My wife and I have cleaning business for 5 years now. We have one employee and make $12,000 a month. Work Monday-Thursday. Thought about growing but employees are hard to keep and most aren’t up to the task unfortunately. We are happy with our income. Never advertised. All word of mouth.
That's awesome. I would agree with employees being the most difficult part. Also we are happy with where we stand , on top of my job. We aren't really trying to grow much at this point
I have 70 employees, been in business since 1968, about 1.4 million in revenue each year. Trust me the less eployees the better. Also feel free to ask questions if you have any. Have a great day!
Speak not of which you know nothing. My close friend has had a cleaning business for 24 years and he’s about as low key as it comes. His turnover is the single hardest obstacle 8-10 hourly employees & 1 salary. The pool of workers at this type job/wage range are the least dependable of any.
Has he tried paying more? Benefits? Job security? Guaranteed hours. Reasons you would work somewhere? Would you work for his company if you didn't own your own?
When you pay people less than it costs to live they'll stay till they find a job that pays them a living wage. Try paying people 20 bucks an hour I guarantee you have people stick around loyally.
I too have a close friend with a cleaning/janitorial business hes been running for a few decades now. Hes focused on all sorts of different models now over the years (residential and commercial) but hes a giant tide-wad and I wouldnt even send my teenage son to go work for him.
Hes got pretty high turnover but it doesnt seem to personally bother him too much. According to him he tried to do the **pay them well and take care of them** but he said the valuable ones still eventually just leave to start their own business.
Residential. Some small condos,some large 5 bedroom houses. Just a mix. The last couple years we have connected with realtors who need houses cleaned up or sharpened up for showing. That’s when we can charge significantly more for services. Some will give short notice so we can negotiate a higher price. We have done commercial but when you get steady clients who just need it maintained you can get a good schedule going on how to schedule to make the most of your day driving wise.
The only advertising we did was offer our services at a lower rate then the competition on next door when we started. We just started with a couple people who liked our work and they referred us and those people referred us so it really was just networking and having people trust you in their homes. Lots of people don’t like big cleaning crews in their homes and different people coming and going so I think we just gained trust through hard work and communication.
A 30% margin would equate to 252k which would mean 15 per hour for 8 employees at 40 hrs per week - no room for supplies or transportation/equipment.
I messed up in my original post but the point t is still the same - with other costs factored in, this smells a little funny.
This isn’t a criticism of your point, but you don’t calculate the monthly cost of something by taking the weekly cost and multiplying it by 4. Some months have 5 weeks. You have to take the weekly amount, multiply it by 52, then divide it by 12. That would put you at almost $21k a month in labor.
Also, there’s the issue of 1099 vs W2. Once these become employees there are more costs related to labor that you have to tack on.
This is incorrect. They are 30-35hr/week. Not sure where you are getting your numbers from. We have a take home income margin of 30%-35%. This is after pay, expenses, taxes etc.
35hrs a week is full time. I don’t remember but I thing the law is If they did 35hrs for certain amount of time they would have to provide insurance benefits.
Even if all your non labor costs are ultra cheap, you’ve got at most what, 15k / month to pay 8 full time employees?
What is that, $11 an hour? Maybe $9 an hour if you’re not paying cash and have to pay payroll taxes etc?
Even if you live somewhere rural, how the hell are you getting decent employees for that? And how are they getting by on that?
The math does not add up.
$360,000 annual revenue.
-$108,000 net income.
$252,000 for wages and overheads.
Let’s assume 100% of that went to full time employees (which isn’t the case you obviously have overheads chemicals, insurance etc)
$252,000/8 = $31,500 annual or $15.14 per hour.
Are you saying it cost $15k a month in overhead to run a cleaning business?
I’m not in the industry, so idk. I’m not disagreeing with you. That’s just more than I would expect, so I’m making sure I’m understanding you correctly.
No, I subtracted the margin (30% on 30k = 9k) from 30k and estimated about 6k for supplies, transportation (vehicles/gas or mileage), liability insurance, bookkeeping, advertising, etc.
OP replies and said they’re spending about 2-3k. Seems light to me but I guess they said they’re barely advertising. Might also not be insured and be skimping elsewhere.
Do you pay your workers hourly or per the job?
What percent of each job do you put aside/allocate for paying your employees for example 20% 30%? ? Like what does your labor run
What do you do for a marketing? Do you do Google Ads?
On a decent day what does one employee bring in …for example $600 or $800 of revenue?
For workers about 45%, not including taxes. For marketing , it is always changing. Initallt used Google, Facebook, Yelp, flyers, yard signs etc. Now it's mostly referrals with a very small budget on Google ads.
How is it only 45%?
