Is it Easy to Start a Cleaning Business in 2024?

Thinking about starting a cleaning business because some person on the internet said it was a good idea? It’s definitely a viable business, but is it really as easy as some people make it out to be?

There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this new series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!

Video Transcript: 

Business Advice Video:

If you don’t have a cleaning service yet, what are you doing? Today I secured account for one bedroom, one bathroom, 275. I also secured a three, one, 365. And I also secured a four, three at 650. And I also secured a four, four at 700, and they added on. And the best part is, I’m not even going to be cleaning these houses because I have a whole team that does that for me. And I still make a large profit because I pay them by hour. 

Matt’s Reaction:

Okay, well, I can speak to this directly because we have some cleaning services as clients. And also years ago, my wife decided to start a house cleaning business for a while. And the thing is, there’s only so much room in the market for how much people are willing to pay for cleaning. And if you’re too far out of that range, they’re going to hire somebody else. And there’s also only so little you can pay somebody to actually go and do that work. So the margins are fairly constricted. So she’s pointing out “I got a three-bedroom, one-bathroom place and they pay this much.” But what she’s not saying is how many square feet those houses were and how much else went into it, how dirty they were in the first place, or that necessarily what those services include, because sometimes people will include things like doing laundry, doing dishes, making beds, and other services won’t. So I take all that with a grain of salt. And the idea that you know yes, I mean, a house cleaning business is very easy to start. You don’t need a lot of materials. You don’t even need a website. You can literally just put an ad up on Nextdoor or Craigslist or whatever and start seeing if you can get people to sign up. But the idea that you can easily grab tons of clients and that you can make huge profits even though you’re paying other people to do all the work, it’s just not that easy. If you’re not paying the people who are doing the work very much, guess what? They’re probably not going to do a very good job, and then you’re going to get fired. So, yay. You signed somebody up today, and a week later they let you go because the people you sent to their house did a crappy job, or they stole stuff or they broke stuff, or that all kinds of other things can go wrong. So, absolutely, a house cleaning business is an easy, low-cost business to start. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to run or easy to grow or amazingly profitable compared to anything else. It’s just another kind of business that, yes, people can do very well with, but it’s not easier and it’s not faster, and it’s not more lucrative than any other kind of business you can start. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of effort and dedication to making it happen. And somebody sitting in their car pointing to a piece of paper saying how much money you can make doesn’t carry a lot of weight with me, as somebody who’s actually been part of the process and seen other clients do exactly that same kind of business.