How to Start a Cleaning Business: The Complete Guide

Written for the UK scenario, but the principles apply in most English-speaking nations.

A cleaning business is one of the cheapest and quickest trade businesses to start. You need no formal qualifications, no expensive tools and no premises. Many cleaners start with a car, a caddy of products and a handful of customers from word of mouth.

Because it is easy to start, it is also crowded. The cleaners who build a business that pays well do a few things differently: they pick a clear type of work, price properly, get the paperwork right, and look professional from day one. This guide takes you through each of those steps.

Step 1: Decide what kind of cleaning business you want

“Cleaning” covers very different businesses. Choose one to start with, because it decides your hours, your equipment, your prices and where you find customers.

Most people start in domestic cleaning because the customers are easy to find. Commercial work pays better per contract but usually means evening hours and, once you win more than one or two, staff.

Whichever you pick, stay focused on it for your first year. A clear offer (“weekly domestic cleaning in Market Town and the surrounding villages”) is easier to market than “all types of cleaning”.

Step 2: Work out what it will cost to start

A domestic cleaning business can start for a few hundred pounds if you already have a reliable car. Commercial and end-of-tenancy work costs more because you need heavier equipment, and possibly a small van.

Your start-up list will usually include:

• Equipment and products: a good vacuum cleaner, microfibre cloths, mops, buckets, caddies and a starting stock of products.
• Insurance: public liability cover, paid yearly or monthly.
• Clothing: plain branded tops or tabards. They cost little and make you look established.
• Marketing: a simple website or Facebook page, a Google Business Profile (free), and leaflets or business cards.
• Software: a booking and invoicing app, or a spreadsheet to start with.
• Transport: fuel and running costs. If you use your own car, check your car insurance covers business use.

Don’t overspend before you have customers. Buy what you need for your first few jobs, then upgrade as the work comes in.

Step 3: Get the legal side right

None of this is difficult, but customers and commercial clients will ask about it, and getting it wrong can cost you far more than doing it properly.

• Register as a sole trader. Most cleaners start as sole traders by registering for Self Assessment with HMRC. It is free and takes about 10 minutes. See our step-by-step guide: 
• Public liability insurance. It is not a legal requirement, but you would be foolish to work without it. One broken vase, a scratched worktop or a flood from a left-on tap can cost more than a year’s premiums. Check the policy covers damage to customers’ property and loss of keys.
• A DBS check. Customers will be letting you into their homes, often when they are out. A basic DBS check, which you can apply for yourself on GOV.UK, shows them you have nothing to hide. Mention it on your website and leaflets.
• Cleaning products are hazardous substances. Read the safety data sheets, store products safely and never mix them. Once you employ anyone, you must carry out COSHH assessments, and commercial clients often ask to see them anyway.
• Data protection. You will hold customers’ names, addresses and alarm codes. Keep them secure, and use the ICO’s online self-assessment to check whether you need to pay its data protection fee.
• Key security. Never label keys with names or addresses. Use a numbered tag and keep the list somewhere separate.

Step 4: Choose your equipment and products

Your vacuum cleaner is the one item worth spending real money on. A cheap domestic machine will not survive several houses a day. A commercial-grade cylinder vacuum lasts for years and is quicker to use.

Beyond that, keep it simple:

• Colour-coded microfibre cloths. Use one colour for kitchens, another for bathrooms and toilets, and so on. It stops cross-contamination, and customers notice it.
• A small range of products. A multi-surface cleaner, a bathroom cleaner, a degreaser, glass cleaner and a disinfectant cover most domestic work. Buying concentrates and diluting them into labelled bottles cuts your costs a lot.
• Mops and buckets. A flat mop system is faster than a traditional mop and bucket on most floors.
• A caddy. Keeps everything together and saves trips back to the car.

Agree with each customer whether you use your products or theirs. Using your own means you know they work and are safe, and you can build the cost into your price.

Step 5: Price your work properly

Underpricing is the most common reason cleaning businesses fail. New cleaners look at what employed cleaners earn per hour and charge something similar. But an employed cleaner gets holiday pay, sick pay and travel paid for, and uses someone else’s products. You pay for all of that yourself.

Work your rate out like this:

1. Add up your yearly costs: insurance, products, equipment replacement, fuel and car costs, phone, software and marketing.
2. Decide what you need to earn for yourself in a year, before tax.
3. Work out your real chargeable hours. Take off holidays, bank holidays, sick days, and the time spent travelling between jobs, quoting and doing paperwork. Most sole traders can charge for far fewer hours than they expect.
4. Divide your costs plus your income by your chargeable hours. That is the least you can charge per hour without losing money.

Then check what local cleaning businesses charge. If your figure is higher, don’t automatically cut it. Look at whether you can work more efficiently, or offer a better service that justifies the price.

Charge one-off deep cleans and end-of-tenancy work at a higher rate than regular weekly cleans. They take longer, are harder work, and do not give you the security of repeat income.

Our free Charge-Out Rate Calculator does this sum for you: www.tradeskillshubacademy.com/profit-tools.

Step 6: Find your first customers

For domestic cleaning, most work comes from local people trusting a local name. Start with:

• A Google Business Profile. It is free and puts you on Google Maps when people search “cleaner near me”. Ask every happy customer for a review.
• Local Facebook groups. Village and town groups are where people ask for recommendations. Post helpfully, not just adverts.
• Leaflets in a tight area. Pick the streets you want to work in and leaflet them. Clustering customers close together cuts your travel time, which is unpaid time.
• Word of mouth. Offer existing customers a small thank-you, such as money off a clean, for each new customer they refer.

For end-of-tenancy work, introduce yourself to local letting agents and landlords. For commercial work, approach small offices, surgeries and shops directly, and look at council and public sector contracts once you have some experience and the right paperwork.

Whatever the work, answer enquiries quickly, turn up when you say you will, and put prices in writing. Those three things alone put you ahead of much of your competition.

Step 7: Grow by taking on staff

On your own, your income is capped by the hours you can work. To grow past that, you need other people cleaning for you.

Before you take anyone on, be clear about what changes:

• Employers’ liability insurance becomes a legal requirement as soon as you employ someone.
• You must pay at least the National Minimum Wage, run payroll, and offer a workplace pension if they qualify.
• COSHH assessments and basic training become your legal responsibility.
• Your prices must cover their full cost, not just their hourly pay. Holiday pay, employer’s National Insurance, travel time and supervision all add up.

Some cleaning businesses use self-employed subcontractors instead. Be careful: if you control when, where and how they work, HMRC may treat them as employees, whatever your agreement says.

You can download our ebook, How to Start a Cleaning Business here. 

The printed version is available from Amazon here.