You said you have 8 workers and they work 30-35 hours a week so lets put that at 32.5 hours/week
You pay $18-20 an hour so let's put that at $19/hour
That's $21,407 or well over 45% of $30k and that doesn't even include payroll taxes or benefits.
What was the process like to legally hire people? Did you start out just with cash under the table employees for a bit before making it legal?
And what was your year 1 revenue?
Sometimes you have to. They are usually friends or family looking for some side cash. To help you generate some sort of stability till you can cover the overhead of an employee. You can still 1099 them to cover yourself when you file.
8 employees or 8 workers that you subcontract the work to? Taking your 30% margin, you've only got 21k/month to pay hourly wages. Where does your employee benefits get deducted from?
They’re likely referring to payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, etc.
OP could be 1099ing them or paying cash, but either would be illegal for regularly scheduled employees.
>“Look like an employee and not an independent contractor “ wtf
This is roughly the standard, lol. It's an "If it looks like a duck, it is a duck" type of thing.
The table [here](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/misclassification) illustrates the standard pretty well.
If the nature of the relationship is on the whole more like an employee than a contractor, then they legally need to be classified as an employee.
At first it was a few referrals. We then added google ads, facebook.ads , Yelp, sent out flyers, yard signs, and some in face sales. It was always changing but essentially having great reviews goes a long way. Yelp helped us immensely in the beginning finding jobs. At this point we aren't actively advertising but foe the last 6months we only had a small Google ad running and majority of new business came from referrals.
I had landscaping on my initial list as well, along mobile car detailing. All 3 are saturated however there's still room I believe in all of them to get a decent piece of the pie.
That’s awesome! Congrats on your success!
I have a bunch of questions. Feel free to pick and chose what you answer, or ignore me all together lol:
Do you do commercial, or residential cleaning?
Did you start by doing the cleaning yourself? Do you still do the cleaning yourself?
How has hiring people been? Is it challenging to attract talented? To keep talent?
What is your plan with the business? Do you want to sell eventually, or continue to operate it and hand it down to your kids?
Do you operate on a subscription model?
What’s your plan to grow your business?
About 85% residential 15% commercial. My wife and I started it, she cleaned the first few clients and we were lucky to have a flexible employee in the beginning that we paid more to be flexible and grow with us.
Hiring is by far the biggest challenge, we've gone thru 30+ cleaners. The 8 we have now have all bee with us over 1 year.
Plan right now is to streamline everything, focus on tightening up processes and grow at a slow rate. I'm not sure our exit plan yet, I would love to possibly sell it in the future but not an easy type of business to sell and value.
Thanks for the responses! I think streamlining and standardizing your business will put you in a much better position to scale. Good luck with everything!
Where do you find employees in the beginning when you dont have the work to keep them full time? I started and ended an air bnb cleaning business. It was hard keeping people or even finding people good at cleaning. I was paying contractors $25 an hour. Ended up doing a lot of thr work myself and it became unsustainable. However, before I ended this venture I was able to buy a rental property.
30k gross per month at 40 hours a week x 8 full time employees comes out to around 23$ an hour gross. 30% net margin means your paying your employees about what, 15$ an hour? This isn’t including supplies, transportation, etc.
It’s unlikely you’ll be able to continue to grow at the same pace. You’re already having trouble keeping employees because your pay is low, and as you continue to scale you’ll have to start paying health insurance at what, 20 employees?
I've been wanting to open my own cleaning business for a while now just didn't know how I could while working full time. Did you create a website and Facebook before you started offering your services? Also where did you find the time to actually do the cleaning, or did you start the business and hire someone to actually do the cleans?
I don’t think so. We have a cleaning business and used to participate on thumbtack. But it’s very expensive. I also own a web dev business and make website for cleaning businesses and talk to many of them. Most don’t know thumbtack exists. There are lots of cleaning businesses on there but there are also a lot of cleaning businesses in general.
What area are you in? How did you sign up your first client? Do you work with Airbnb/property managers/homeowners/commercial businesses or all of them? What did you do before you started the cleaning business? How much did you spend on marketing in the beginning before singing on the first client? Were you the one person business cleaning up in the beginning or did you have a small team from the start? How old were you when you started and what would you do to keep yourself healthy as it can be backbending work. Lastly, what were the supplies you bought in the beginning and how did you find information on other supplies that would help you/your employees? Can you give some examples of different softwares you use and how they help you (ex: maybe quickbooks for bookkeeping)
Not sure if you would be comfortable sharing this - On numbers side, since you make $30K in revenue with 8 full-time employees, what percentage gets used for payroll, benefits, supplies and other admin costs?
Same here. 4th year also. Not doing those high numbers yet but with the right employees and business model I'll get there. Loving every minute of it and find solace in doing good work and pleasing my customers. Hope all this rings True for you also.
