Homes or offices: pick one to start
Residential and commercial cleaning are two different businesses that happen to use the same mop. You can do both later. Starting with both means two kinds of sales, two kinds of pricing and two schedules, and you will be bad at both for a while.
| Residential (homes) | Commercial (offices, shops) | |
|---|---|---|
| When you clean | Weekdays, while the owner is at work | Evenings and weekends, after the business closes |
| Who decides | One homeowner, often in one call | An office manager or owner, after a walkthrough and a written bid |
| How you price | Flat price by home size | Monthly price per visit, worked out from square feet |
| Where work comes from | Google, reviews, neighbors, referrals | Walking in, calling, bids, people you know |
| What clients ask for | Reviews and trust. Some ask if you are insured. | A certificate of insurance and often a bond before you start |
| Best for you if | You can work days and want to start this month | You keep a day job, or already know business owners |
My take: start residential, and sell recurring cleans. A customer on an every-two-weeks schedule is the whole business. One-time deep cleans and move-outs are fine as a way in, but if every job is a one-off, you are back to finding a new customer every day. Offer the recurring plan at the end of every first clean, while the house still looks good.
Go commercial first only if you have an actual contact: a cousin who manages a dental office, a gym owner you know. Commercial accounts are steadier once you land them, but they are slow to win cold.
What it costs to start
A cleaning business is cheap to start. No truck, no shop, no license exam. You need supplies, insurance, a state filing and a way for people to find you. The honest answer to "how much" is: whatever your local prices are. So put them in. Two lines start from published averages, the rest are examples to replace.
Two things I would not spend on yet: a branded car wrap and a commercial-grade floor machine. Wait until a paying client needs it. And skip the franchise route unless you truly want someone else's playbook, because a cleaning business is simple enough to learn by doing.
Register the business
The SBA's business guide lays out the order. For a cleaning business it comes down to six steps, most of them done online in an afternoon:
- Pick a structureLLC or sole proprietor
- Pick a nameFile a DBA if you use one
- Register with your stateUsually the Secretary of State
- Get an EINFree from the IRS, instantFree
- Licenses and permitsCity and county, sometimes state
- Business bank accountOnce money comes in or goes out
Form an LLC. As a sole proprietor you and the business are the same person, so you are personally on the hook for its debts. The SBA says an LLC protects you from personal liability "in most instances." You are walking into strangers' homes with chemicals. That is a good reason to separate your personal money from the business on day one. If you work under your own legal name as a sole proprietor, the SBA says you do not need to register anywhere, but you give up that protection.
Get the EIN yourself. It is free on the IRS website and you get the number as soon as you are verified. The SBA warns against sites that charge for it.
Check local licenses. There is no national cleaning license. Most of what you need, if anything, is a general business license from your city or county. Your state's Secretary of State site and your city website are where to look. Also ask your state tax department whether cleaning services are taxable where you work.
Insurance and bonding
Do not do a single paid clean without insurance. The real question is which policy pays for what.
General liability
The SBA describes general liability as coverage for bodily injury, property damage and medical expenses. That is your base policy. The catch for cleaners: Insureon notes that if an employee dusting a TV knocks it off the wall, a plain general liability policy "probably won't cover the cost," because the damage happened to something you were working on. Ask for a care, custody or control endorsement when you buy. As of October 2026, Insureon says its cleaning customers pay an average of $59 a month for general liability.
Janitorial bonds
A janitorial bond pays your client back if one of your workers steals from them. It does not cover damage, only theft. It is also not insurance for you: when the bond company pays a claim, it expects you to repay it. Insureon says no law requires one, but many clients only hire cleaners who are "bonded and insured." Its average for cleaning businesses is about $112 a year as of October 2026.
When to buy the bond: the day you hire your first cleaner, or the day a commercial client asks, whichever comes first. If it is just you cleaning, put the money into the care, custody or control endorsement first.
