first sustained cold snap pushes outdoor populations indoors, and call volume peaks from fall through early winter. The practical read is about timing, not seasonal price shopping. Book the inspection in September or October, before the rush — proofing done in early fall prevents the January infestation, while the same money spent in January is removal plus proofing with a colony already in the walls. A quarter-inch gap is much cheaper to close before something is living behind it.

Mice work vs the general pest plan

Recurring general pest control plans — $40–$75 monthly or $100–$300 per quarterly visit — are built around insects, and rodent coverage varies wildly: some companies include exterior bait stations, many bill any trapping as an add-on. Order of operations matters. With an active infestation, buy the dedicated mice program first ($150–$600) and get the entry points sealed; a maintenance plan cannot trap its way ahead of a breeding colony. If you are already on a plan, make the company put in writing what rodent work is included before you pay for a separate program — being billed twice for the same bait stations is a quiet, common overcharge.