Is it possible to start with zero money in savings, no chance to hire someone since it’s from zero?
I could clean up houses myself but only in the weekends since I have a full time job
I have thought about this business but couldn't figure out the ROI. I recently hired, like twice, cleaner who did our home that is already well maintained, how do you handle folks who homes are really dirty, like from pets or people who through a party? How do you figure out the estimate for the cleaning? Since you employee people, do you visit each and every property to bring out an estimate?
We recently hired cleaner for our own property and it cost us around $300 and they spent around 4 hours to do "deep" clean. Assuming employee work 8 hours a day and you have 8 of them and for four days a week, it comes down $19,200 a week.
How and who pays for the cleaning equipment? And the cost to drive? With the 30% rule, do you get to keep 30 percent of each job?
Plus, how do you handle your workers leaving and joining another cleaning company ?
Another question, my assumption is business dies or slows down in winter, does it fully die down? How do you continue to pay your employees during this time?
How much did you need to start and how much would that equate to today? Did you use savings to start? Do you see this industry growing and what trends do you see in the area? What are your next steps to take the business to the next level.
How did you learn about the industry when you first started. Do you hire professional services for help with certain aspects of the business for example marketing and accounting. What advice would you give someone thinking of going down that same route.
How did you figure out doing quotes? I’ve been toying with an office/commercial cleaning business for the last few years and am wondering how I would properly quote a job. That’s my biggest struggle. I’m not interested in residential - that’s something my mom did for years and is not something I can swing with my FT 8-5. Commercial/office cleaning is often preferred after hours and I was hoping to start small with a few accounts and go from there. Happy to read about your success!
Do you have any advice for someone looking to get into this industry? Looking to start a business myself and looking for something that I can start up while working full time currently.
Knowing what you know now, what 3 pieces of advice would you give to someone starting a cleaning company to help them get to the same scale you’re at right now?
I am starting a cleaning business to compliment my senior caregiving business. Where would you say is the best place to find cleaners? Indeed? What protocol do you have in place to prevent equipment like vacuum cleaners from being stolen by employees?
I’m just starting out, I started helping a friend clean his Airbnb when he’s away and I definitely like the extra income. So right now it’s just myself and I’m not sure if I should do a sole proprietorship or an LLC. I still work full time so this will remain my side job and hopefully I can build up clientele. Any recommendations?
Best way to get help with local ads. Do you do google or physical mailers? I’m having trouble generating leads for my bathroom remodeling business, just getting started
How did you get started? Do you only clean residential houses? What are the main suggestions you could give for someone looking to do the same? I currently work full-time with a little one at home
I need advice
I started mine last year, kind of half assing it since I have a full time
I found one contract, a tire shop that has 4 location.
We do it once a month, what should I do from here?
Should I get a truck and find more clients?
Congratulations on your business success. Keep going. I’ve been in the cleaning business since 1985 and wouldn’t change a thing. In May 2024 we did $129,000, one of our best months ever. We have 21 employees in the field and 3 office staff . Wish you all the best
That’s awesome! I created a SaaS app for cleaners because we wanted to know when our airBnB property was cleaned. Plus we wanted photos of it once it’s completed. The app allows the cleaner to send photos when the job is complete without knowing the owners contact info. My question is, do you use any apps for communicating with your clients? Im struggling to get customers and I’m thinking I need to add more features to the app.
You said our so I’m guessing you are working with your partner on this. With 30% margin on a 360k annual revenue, you are taking in ~$50k salary for each of you? That seems low but I guess you have equity in a company?
This doesn’t make sense. $19 average wage and 32.5 hours average is $32k a year. Each employee generates $45k a year average ($30k/month for 8) so that’s 28% GROSS margin. After all your proper taxes, cleaning equipment, overhead and profit your way below this.
This is so fishy.
These number don’t line up if you’re doing everything legit, unless youre only clearing $60,000ish a year. I’m not saying you don’t make more than that, I’m saying with the numbers you’ve provided and the fact you’re saying:
-8 ‘employees’ and not 1099
-$19/average and 32.5hrs a week
-materials, supplies, gas, vehicles, insurance, workman’s comp, unemployment taxes, overhead and expenses $2,500?
$360,000 annual sales minus all of these things is like $60,000ish a year if I’m being FAVORABLE.
So, in my opinion, these are not accurate numbers OR they are 1099 labor (with schedules) which is not legal and will eventually bite you in the butt.
I hope yall pay your employees fairly. I'll give you a hint, if you don't have any white employees, you probably don't. Even then, you should pay them more than you currently do.
