Cleaning

Franchises that offer residential and commercial cleaning services, and often have a scalable model.

Types of Cleaning Businesses

A majority of cleaning franchises are going to offer both residential and commercial services. However, they usually specialize in one or the other. The franchisor will help with things like marketing, call centers, scheduling, and training procedures. Some franchises require a two-person cleaning crew, while others only require one-person crews. One of the benefits is you do not need expensive real estate to get into the business; you can lease a small space where you meet with your team on a daily basis. 

Close up of someone cleaning kitchen sink

Initial Investment

Since most of the cleaning options do NOT require expensive real estate, the investment is significantly lower for this category. The average is anywhere between $60K - $150K.

Day In The Life

Mornings are typically spent meeting with your cleaning crews, verifying schedules, and dispatching the crews. Eventually, this is a role owners hire a manager for, but at the start you would likely be doing this work. The rest of the day is managing KPI’s, networking to find referral sources for new leads, and hiring, training and managing new/existing staff. If you plan to grow and scale the business, you will need to be comfortable managing up to 20+ employees!

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate has customer service and management skills. Most of your leads are going to come to you through corporate marketing, so experience in sales is not a necessity for this business. The existing owners come from various backgrounds; most have a passion for managing people and helping them grow in their careers. Ultimately, this is a scalable business, and most franchisors are going to look for someone that wants to grow their cleaning business.

Why We Like This Industry

High demand and low overhead/costs sets you up to build a profitable business and get a return on your investment much faster than other franchises. Cleaning is an essential business. It’s not a want, it’s a need, so the industry isn’t going anywhere. If you feel comfortable managing people, and creating a culture where people want to stay, then this could be a great business for you.