House Cleaning Business Plan for 2026: One Page, Sourced Prices, and a Break-Even Table

A house cleaning business plan is one page with six boxes

A house cleaning business plan fits on one page with six boxes. In the example below, charging $150 a clean takes 25 cleans a month, about 12 biweekly clients, to keep $3,000 a month before taxes. For comparison, the Census Bureau's 2024 data shows 78.5% of cleaning businesses with no employees took in under $25,000 for the year.

The SBA's page on writing a business plan says lean plans "are typically only one page" and suit a business that is "relatively simple." The example charges $150 a clean, spends $19.40 on supplies and mileage per clean, and pays $200 a month in fixed costs, $140 of it an assumption for phone, software, and ads. Replace the numbers with yours.

Copy this table into your notes and write your own answer beside each box.

Boxes 1 and 2: pick one kind of customer and one price

Box 1 is one sentence. Name the kind of home, the towns, and how often you clean. "Biweekly standard cleans in three-bedroom homes within 15 minutes of my house" is a plan. "Anyone who needs a cleaner" is not, because it gives you no streets to drive and no price to quote.

Start with repeat work. A biweekly client is 26 visits a year, so at $150 a clean one client is $3,900 a year. A one-time clean pays once and sends you looking for the next customer.

Box 2 is one price for each kind of clean. Housecall Pro's October 21, 2026 guide, built on its customers' cleaning records for the 12 months ending September 2026, puts the typical one-time standard clean at $140 to $220, the middle half of its customers' prices, and says house cleaners typically charge $30 to $80 an hour per cleaner. Housecall Pro says many homeowners look at numbers like these before they call, and that they are not your starting point. Your costs set the lowest price you can accept. Our house cleaning pricing guide works it out from the pay you want per hour, and this plan works the other way, from the $3,000 a month you want to keep.

The example uses $150 because it is the low end of Housecall Pro's $150 to $220 for a 2,000-square-foot home, and Housecall Pro says weekly and biweekly clients may get a lower per-visit rate. It is not a price for your town. Write one price for each clean you will sell: standard, deep, and move-out.

Box 3: startup costs are about $388 to $638 in the example

Startup costs are what you spend before the first clean. This list prices one example of each piece of gear, from pages we opened on October 22, 2026. Retail prices move, and some of these have only a few reviews.

• Vacuum, $149.99. Bissell CleanView Rewind Upright, model 3534
• Mop kit with bucket, $82.99. Lavex wet mop kit, with a 35 qt. bucket and wringer, wet floor sign, handle, and 12 mop heads
• Cleaning caddy, $10.99. Lavex 3-compartment caddy
• Toilet bowl brush, $6.99. Lavex 14 inch, with caddy
• Duster, $11.49. Lavex lambswool duster, telescopic handle
• Microfiber cloths, $9.79. Lavex 16 x 16 inch, 12 per case
• Nitrile gloves, $5.59. Noble 4 mil, extra large, 100 per box

Gear total: $277.83. The Bissell is from bissell.com and the rest are from WebstaurantStore.

The vacuum is the biggest line here. Housecall Pro's startup guide, updated May 4, 2026, lists vacuums at $100 to $500 or more and says a residential cleaning business "can often launch for under $1,000."

Gear is not the whole bill. For a month of insurance and a bond at average prices, add $60 ($51 and $9, from Insureon, updated October 12, 2026), and ask what is due on day one, because Simply Business says payment terms may include an initial down payment. Add a first month of cleaning products, $50 to $300 per Housecall Pro. In the example, $277.83 + $60 + $50 to $300 is $387.83 to $637.83, before an LLC, a license, a name registration, tax, and shipping (arithmetic).

Our guide to starting a house cleaning business covers what to buy first and where the first ten clients come from, with Housecall Pro's ranges for each item.

Box 4: monthly costs are fixed costs plus a cost per clean

Split your monthly costs in two. Fixed costs come due whether you clean or not: insurance, a bond, phone, software, and ads. The cost per clean grows with every clean: supplies and mileage.