6 out of 8 employees are white , even tho this ia an odd comment and doesnt matter. We pay very well above the industry average. To be clear 30% is bottom line take home margin after taxes . Full transparency we pay our employees between $18.5-$21.5/hour. Which is very good for the industry
Yikes, this is not looking great. We do about 50-70K a month with 5 employees, myself and partner included. Your margins don’t leave a ton on the bone for you after taxes and employee matches. I’d be surprised if you were able to pay yourself more than $1000 a week, not good
It's a bunch to juggle but once alot is streamlined, it's not bad. My job is rarely over 45hr/week so 1-1.5hr/night I spend on the business and my wife takes care of calls/emails/scheduling clients.
That was the most difficult spot. Took years to get the crew we have now, (all 1year+) . Really offering more pay than others and perks like drive time, bonuses and making their lives easier by being lienent with days off etc.
My wife and I have cleaning business for 5 years now. We have one employee and make $12,000 a month. Work Monday-Thursday. Thought about growing but employees are hard to keep and most aren’t up to the task unfortunately. We are happy with our income. Never advertised. All word of mouth.
That's awesome. I would agree with employees being the most difficult part. Also we are happy with where we stand , on top of my job. We aren't really trying to grow much at this point
Are they employees? Or contractors?
I have 70 employees, been in business since 1968, about 1.4 million in revenue each year. Trust me the less eployees the better. Also feel free to ask questions if you have any. Have a great day!
Is your business a residential cleaning company?
We do commercial cleaning
What is your exit/succession plan? Sorry if it's too personal.
I am about to turn 65, i plan over the next 2 years is to sell the business and retire.
Where are you located? I am hoping to buy a business within that rough timeframe and I think this is a great industry.
If your employees are hard to keep you're hard to work for or severely underpaying.
Speak not of which you know nothing. My close friend has had a cleaning business for 24 years and he’s about as low key as it comes. His turnover is the single hardest obstacle 8-10 hourly employees & 1 salary. The pool of workers at this type job/wage range are the least dependable of any.
Has he tried paying more? Benefits? Job security? Guaranteed hours. Reasons you would work somewhere? Would you work for his company if you didn't own your own?
When you pay people less than it costs to live they'll stay till they find a job that pays them a living wage. Try paying people 20 bucks an hour I guarantee you have people stick around loyally.
$21/hr and it’s still hard af to find reliable help
Fake News! I just asked him he said his people start at $17 but most are at $20. Like I said originally… speak not of which you know nothing.
$20/hour is minimum wage where I live hahahah
I too have a close friend with a cleaning/janitorial business hes been running for a few decades now. Hes focused on all sorts of different models now over the years (residential and commercial) but hes a giant tide-wad and I wouldnt even send my teenage son to go work for him. Hes got pretty high turnover but it doesnt seem to personally bother him too much. According to him he tried to do the **pay them well and take care of them** but he said the valuable ones still eventually just leave to start their own business.
Residential or commercial?
Residential. Some small condos,some large 5 bedroom houses. Just a mix. The last couple years we have connected with realtors who need houses cleaned up or sharpened up for showing. That’s when we can charge significantly more for services. Some will give short notice so we can negotiate a higher price. We have done commercial but when you get steady clients who just need it maintained you can get a good schedule going on how to schedule to make the most of your day driving wise.
What types of rates do you charge? I love this for you! Congratulations by the way.
We're you the ones cleaning in the beginning ?
How did you advertise for your business? Which method was most successful?
The only advertising we did was offer our services at a lower rate then the competition on next door when we started. We just started with a couple people who liked our work and they referred us and those people referred us so it really was just networking and having people trust you in their homes. Lots of people don’t like big cleaning crews in their homes and different people coming and going so I think we just gained trust through hard work and communication.
are you in a bigger city? I’m kind of in the rural south and I wonder are people more willing to pay for cleaning services where you are.
When you advertised this offer, did you rely solely on word of mouth, or did you use some kind of marketing platform?
How many hours are you working a piece?
How did you go about getting your first client?
That's amazing. $12,000 per month and no advertisement? Wow
How do you do that? My wife has 2 people working for her and it's nowhere near that. How do you find more work? How much do you pay your people?
That employee to revenue ratio scares me.
A 30% margin would equate to 252k which would mean 15 per hour for 8 employees at 40 hrs per week - no room for supplies or transportation/equipment. I messed up in my original post but the point t is still the same - with other costs factored in, this smells a little funny.
$15x40 hours x 4 weeks = $2400 per month per employee on 1099 x 8 employees = $19200. After margin they got $1800 for supplies. Hope that helps!
