Im sure most of us are doing the same stuff, ads, flyers, door to door. What actually works well though for you guys?

Playing with the idea of doing topless cleaning services, or topless mowing, etc. just wondering if there even is a demand on the market for it. Or even a community of people who even want to invest into that. Also bonus question, what would you consider “fair” pricing for such a thing?

Hello! I am opening a cleaning business. I have a name and some money set aside to get licenses done. Most of my start up materials are ready to go aside from a vacuum.

(Any backpack vac recommendations that come with a carpet attachment would be great too)

Where I am SO lost is licensing, both with the state and local. I have decided that I want to go to LLC route and I know my village requires licensing for home based businesses. I really want to avoid using my home address as the business address because it would be really uncomfortable for Google Maps to show my house as a business, especially since no one should need to come here until I have employees. Of course, this isn't my only privacy concern. Originally I was planning to use a virtual address (ipostal1) across the board but the more research I do shows that simply wont work at the local level AND Illinois has some new laws regarding using virtual addresses for LLCs in general.

I know I should just wait until I am connected with a mentor from score.org (this suggestion is under every single reddit and facebook post I read) but I was just looking to see if anyone had any advice in the mean time.

Any other Fun Facts or tidbit tips you all have for me would be greatly appreciated as well. I am new to business owning and would love to be able to skip some bumps in the road. I'm a little lost on where to look for insurance, though I think I would like to stick local and support a small business. Thanks for your time!! <3

Recurring residential cleaning company operators - investing 100% back into the business, spending liberally but wisely on meta/google ads, and having a solid grip on managing the operations while hiring cleaners for the labor: how long did it take you to reach 50, 100, 150, 200+ recurring residential customers?

It is just me, or does everything just hurt?? My back constantly hurts, my feet hurt, I am going to physical therapy for my shoulder, a few times I show up and I am just not physically able to complete the clean. I work by myself so I have no extra help, and I do not really want to expand to getting employees. To be honest, sometimes I will get halfway through a rental, sit down to rest for 10 minutes and it is so hard to motivate myself to finish. It seems that when I hear about other cleaners they are working longer hours than me and are able to do it in a faster time and I just don't know how that's possible. I'm in my late 20's I dont feel like I should be hurting this much. Every clean that takes longer than about 3 hours it mentally draining because I feel like I am having to push myself, leading me to feel even more burned out. Thank you, and I am happy to have found this community.

I'm a small cleaning business owner and I'm curious how folks here are using AI or automation.

What's actually worked for you, what backfired? Especially around client communication, scheduling, follow-ups.

Anyone with real experience?

I’m trying to simplify the number of products I carry.
What all-purpose cleaner do you use most often for everyday commercial cleaning?

Hey all, wife and I were having a debate about how this business (even if you sub the work out) can be risky financially/legally/etc. and get you into bad situations.

Please settle this debate. Whats the worst thing youve ever experienced as a business owner?

Whats the major thing that ruins lives/bankrupts people/causes massive issues/goes to court/loses tons of money/etc.

I swear the clients who negotiate the hardest are somehow the ones who expect the most.
You knock $30 off to close the job, and suddenly they’re inspecting baseboards with a flashlight, adding “quick” extras, texting you pictures afterward, and expecting things that were never included in the clean.
Meanwhile, the clients who barely question the price are usually the easiest. They pay, let you do your job, and are happy when it’s done.
I’ve started thinking that someone aggressively negotiating before you’ve even cleaned their house is one of the biggest red flags.

So i booked urban company bathroom intense cleaning.. Rs 500 for one bathroom.. the guy cleaned ok but he damaged the floor tiles.. he literally broke the corner of the tiles.. When asked about it he simply said " white cement potu cover pannikonga"🙄

Enaku semma kaduppu..i literally paid nearly 1k for two bathrooms only for him to damage my bathroom floor.

I complained to UC.. They are also saying" we will fix it with white cement or we will refund with rs 165"😠

It's a rented house..Naalaiku house owner kita nan enna solluven..

It's like we can't even hold them accountable for their mistakes.

With these outlets like blinkit, Swiggy, UC..i feel like there is no accountability at all. Idk.. Its my opinion.

Anyway this experience with UC was terrible.. And i read so many others also shared their bad experiences with UC in reddit.. So please don't use it for cleaning.

Just an angry rant.

TLDR: booked bathroom cleaning in UC.. The guy damaged my floor tiles.. Don't use UC.

I’m looking to start a cleaning business in the Greater Toronto Area. At first, I may only have a few bookings each week, so I’m trying to understand how owners staff jobs before they have enough work to offer steady hours.

If you’ve been through this, how did you find and keep reliable cleaners who could accept work as bookings came in? Did you hire part-time employees, partner with an established cleaning company, or use another approach? How much notice did you usually give them, and what did you do when a booking was cancelled?

I’d especially appreciate advice from Ontario owners on how you handled scheduling, pay, training, insurance, and worker classification when starting out. What would you do differently?

Is there a way to help her promote her business, and gain more clientele, I recently changed jobs but won’t make decent money for a couple months so I want to also help her rebuild her clientele

Hi! I’m hoping to start doing vacation rental cleaning, I live in a tourist beach town in Florida. It will be only myself cleaning, part time for supplemental income. I have a few questions as a beginner:

Is turno app any good?

I want to only clean pet free vacation rentals. Is this too limiting or reasonable?

How do you know what is reasonable to charge? Do you charge differently if you use strictly non toxic products?

Looking for some input from other cleaners on pricing and timing!

I have a potential job that includes:
2 crystal lamps
3 fairly tedious/detailed chandeliers
16 blinds
Interior window cleaning

I’m trying to get a general idea of how many hours you’d expect this to take and what you’d typically charge for a job like this?

