Cleaning franchise costs

Cleaning franchises fall into three businesses. Residential maid services send teams to clean homes on a regular schedule. Commercial cleaning brands clean offices, clinics and schools at night, and some sell you a package of customer accounts. Specialty brands clean carpets, tile, windows, ducts or dryer vents from a van. All are cheap to open compared with a storefront franchise, and all live or die on finding, training and keeping cleaners.

The commercial cleaning brands work differently from the rest: many sell “unit franchises” to individual cleaners at a very low price, supply the accounts and bill the customers, and the franchisee is effectively a subcontractor. Read each brand’s model before comparing costs.

What a cleaning franchise costs

Across the 125 brands on the cleaning list, the typical cost to open runs from $97K at the low end of each brand’s estimate to $165K at the high end. The low end is a small location in a cheaper market with little build-out; the high end a large site in an expensive one. Of these brands, 120 start at $250K or less and 64 at $100K or less.

Where the money goes

Each franchisor itemizes its cost to open. Grouping the lines for the 92 cleaning brands with a full breakdown shows what a typical budget pays for, as an average share of the high estimate, with the typical amount.

With no storefront, the franchise fee is usually the largest single line, often tied to the number of households or businesses in the territory. Vans and equipment come next for carpet and specialty brands; maid services mostly need cars, supplies and a small office. Working capital covers payroll and marketing while the schedule fills.

Cheapest and most expensive cleaning franchises

The cheapest cleaning brands with at least 20 US locations, by the low end of the cost to open. Use the full range on each brand’s page for budgeting, not the low end alone.

Fees and royalties

The typical cleaning brand charges a franchise fee of $40K, a royalty of 7% of sales and 2% to a marketing fund. Another 34 brands charge a flat or tiered royalty instead of a single percentage. Royalties and marketing come off sales before rent, staff or loan payments, so on a $470K year they cost about $42K. The fees and royalties guide compares industries.

What cleaning franchise locations sell

Of the cleaning brands, 32 publish a comparable yearly sales figure per location. The typical one is $470K, below the $797K typical across all brands.

Cleaning sales are mostly labor, so a location’s sales grow with the number of teams it runs rather than with any building. Recurring customers on a weekly or fortnightly schedule are what make a cleaning business valuable; ask owners what share of their sales are recurring and how many customers cancel each year.

Which cleaning franchises are growing

Of the 77 cleaning brands with three years of figures, 51 added US locations from 2023 to 2025 and 20 shrank. The typical brand with 20 or more locations changed by +4.8%, against +3.8% across all franchises.

The brands that lost the most locations were Chem-Dry (498), OpenWorks (252) and Coverall (248). The fastest-growing franchises ranking covers every industry.

Who runs a cleaning franchise

Of the cleaning brands whose agreements are clear, 73 let a trained manager run the business day to day and 45 require the owner to. Initial training typically runs 54 hours, against 71 across all brands. The typical brand loses 4.7% of its franchised locations a year to closures, terminations and non-renewals. On the SBA Franchise Directory are 54 of the 125 brands, so SBA-backed loans are available for them.

Best cleaning franchises to own

These cleaning brands pass all five tests on the best franchises to own ranking: they grew, lost no more owners than is typical, publish earnings figures, are on the SBA directory and had 100 or more US locations three years ago.

Before you buy a cleaning franchise

Cleaning brands lose owners faster than most: the typical brand here loses 4.7% of its franchised locations a year against 3.0% across all franchises, because the business is cheap to enter and hard to scale past the owner. Ask owners how long it took to hire their first team leader, what cleaners are paid compared with local retail, and how much the franchisor’s marketing brings in versus their own.

For commercial unit franchises, read exactly what the franchisor promises in accounts, what happens if an account is lost and what share of billing the franchisor keeps. The home-based franchises guide lists cleaning brands you can start without an office.