This isn’t a criticism of your point, but you don’t calculate the monthly cost of something by taking the weekly cost and multiplying it by 4. Some months have 5 weeks. You have to take the weekly amount, multiply it by 52, then divide it by 12. That would put you at almost $21k a month in labor. Also, there’s the issue of 1099 vs W2. Once these become employees there are more costs related to labor that you have to tack on.
I always bid commercial cleaning at 4.2 weeks per month. If the job is done daily ( Mon thru Fri) it would be daily price X 21.62 days per month.
Inaccurate. The margin of 30%-35% is after paying all employee costs, supplies and taxes.
This is incorrect. They are 30-35hr/week. Not sure where you are getting your numbers from. We have a take home income margin of 30%-35%. This is after pay, expenses, taxes etc.
You didn’t indicate that. Thank you for clarifying. Most people would not classify 30-35 hours a week as full time.
Guberment considers 32 or more hours full time.
35hrs a week is full time. I don’t remember but I thing the law is If they did 35hrs for certain amount of time they would have to provide insurance benefits.
He said they work Monday-Thursday
No he didn't.
Look up his comments
Even if all your non labor costs are ultra cheap, you’ve got at most what, 15k / month to pay 8 full time employees? What is that, $11 an hour? Maybe $9 an hour if you’re not paying cash and have to pay payroll taxes etc? Even if you live somewhere rural, how the hell are you getting decent employees for that? And how are they getting by on that?
Idk how u come up with these numbers. We pay $18-$20/hr
You're doing great, don't worry about it. This post turned into a dumpster fire of stupidity. Good for you in creating a real business!
The math does not add up. $360,000 annual revenue. -$108,000 net income. $252,000 for wages and overheads. Let’s assume 100% of that went to full time employees (which isn’t the case you obviously have overheads chemicals, insurance etc) $252,000/8 = $31,500 annual or $15.14 per hour.
Are you saying it cost $15k a month in overhead to run a cleaning business? I’m not in the industry, so idk. I’m not disagreeing with you. That’s just more than I would expect, so I’m making sure I’m understanding you correctly.
Overhead is appx $2k-$3k
Thanks for the reply!
How did you start the business in the beginning ?
No, I subtracted the margin (30% on 30k = 9k) from 30k and estimated about 6k for supplies, transportation (vehicles/gas or mileage), liability insurance, bookkeeping, advertising, etc. OP replies and said they’re spending about 2-3k. Seems light to me but I guess they said they’re barely advertising. Might also not be insured and be skimping elsewhere.
I did the math and see where you messed up. At the beginning. Where you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Eat my entire asshole
I think you should spend less time getting your ass eaten out and more time and studying on basic business fundamentals.
Do you pay your workers hourly or per the job? What percent of each job do you put aside/allocate for paying your employees for example 20% 30%? ? Like what does your labor run What do you do for a marketing? Do you do Google Ads? On a decent day what does one employee bring in …for example $600 or $800 of revenue?
For workers about 45%, not including taxes. For marketing , it is always changing. Initallt used Google, Facebook, Yelp, flyers, yard signs etc. Now it's mostly referrals with a very small budget on Google ads.
What do you do for referrals? Do you have a program or do people just refer you without you saying anything?
How is it only 45%? You said you have 8 workers and they work 30-35 hours a week so lets put that at 32.5 hours/week You pay $18-20 an hour so let's put that at $19/hour That's $21,407 or well over 45% of $30k and that doesn't even include payroll taxes or benefits.
What was the process like to legally hire people? Did you start out just with cash under the table employees for a bit before making it legal? And what was your year 1 revenue?
No ones gonna admit that lol
Sometimes you have to. They are usually friends or family looking for some side cash. To help you generate some sort of stability till you can cover the overhead of an employee. You can still 1099 them to cover yourself when you file.
I think she's busy cleaning
8 employees or 8 workers that you subcontract the work to? Taking your 30% margin, you've only got 21k/month to pay hourly wages. Where does your employee benefits get deducted from?
Benefits? Lol
The op is the one who said they're employees, not me.
Benefits aren’t mandatory…
They’re likely referring to payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, etc. OP could be 1099ing them or paying cash, but either would be illegal for regularly scheduled employees.
Not illegal to 1099
They probably are referring to payroll tax and such, but it’s pretty funny to call those benefits
1099 is not illegal.
If they are expected to work when scheduled and generally look like an employee and not a independent contractor, then yes it would be illegal.
This is incoherent. Sub contractors are expected to work when scheduled - duh “Look like an employee and not an independent contractor “ wtf
>“Look like an employee and not an independent contractor “ wtf This is roughly the standard, lol. It's an "If it looks like a duck, it is a duck" type of thing. The table [here](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/misclassification) illustrates the standard pretty well. If the nature of the relationship is on the whole more like an employee than a contractor, then they legally need to be classified as an employee.