Workers' comp
The SBA lists workers' compensation, unemployment and disability insurance as required for businesses with employees, and states add their own rules. Check your state's site before your first hire, not after.
How to price cleaning jobs
There are three common ways to price. Use the right one for each kind of job:
Either way, build it the same way: time the clean, put a cost on that time, add supplies and your share of overhead, then add profit. Use the times from your own first few cleans, not someone's chart.
Starting numbers are examples only. For reference, BLS put the median pay of janitors and building cleaners at $17.71 an hour in May 2025, before payroll taxes.
If you do the cleaning yourself, the labor line is your wage and the profit line is what the business keeps for slow weeks, new equipment and taxes. Pay yourself from both, but price as if you will hire someone soon. Owners who price only for their own time cannot afford their first employee.
Charge more for the first visit. A home that has not been cleaned professionally takes much longer the first time. Quote the first clean as a deep clean and say so on your price sheet, or you will lose money on every new customer.
Hiring: employee or contractor?
Most new owners want to pay cleaners as 1099 contractors. It is less paperwork. But you do not get to pick the label. The IRS looks at how much control you have over the work, in three groups:
A typical cleaning crew answers yes to most of those: you book the jobs, send the address, set the checklist and hand over the supplies. If you treat an employee as a contractor without a reasonable basis, the IRS says you can owe the employment taxes for that worker. The Department of Labor runs its own test for wage and overtime law, and its guidance has changed more than once since 2024, so check its current page. Your state may have its own test too.
Once you hire, every employee fills out Form I-9. USCIS says all U.S. employers must complete one for every person they hire. Add workers' comp and a payroll service, and you are set up properly.
Your first 10 customers
Aim for ten happy customers before you spend a dollar on ads. Get them in this order:
- People who already trust you. Friends, family, neighbors, coworkers. Charge your real price. Ask each one for an honest Google review and one referral.
- Busy people near you. Door hangers on streets you already drive. Pick one or two neighborhoods so your drive time stays short.
- People who hire cleaners for a living. Real estate agents and property managers need move-out and move-in cleans on short notice. Be the one who answers.
- Local groups. Neighborhood Facebook groups and Nextdoor, posted as a person, not an ad.
Skip deep discount deal sites. They bring one-time bargain hunters, and you are trying to build a list of recurring clients. A small discount for signing up for every-two-weeks service is a better use of the same money.
Get found and booked online
After the first ten, almost everyone who hires you will look you up first. Set this up in your first month:
- Create a Google Business Profile. You clean at the customer's place, so Google says to remove your address and set service areas instead. You can list up to 20, within about 2 hours of driving from your base.
- Ask every customer for a review. Send your review link by text right after the clean, while they are looking at the result. See how to get more Google reviews.
- Put your prices on your website. A price sheet like the one at the top of this page answers the first question every customer has. Then add a button to book or request a time.
- Answer fast. Plenty of homeowners message more than one company. Being first to reply with a time is the easiest way to win the job. If you are mid-clean, a quick text back holds the lead. Here is how missed-call text back works.
- Show up in Maps. Google says complete business info helps you show up, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. See how to rank higher in Google Maps.
Start with your review link. Our free tools make a direct Google review link and a QR code for your cards and door hangers, and find your Place ID.
Try the free toolsWhen the phone starts ringing more than you can answer between cleans, that is the point where a website that books by itself and automatic follow-up start paying for themselves. Not before. See what that looks like for a cleaning company.
Sources: SBA: Choose a business structure; SBA: Register your business; SBA: Get federal and state tax ID numbers; SBA: Apply for licenses and permits; SBA: Open a business bank account; SBA: Get business insurance; Insureon: Janitorial bonds for cleaning businesses; Insureon: General liability for cleaning businesses; IRS: Independent contractor or employee; U.S. Department of Labor: Misclassification of employees as independent contractors; USCIS: Form I-9; BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Janitors and building cleaners; Google: Manage your service area for a service-area business; Google: How to improve your local ranking