Cleaning is unglamorous and that is exactly why it pays. Move out cleans, rental turnovers, and recurring home cleaning are always in demand, and most of the competition is unreliable.
Pick your lane
Move out and turnover cleans pay the most per visit because the deadline is real: a new tenant or a listing date. Recurring home cleans pay less per visit but fill your calendar with steady weekly slots. Either lane works if you commit to it.
- Start with a basic kit: all purpose cleaner, degreaser, glass cleaner, microfiber cloths, gloves, vacuum.
- Build a per room checklist so every job comes out the same quality.
- Land one landlord, property manager, or rental host. They feed you repeat work.
- Before and after photos are your portfolio and your proof.
Show up on time, follow the checklist, and communicate clearly. In this business that alone puts you in the top tier.
Case study
Case study: Neel Parekh, MaidThis
In our own words. Original story linked below.
- Who
- Neel Parekh, founder and CEO of MaidThis, a cleaning company focused on homes and short term rental turnovers, including Airbnb and VRBO hosts.
- Starting point
- He was working at a private equity investment firm and wanted location freedom and a way to support his elderly parents. He tried other side hustles first, including an ecommerce site and blogging, with little traction.
- First moves
- After reading a detailed Reddit post from someone who started a cleaning company, he launched MaidThis in Los Angeles in early 2013.
- Spent about $800 total over two months to get running, built a basic website from a roughly $100 template, posted a Craigslist ad, interviewed his first cleaning team at a local Starbucks, and ran Google Ads.
- His first customer came on July 13, 2013. He started with one cleaner making $400 per week.
- What worked
- He picked a clear niche early: Airbnb hosts who needed fast, repeatable turnovers and easy online booking changes when reservations shifted. Turnover volume was higher than one off home cleans. He also leaned on online booking, digital marketing, and reviews at a time when many local cleaners did not, and he kept a retention focus with recurring discounts and calendar syncing for hosts.
- What to copy
- Pick one customer type first, such as rental hosts or busy homeowners, and build a checklist for that job. Make booking easy, protect your reviews, and aim for repeat bookings rather than only one off cleans. Hire carefully, because one bad cleaner can damage repeat business.
- Watch out
- Outlier flag. MaidThis later grossing over $100,000 a month for its home office locations and over $10 million in total revenue is not a typical cleaning start. Travel also hit the business hard in 2020, which shows turnover income can drop when travel drops. His own lesson was to hire slow and fire fast, because keeping weak cleaners to keep capacity caused more problems than it solved.
- Source
- Starter Story, How I Started A $100K+/Month Home Cleaning Service For Busy
Takeaway: Reliability is rare in cleaning. Be reliable and you will never lack work.