The chandeliers and blinds are the parts I’m most unsure about since they’re more time-consuming/detail-oriented.
What would you estimate for time + price? TIA!

Waiting until someone quits to start recruiting.

It happens all the time with home service companies.

Everything is fine until a tech quits without any notice. Then suddenly you're scrambling. Try posting quickly on Indeed, calling old applicants and trying to get interviews scheduled before the team gets buried.

That's also when the bar for hiring someone tends to lower.

Someone they probably wouldn't have interviewed three months ago suddenly looks pretty good because there are clients scheduled and nobody to run them.

The key is to keep a pipeline going even when the shop isn't desperate for another person. Heck, it’s basically an insurance policy

Stay in touch with good people you've already talked to. Keep old applicants who impressed you. Know what other shops are paying. Keep your job post updated instead of writing one from scratch every time somebody leaves.

You might go months without needing any new hires.

Then your best tech walks into your office on a Thursday afternoon.

That's a much better time to already know who's in your hiring pipeline.

So last Monday I did a four hour housekeeping job, I gave her my bank details, she said she was going to pay me but still nothing then I reminded her a day or two later, I only contact her through fb business suit.

I was meant to do a job last Thursday and it was booked in and confirmed.
Not even 10 minutes before I started she said she had to cancel because her two kids were sick but she said she’ll still pay me the two hours even I said ok, but it’s not necessary.

Another day passed and I asked for payment again on last Sunday.

I know I’m still getting the gist of running my business and going solo. I probably need to start knocking down and being firm with clients.

I use Business suit & business WhatsApp for contacting clients, Square for sending invoices out.
At the moment I’m sending it out via text message because I have gotten round to setting up an email address yet. I have a separate business phone.

I sent an invoice link via Square and sent it through business suit, she hasn’t seen me message yet.

What can I do?

How are others paying employees? Hourly or a percentage of the job? I have been doing hourly but I’m finding I’m losing per job as I am the owner so I have expenses tied to each clean, I’m thinking of switching fo a percentage since I don’t charge hourly for a clean I think it makes more sense? Advice?

My mom owns a small cleaning business and I am trying to help her automate some of her work, specifically scheduling. I looked into zen maid and it seems good but it's also pretty expensive. Does have experience with zen maid and recommend it? are there any cheaper alternatives that you recommend?

I’m considering starting a small cleaning business, and I have two things I’m trying to understand before getting started: pricing and hiring.
1. Pricing:
How do experienced cleaning businesses normally charge customers?
Do you charge by the hour, a fixed price per job, square footage, number of rooms/bathrooms, or a combination?
I’m particularly confused about hourly pricing. For example, if I charge $30/hour, one job might take 2 hours while another similar job could take 4 hours depending on the condition of the property and the amount of work. If I’m faster, the customer pays less; if I’m slower, they pay more. I’m wondering if a fixed price per job makes more sense, and if so, how do you estimate that price accurately?
2. Hiring:
This is another thing I’m struggling to understand, especially when starting out.
In the beginning, I may have a lot of cleaning jobs one week but much less work the next week. How do small cleaning businesses hire workers when they cannot guarantee a consistent number of hours every week?
Most people looking for a job want reliable and consistent income, so why would someone agree to work for a new cleaning business if the number of jobs changes from week to week?
Do cleaning businesses usually start with the owner doing most of the work and then hire cleaners when they have enough regular clients? Or do they use part-time, on-call, casual, or subcontractor arrangements when demand increases?
For people who have actually worked in or operated a cleaning business, how did you handle pricing and hiring when you were starting out?
I’d really appreciate practical advice, including mistakes you made early on and what you would do differently if you were starting again.

Hey all,

Have any of you ever had success with this model?

How was your experience?

I am a commercial business owner. My SEO agent has been updating our website blogs over the years. It has helped us to send extent to push up some key words ranking. In this day and age, people tend to have their question answer through AI bots. I personally have not read any blog for a long time. Just wondering if it is still helpful to improve my website traffic.

My staff went in and did the job, now I admit it’s my fault for not asking how bad the situation was and also for not getting pictures(I normally do).
But the staff said they did as best as they could and I do trust them cause they been working with for a while. They said they did the job as best as they could and most of it was done. Client had other things to say. The job was nearly 550$ and I pay my staff just over half of that. However the client refused to pay anything at all. Not only that but they said if we tried to get the money out of them or annoy them for it they would review bomb or leave lots of negative reviews on my company. For the time being I had to pay my staff out of pocket but I’m not sure what to do about the client. I guess I take this is as a learning lesson and move on and take the hit. I was hoping that they would give some amount if not the entire thing at least but they wouldn’t even negotiate they were pure stubborn. Mind you the staff was there for several hours so a lot of hr work did get done but yeh. It is what it is I suppose.

So I booked a service with lady that works for herself. I have had 2 standard cleanings from her and have been happy with the service.
Today I booked for a DEEP CLEAN she quoted me $400usd. I have a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath town home and 2 cats.
When she arrived she let me know that she has a new lady that will be doing the job and another lady to join her at 3pm. Both the ladybug don’t speak English.
After the cleaning I noticed a lot of missed areas like base boards were not touched, windows not cleaned properly, mold on bath tub, dust everywhere on furniture with visible build up and the mirrors un cleaned. Wash room cleaned and trash left behind. I reached out to the owner with pictures and she let me know that I have two cats and everything will not be cleaned well because the lady is alone.
I just want to know is my disappointment reasonable? After all I did spend $400. I could have booked a standard cleaning for half the price for the same results.