How to get clients for a cleaning business

Start with people you know

The owner who started the top Reddit thread on this question got their first few clients “by already knowing them and simply asking if they need cleaning”. Blake and Cleia Hickman started SA Cleaning Service in San Antonio with family and people they already knew. They have 12 cleaners now.

Write a list of everyone you know who lives within driving distance: family, old coworkers, neighbors, parents from school, people from your gym or church. Message them in two batches a day apart, so you have time to answer everyone who replies. Then ask everyone who says no for one name. Someone busy, someone who just had a baby, someone who's moving.

This is the first message from the kit. Change the first line so it sounds like you.

Who to aim for: one commenter in the same thread says the best customer is “a family with two working parents”, people buying back their time who book every week or every two weeks.

The kit also has the reply for “not for me, but good luck”, the one follow-up for people who didn't answer, and the message asking a friend to be your test client.

Put up a free Google Business Profile

Anyone who hears your name will search it before they reply. A Google Business Profile is free, and it's what shows up when someone searches “house cleaning near me” on Google Maps.

You clean at clients' homes, so Google requires you to hide your address and show a service area instead. You can list up to 20 areas. Keep one profile for your metro area, because Google can suspend accounts with duplicates.

Pick “House cleaning service” as the category and add your phone, hours, a booking link and a few photos. Then ask every early client for a review the day after the clean. Durable's guide sets five reviews in your first 30 days as the goal.

Reviews are what make the profile work. Amanda Stovall of Stovall's Cleaning Service in rural Missouri had about 33 to 35 five-star reviews and posted on her profile about three times a week when a church found her on Google and asked her to bid on its buildings.

A website can wait. A profile and a booking link are enough to start. When you do build one, it can pay off fast: Logan Robison of Bonnie & A Broom booked his first job, a $500 clean, two days after his site went up.

Post in local Facebook groups and on Nextdoor

For the owner of that Reddit thread, Facebook brought “90% of our clients”: posts in community pages and on their personal account, with a separate business page next to it. Another commenter's whole answer was “Local Mom Facebook groups”.

Group admins decide what members can post, so read each group's rules before you post.

Nextdoor changed its rules in August 2026. Businesses promote from a free Business Page, and a personal account can post an offer about once a month under your own name. Neighbors can still recommend you anytime. Nextdoor may ask for a business document before you post to nearby neighborhoods, so have your paperwork handy.

What to post: a short introduction (who you are, the area you cover, how to book) with a before-and-after photo of a room you cleaned, taken with the owner's permission.

Door hangers on your clients' street

Every clean is an ad for the street it's on. After each job, leave door hangers on the homes nearby with a line like “I'm cleaning a home on your street this week.” One commenter's version: at the end of each job, “drop a few leaflets to the neighbours”, and quote your reviews on them.

Another residential cleaner in the thread printed flyers at home and walked neighborhoods “all day long for a few weeks”, and says they were “all referral now in less than a year”. They aim for middle-class streets with homes under about 2,000 square feet, since a solo cleaner can do two of those in a day.

Not everyone agrees. Another commenter wrote “I'd never call anyone out of the blue from a flier”. That's why I'd start on streets where a neighbor already uses you.

Hang them on doors, never in mailboxes. Putting unstamped flyers in a mailbox is a federal offense. Some cities have their own rules on door hangers, so check yours.

Answer fast and send the price

Reply the same hour if you can. Ask the four things you need for a price: bedrooms and bathrooms, the size of the home, pets, and whether they want one clean or regular cleaning. Then send a number.

For a regular client, charge the deep-clean rate for the first visit and the recurring price from the second visit on. ConvertLabs puts recurring discounts at 15 to 20% for weekly, 10 to 15% for every two weeks and 5 to 10% for monthly. National prices for each home size are in Housecall Pro's price guide, and pricing gets its own guide in how much to charge for house cleaning.

The price message from the kit, with the first visit priced as a deep clean.

Send the price and the agreement by text or email so the client can sign before the first clean. If you met them at their home first (a walkthrough counts), the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule can still apply: they get three business days to cancel, and you owe them a written notice. The kit's agreement includes it. A deal made entirely by phone, text or online isn't covered.

Realtors, property managers and apartment offices

Move-in and move-out cleans pay well, around $220 to $400 nationally, and the people who order them need them again and again. Realtors need empty listings clean before photos and showings. Property managers need units clean between tenants, or as one commenter put it, rentals “need cleaned once vacant”. Apartment leasing offices are worth asking too, in person or by phone.

Send a short note, offer to be their backup cleaner, and follow up a week later. Lead with how fast you can come.

The first message to an agent or property manager.

Turn every clean into the next one

After the first month, your clients become your best channel. Before you leave each clean, ask for the review and the next date. Offer every one-time client a recurring slot. Give clients a reason to refer you, like money off their next clean for anyone they send who books, which is what one owner in the thread suggests. And about three weeks after you first asked, go back to the people who said “maybe later”.

The kit has the review request, the referral message, the recurring-schedule text and the “maybe later” message, filled in with your business details.

Airbnb turnovers: managers, co-hosts and Turno

Turnover clients are hosts and property managers, and they find cleaners in other places. Map the rentals and management companies in your area, set up a cleaner profile on Turno, where hosts post cleaning jobs and accept bids, and introduce yourself in local host groups. Turno takes a fee from each payment, so check the current rate in the app.

Neel Parekh started MaidThis in Los Angeles cleaning homes, and within a few months Airbnb hosts started calling for turnovers, so he refocused. Logan Robison tried messaging hosts through Airbnb booking requests and stopped because it annoyed them. Skip that one.

The Airbnb side gets its own guide in how to start an Airbnb cleaning business.

A Turno bid from the kit's Airbnb track.

Paid leads: wait for your first reviews

Lead sites like Thumbtack, Bark and Angi charge per lead whether it books or not. Durable's guide says to skip them for your first 90 days, estimating $50 to $150 per lead with about 10 to 15% turning into clients.

Google Local Services Ads work differently. You pay per lead, house cleaning is an eligible category, and Google checks your business registration and identity for a “Google Verified” badge. Logan Robison says Local Services Ads brought in most of his business for a long time, at about $25 a lead early on and about $60 later.

Ads work better once you have reviews. An owner in the thread whose biggest channel is Google Ads says that when a company has few good reviews, they're “probably not calling them first”. Startup costs, ads included, get their own guide in how much does it cost to start a cleaning business.

Frequently asked questions