Insurance is the line to get a real quote on, because the sources disagree. For general liability for house cleaners, TechInsurance lists $44 a month and Insureon lists $51. Simply Business shows $29 for policies bought July to December 2025, though its footnote says that price is near the low end of what its customers paid. Housecall Pro's startup guide, citing its insurance partner Coverdash, says $54 to $75.

A janitorial bond is $9 a month at Insureon, $10 at TechInsurance, and $100 to $300 a year at Housecall Pro. A bond protects your client, not you. Insureon says it reimburses a customer if an employee steals, and you must pay the insurer back. It adds that you might need one to sign a contract with a client, and that some customers "may choose only to hire bonded and insured cleaning companies."

The example uses Insureon's $51 and $9 plus the assumed $140, so the fixed costs are $200 a month. That leaves out workers' compensation and car insurance, so a real quote can raise it. The example also assumes a 15-mile round trip, which is 15 x $0.76 = $11.40. With $8 of supplies, each clean costs $19.40 before your time.

Self-employment tax comes out of the pay you keep. The IRS puts it at 15.3% if you net $400 or more, and says that covers Social Security and Medicare only. Income tax is extra.

Box 5: break-even is the number of cleans that covers your costs and pays you

Break-even for a one-person cleaning business has two answers. With $200 in fixed costs and $130.60 left from a $150 clean, 2 cleans cover your costs. The answer that matters is how many cleans also pay you.

The formula: cleans a month = (fixed costs + the pay you want) divided by (price minus cost per clean). That is the SBA's break-even formula with your pay added to the fixed costs. At $150 and $3,000, it is ($200 + $3,000) divided by $130.60, which is 24.5. Round up to 25 cleans.

"Pay" here is what you keep before income tax and self-employment tax. For scale, the Department of Labor's occupation database lists a 2025 median wage of $17.07 an hour for maids and housekeeping cleaners, or $35,510 for a full-time year. The example is about 100 hours of cleaning and driving a month, so $3,000 is about $30 an hour before taxes.

This table shows the cleans you need to keep $3,000 a month at four prices. It assumes 4 hours a clean: 3.5 in the house, inside Housecall Pro's 3 to 4 hours for one cleaner in a 2,000-square-foot home, plus 30 minutes driving, 15 each way. A biweekly client is about 2.17 cleans a month. Cleans and clients are rounded up, and hours leave out office time.

Going from $120 to $180 cuts the cleans you need from 32 to 20. Hours matter too: at $150, a 4-hour clean leaves $32.65 an hour before fixed costs, and a 5-hour clean leaves $26.12. At $150, keeping $2,000 takes 17 cleans and keeping $4,000 takes 33. Fixed costs of $500 a month, not $200, take 27 cleans to keep $3,000.

The table assumes no canceled visits, and visits get canceled. If 1 in 10 is, you need about 28 cleans booked to complete 25 (25 divided by 0.9). The SBA also says to "throw a little extra, say 10%, into your break-even analysis," but not where. Adding 10% to the fixed costs leaves 25 cleans, adding it to every cost gives 26, and adding it to the answer gives 27.

Reality check: most cleaning businesses with no employees gross under $25,000

The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics count businesses with no paid employees. In the 2024 data, 78.5% of cleaning businesses took in under $25,000 and 7.5% took in $50,000 or more. The middle business took in between $10,000 and $24,999.

"Cleaning" here is the Census code for janitorial services, 56172. The 2022 NAICS manual (a PDF) lists maid and housekeeping services there, along with custodial work and window cleaning, so these numbers are for janitorial businesses, not house cleaners alone. The code has 1,173,265 businesses. Dividing their total receipts, $25.2 billion, by that count gives an average of $21,483, a division we did ourselves. We also added up the size brackets in the U.S. file on the Nonemployer Statistics page.

• Receipts are the money coming in, before gas, supplies, and insurance. The Census glossary says they include "gross receipts, sales, commissions, and income from trades and businesses."
• The file has no hours. A business counts if it has no paid employees, at least $1,000 in receipts, and is subject to federal income taxes, so a side business and a full-time one look the same. At $150 a clean, $21,483 is 143 cleans a year, under 3 a week (arithmetic).
• The example plan is above most of the group. Keeping $3,000 a month at $150 a clean takes about $45,000 a year in receipts (25 cleans x $150 x 12 months). That is more than twice the average, and only 21.5% of these businesses took in $25,000 or more.