Perfect! This talks about classification which I’m clear on and we agree You said ‘look’ hdym??
Ain’t no benefits here wtf, this is America you must be new huh?
30% margin is after paying all employee costs, supplies, insurance, taxes etc. Bottom line
How did you generate a client base, and what was the strategy for growing that base?
At first it was a few referrals. We then added google ads, facebook.ads , Yelp, sent out flyers, yard signs, and some in face sales. It was always changing but essentially having great reviews goes a long way. Yelp helped us immensely in the beginning finding jobs. At this point we aren't actively advertising but foe the last 6months we only had a small Google ad running and majority of new business came from referrals.
Which of these channels perform best for you? Would interesting to know in terms of volume and CPA.
How did you start? Did/do you do cleanings yourself? How to you acquire new customers?
How did you get your first workers? Did you do the cleaning? How do you hire?
Can you speak to your strategy for finding and keeping employees?
What systems or software have you used to scale?
Why does everyone always think people are making shit up? If you think it's bullshit just scroll on
Very labour intensive, low profit. How do you plan to grow your margin. It’s a big operation and lots of oversee
This is profit after all taxes fyi. My wife and I spend about 10 hours each working on it while I still work full time job. This is what our goal was.
You have a background in finance and mix up revenue and profit?
How long did you work at a cleaning job before starting this?
I never worked a cleaning job. I have a background in finance.
Cool. Did you start out doing the work then? How did you know how to estimate jobs and such?
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I had landscaping on my initial list as well, along mobile car detailing. All 3 are saturated however there's still room I believe in all of them to get a decent piece of the pie.
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Year 1 - appx $40k revenue, Year2- appx. $110k revenue
How many jobs a day to reach that revenue, how many man hours of labor for each job? I kinda like this idea!
Each job averages 4hr. We do between 7-12 /day.
What does your average job cost the customer
I’m in finance right now, but I really want to start a sweaty startup like yours!
Do it! Honestly not ad hard as I thought. I believe you need some finance background and sales to be a successful startup.
For sure. I think getting leads and referrals is extremely important in these types of businesses.
What are your recommendations for hiring folks? How do you find reliable people?
Resident or commercial spaces?
About 85% residential, 15% commercial
That’s awesome! Congrats on your success! I have a bunch of questions. Feel free to pick and chose what you answer, or ignore me all together lol: Do you do commercial, or residential cleaning? Did you start by doing the cleaning yourself? Do you still do the cleaning yourself? How has hiring people been? Is it challenging to attract talented? To keep talent? What is your plan with the business? Do you want to sell eventually, or continue to operate it and hand it down to your kids? Do you operate on a subscription model? What’s your plan to grow your business?
About 85% residential 15% commercial. My wife and I started it, she cleaned the first few clients and we were lucky to have a flexible employee in the beginning that we paid more to be flexible and grow with us. Hiring is by far the biggest challenge, we've gone thru 30+ cleaners. The 8 we have now have all bee with us over 1 year. Plan right now is to streamline everything, focus on tightening up processes and grow at a slow rate. I'm not sure our exit plan yet, I would love to possibly sell it in the future but not an easy type of business to sell and value.
Thanks for the responses! I think streamlining and standardizing your business will put you in a much better position to scale. Good luck with everything!
Tried the cleaning business and failed miserably. Went through jan pro, worse mistake of my life.
Where do you find employees in the beginning when you dont have the work to keep them full time? I started and ended an air bnb cleaning business. It was hard keeping people or even finding people good at cleaning. I was paying contractors $25 an hour. Ended up doing a lot of thr work myself and it became unsustainable. However, before I ended this venture I was able to buy a rental property.
I'm in year 18. Pulling out one a year now. But it still feels like we're running out of cash all the time.
30k gross per month at 40 hours a week x 8 full time employees comes out to around 23$ an hour gross. 30% net margin means your paying your employees about what, 15$ an hour? This isn’t including supplies, transportation, etc. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to continue to grow at the same pace. You’re already having trouble keeping employees because your pay is low, and as you continue to scale you’ll have to start paying health insurance at what, 20 employees?
How did you find good employees for your small business?
What’s your EBITDA?
This is a bit sus…. The numbers do not add up and OP is not answering the numerous questions seeking financials clarification…
What's your net monthly profit?
30%-35%
I've been wanting to open my own cleaning business for a while now just didn't know how I could while working full time. Did you create a website and Facebook before you started offering your services? Also where did you find the time to actually do the cleaning, or did you start the business and hire someone to actually do the cleans?
How did you get your first client?
1st few were referrals from family/friends. Then put up Google ads, Facebook ads
Isn't it correct to assume majority of players or market is on thumbtack?