Our post on what solo service businesses gross has the full tables for cleaning and other trades.

Box 6: your first 90 days, in four steps

Four steps, each with a date range. Copy them and change the dates.

• Days 1 to 14: set up. Pick a name and check it against the trademark database kept by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as the SBA advises. Then see Legal basics below for registering it. Buy general liability and a bond before the first key changes hands.
• Days 15 to 30: get found and clean your first homes. Set up your Google Business Profile with our setup guide, put your price and your photo on a one-page website, and clean your first three homes. Time each clean on your phone and write down hours, miles, and supplies.
• Days 31 to 60: fill the schedule. The example needs 12 biweekly clients by day 90, about one new client a week from day 15 (12 clients over about 11 weeks). Send an invoice after every clean (how to write one).
• Days 61 to 90: re-run the plan. Put your real hours, miles, and supplies into the break-even formula. If a clean takes 4.5 hours, not 4, raise the price or drop the far streets.

Ask every client for a review. After each client's first clean, send every client the same Google review link, however the clean went, and offer nothing in return. Google's review policy says merchants may not offer "payment, discounts, free goods and/or services" for a review, and may not "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers."

The free Launch playbook walks through your business name, logo, profile pictures, services, service area, hours, how you price, Google profile, and domain, and those first nine steps need no account.

Legal basics: license, LLC, insurance, and taxes depend on your state

This is not legal advice, and the rules differ by state, county, and city. The SBA's licenses and permits page says "The requirements and fees vary based on your business activities, location, and government rules," and tells you to research your own state, county, and city and to visit your secretary of state's website.

• License and name. Housecall Pro says most cities and counties require a general business license, typically $50 to $100 a year, so ask yours before the first clean. The SBA notes that some licenses and permits expire, so put the renewal date in your calendar. If you use a name other than your own, the SBA says most states require you to register it as a DBA, also called a trade name, fictitious name, or assumed name. Montana's fee schedule, effective July 1, 2022, lists $20 to register one.
• LLC. Optional. The SBA's business structure page says you are automatically a sole proprietorship if you do business and do not register as another kind of business, so your business and personal assets and liabilities are not separate, and "LLCs protect you from personal liability in most instances." Filing fees differ by state. The same Montana schedule lists $35 for an LLC, and Texas Form 205, revised 09/26, lists $300.
• Insurance. The SBA says general liability protects against financial loss from bodily injury, property damage, medical expenses, and lawsuits. An LLC does not replace it, because the SBA says an LLC's protection "has limits." The SBA also says "Laws requiring insurance vary by state," so check your state's website.
• Workers' compensation and car insurance. Insureon says state laws typically require workers' compensation for cleaning businesses with employees, and Simply Business says most states require it even for one helper. Insureon also recommends it for sole proprietors, "as health insurance plans can deny claims when an injury or illness is related to your job," and lists it at $114 a month. If you drive your own car to jobs, Insureon points to hired and non-owned auto insurance, so ask your auto insurer what you are covered for.
• Taxes. An EIN is free: the IRS says "You never have to pay a fee for an EIN." The IRS also says you may have to file estimated taxes quarterly, so ask a tax preparer how much of your pay to set aside. The SBA says "Tax laws vary by location and business structure," so ask your state tax office whether sales tax applies to cleaning where you work.

Where ServicePro fits

ServicePro is home services software. It starts with getting you found. The Free plan costs $0, with no card. It builds a website from your Google Business Profile, with five service pages and a booking page, and it charges no per-lead fees. The Free site carries a "Powered by ServicePro.co" badge. Every business can create and send invoices.

Pro is $99 a month, with no contract, and adds a toll-free business number that forwards calls to your cell, two-way texting, unlimited service pages, and 25 town pages.

ServicePro does not write quotes, run paid ads, or plan routes. If your plan needs a schedule for a team of cleaners, the apps in our cleaning business software roundup are built for that. Get the free website.

How this post was made: drafted with AI from the sources linked on this page. Figures and links were checked on October 22, 2026.