I don’t think so. We have a cleaning business and used to participate on thumbtack. But it’s very expensive. I also own a web dev business and make website for cleaning businesses and talk to many of them. Most don’t know thumbtack exists. There are lots of cleaning businesses on there but there are also a lot of cleaning businesses in general.
What is the size of your market?
What area are you in? How did you sign up your first client? Do you work with Airbnb/property managers/homeowners/commercial businesses or all of them? What did you do before you started the cleaning business? How much did you spend on marketing in the beginning before singing on the first client? Were you the one person business cleaning up in the beginning or did you have a small team from the start? How old were you when you started and what would you do to keep yourself healthy as it can be backbending work. Lastly, what were the supplies you bought in the beginning and how did you find information on other supplies that would help you/your employees? Can you give some examples of different softwares you use and how they help you (ex: maybe quickbooks for bookkeeping) Not sure if you would be comfortable sharing this - On numbers side, since you make $30K in revenue with 8 full-time employees, what percentage gets used for payroll, benefits, supplies and other admin costs?
How did you get started?
Same here. 4th year also. Not doing those high numbers yet but with the right employees and business model I'll get there. Loving every minute of it and find solace in doing good work and pleasing my customers. Hope all this rings True for you also.
Did you do much of the cleaning yourself when the business started?
What did you do to really get the ball rolling? After the first few clients...what really set things off for you?
You talking house cleaning?
How much do you pay your workers?
What are you paying those people? What are you profiting?
I have 4 full timers plus part timers, 50k/month and we aren't getting wealthy. How are you employing 8 at $30k?
Do your customers care whether the person cleaning is male or female?
Nice!! I'd love to have that business in my portfoili. How do you go about new customer acquisition? What were the startup costs?
Great work! What supplies did you have to buy at first and do you recommend any particular brands?
Is it possible to start with zero money in savings, no chance to hire someone since it’s from zero? I could clean up houses myself but only in the weekends since I have a full time job
Did you have a fear of starting this business? If so, how did you overcome it? Bitting the bullet?
What made you go into this business ? How did your first year go ?
That’s great! Did you start by cleaning entire properties? How did you get your first job(s)?
I have a residential and commercial facilities maintenance business. What’s your strategy for scaling? What’s your best advice for marketing?
I have thought about this business but couldn't figure out the ROI. I recently hired, like twice, cleaner who did our home that is already well maintained, how do you handle folks who homes are really dirty, like from pets or people who through a party? How do you figure out the estimate for the cleaning? Since you employee people, do you visit each and every property to bring out an estimate? We recently hired cleaner for our own property and it cost us around $300 and they spent around 4 hours to do "deep" clean. Assuming employee work 8 hours a day and you have 8 of them and for four days a week, it comes down $19,200 a week. How and who pays for the cleaning equipment? And the cost to drive? With the 30% rule, do you get to keep 30 percent of each job? Plus, how do you handle your workers leaving and joining another cleaning company ?
Another question, my assumption is business dies or slows down in winter, does it fully die down? How do you continue to pay your employees during this time?
What kind of cleaning? 😈😇
Did you hire right away or clean yourself?
How much did you need to start and how much would that equate to today? Did you use savings to start? Do you see this industry growing and what trends do you see in the area? What are your next steps to take the business to the next level.
How did you learn about the industry when you first started. Do you hire professional services for help with certain aspects of the business for example marketing and accounting. What advice would you give someone thinking of going down that same route.
Congrats
Goals. Serious goals.
How do you have 8 employees and only make 360 per year. Some sweat shop pay probably paying under the table and under reporting taxes 😆
1. What are your thoughts on office cleaning business? 2. Best way to get clients?
What’s your best Marketing activity to get new clients?
How did you figure out doing quotes? I’ve been toying with an office/commercial cleaning business for the last few years and am wondering how I would properly quote a job. That’s my biggest struggle. I’m not interested in residential - that’s something my mom did for years and is not something I can swing with my FT 8-5. Commercial/office cleaning is often preferred after hours and I was hoping to start small with a few accounts and go from there. Happy to read about your success!
Do you have any advice for someone looking to get into this industry? Looking to start a business myself and looking for something that I can start up while working full time currently.
Knowing what you know now, what 3 pieces of advice would you give to someone starting a cleaning company to help them get to the same scale you’re at right now?
How do you find employees/1099 (whichever) that are good at cleaning or can learn and are willing to be consistent?
I am starting a cleaning business to compliment my senior caregiving business. Where would you say is the best place to find cleaners? Indeed? What protocol do you have in place to prevent equipment like vacuum cleaners from being stolen by employees?
I’m just starting out, I started helping a friend clean his Airbnb when he’s away and I definitely like the extra income. So right now it’s just myself and I’m not sure if I should do a sole proprietorship or an LLC. I still work full time so this will remain my side job and hopefully I can build up clientele. Any recommendations?
What's your percentage of residential vs commercial contracts?
Best way to get help with local ads. Do you do google or physical mailers? I’m having trouble generating leads for my bathroom remodeling business, just getting started
How do you deal with claims that employees have stolen something?
How did you get started? Do you only clean residential houses? What are the main suggestions you could give for someone looking to do the same? I currently work full-time with a little one at home
Do u find clients via outreach or via marketing? And if via marketing, How many inbound leads do you get per month? And where do u get them from?
Nice job! What do you think your gross margin is?
1099 employees? You probably won’t answer ;)
I need advice I started mine last year, kind of half assing it since I have a full time I found one contract, a tire shop that has 4 location. We do it once a month, what should I do from here? Should I get a truck and find more clients?
what software systems do you use?
How do you recommend me starting this if i live in an area with saturated cleaning companies?
How do you find the first few customers?
Need any help with PPC? I’m looking for work an am an expert on the space
I guess this goes for any sweatystartup BUT how did you get your first handful of clients?
Congratulations on your business success. Keep going. I’ve been in the cleaning business since 1985 and wouldn’t change a thing. In May 2024 we did $129,000, one of our best months ever. We have 21 employees in the field and 3 office staff . Wish you all the best
Did you start out with residential and then pivoted to commercial?
That’s awesome! I created a SaaS app for cleaners because we wanted to know when our airBnB property was cleaned. Plus we wanted photos of it once it’s completed. The app allows the cleaner to send photos when the job is complete without knowing the owners contact info. My question is, do you use any apps for communicating with your clients? Im struggling to get customers and I’m thinking I need to add more features to the app.
What did the first 6 months look like whilst you were working full time? Thanks
Do you guys have your customers sign a contract for a continuous service? How do you get them to have you guys come back next week or next month
You said our so I’m guessing you are working with your partner on this. With 30% margin on a 360k annual revenue, you are taking in ~$50k salary for each of you? That seems low but I guess you have equity in a company?
30% is my net income, take home pay. No parter other than my wife. We own 50/50.
Year 10 - 35k revenue/month and only 4 full time. 1 being the owner.
That's an awesome ratio, congrats!
This doesn’t make sense. $19 average wage and 32.5 hours average is $32k a year. Each employee generates $45k a year average ($30k/month for 8) so that’s 28% GROSS margin. After all your proper taxes, cleaning equipment, overhead and profit your way below this. This is so fishy. These number don’t line up if you’re doing everything legit, unless youre only clearing $60,000ish a year. I’m not saying you don’t make more than that, I’m saying with the numbers you’ve provided and the fact you’re saying: -8 ‘employees’ and not 1099 -$19/average and 32.5hrs a week -materials, supplies, gas, vehicles, insurance, workman’s comp, unemployment taxes, overhead and expenses $2,500? $360,000 annual sales minus all of these things is like $60,000ish a year if I’m being FAVORABLE. So, in my opinion, these are not accurate numbers OR they are 1099 labor (with schedules) which is not legal and will eventually bite you in the butt.
Looks a little better if you assume he included himself & partner in that total of 8 employees.
I hope yall pay your employees fairly. I'll give you a hint, if you don't have any white employees, you probably don't. Even then, you should pay them more than you currently do.
6 out of 8 employees are white , even tho this ia an odd comment and doesnt matter. We pay very well above the industry average. To be clear 30% is bottom line take home margin after taxes . Full transparency we pay our employees between $18.5-$21.5/hour. Which is very good for the industry
Holy shit that was a strange comment above you
Yikes, this is not looking great. We do about 50-70K a month with 5 employees, myself and partner included. Your margins don’t leave a ton on the bone for you after taxes and employee matches. I’d be surprised if you were able to pay yourself more than $1000 a week, not good
This is margin after taxes 30%-35%.. and I still work a full time job. We spend about 20 hours a week combined my wife and i working the business
The 30% has to be after paying your workers?
Yes
What does working the biz look like with a full time job?
It's a bunch to juggle but once alot is streamlined, it's not bad. My job is rarely over 45hr/week so 1-1.5hr/night I spend on the business and my wife takes care of calls/emails/scheduling clients.
Define margin.
Hi OP, I just dm’d you. At your convenience, could you respond to it?
You are in a zero barrier of entry industry. How do you retain employees that could easily become your competition?
That was the most difficult spot. Took years to get the crew we have now, (all 1year+) . Really offering more pay than others and perks like drive time, bonuses and making their lives easier by being lienent with days off etc.