1. How to prepare to hire people
2. How to create a job description
3. How to screen applicants
4. How to conduct an interview (and what not to do)
5. How to provide a job offer
6. How to onboard employees
7. How to improve your employee retention

Step 1. How to prepare for the hiring process

1. Establish what positions you need to hire.
2. Get an employer identification number (if you don't already have one).
3. Create an employee handbook.
4. Establish employee benefits.
5. Implement a payroll system.
6. Purchase workers’ compensation insurance.
7. Get workplace posters.

Establish what positions you need to hire

• Should you hire hourly vs salary employees?
• Can you hire independent contractors or freelancers?
• Is it reasonable to expect one person to have all the specialized skills you need?
• What software are you consistently using?
• What is your company culture like? What type of person will fit well in it?
• Does the employee need to be on-premises, or can you hire remote employees?
• What is your company culture like? What type of person will fit well in it?

Each industry has different challenges

• Logistical 
• Healthcare
• Education

Get an employer identification number (EIN)

Create an employee handbook

What to include in a handbook

• Mission statement, company culture, and values
• Information required by an HR professional and legal professional
• Paid time off, benefits, and non-discrimination policies
• Obligations and rights of employees
• The company's expectations of employees
• Commitments the company makes to employees
• Link to the full company policies (I once had to review thousands of pages for an employer regarding complex legal requirements. Major corporations and franchises have a policy for almost everything. If you have contacts within major corporations, ask their HR and legal departments how they handle it.)

Establish employee benefits

• Healthcare
• Paid time off
• Remote work options
• Paid leave to care for kids and aging parents

1. Great insurance and 20 days of PTO per year
2. No benefits

Implement a payroll system

• ADP
• Gusto

Purchase workers’ compensation insurance

Get workplace posters

Step 2. How to create a job description

• Company Information: Tell people about your company. It helps you find the right candidates.
• Job Title: Include the official title the new employee will have.
• Salary: Many job boards will autofill this information if you don't include it.
• Job Description: Be clear about the activities the new employee will perform.
• Essential Abilities: What skills and software should qualified candidates know before starting?
• Preferred Qualifications: Give examples of experiences that an ideal candidate would have but aren't essential candidate's skills.
• Metrics: How you will measure the performance of the new hire.
• Why Choose You: The right candidate will make your company better than it currently is. Work to convince them that what they get from the deal is worth it; otherwise, you get deadbeats who just want to do a job and leave when they clock out.
• Locations: Where is the job located? If you want job seekers from a specific location, include it in the description.

1. Be transparent. You don't want to waste your time or anyone else's. Build it based on search engine optimization best practices.
2. Write your job descriptions using Search Engine Optimization best practices.
3. When comparing employee and business desires, employees want to work from home at a rate three times higher than business owners want to allow. If you can, allow remote work. Jessica specifically said:

Step 3. How to find employees to hire

• New hire referral programs
• Social media
• Job sites
• Recruiters

Try referral programs

• Four times more likely to be offered the job.
• Five percent more likely to accept the job offer.
• Nearly twice as likely to stay for over four years.

Post on social media

Don't forget to post on all the standard job boards

Work with recruiters

• Performing a background check
• Reporting to each state's labor department
• Withholding taxes
• Workers’ compensation
• Paying the Social Security Administration

Step 4. How to screen applicants

Step 5. How to conduct an interview (and what not to do)

• Starting the interview
• Good questions to ask
• Illegal questions to ask
• Resources

Starting the interview

1. Arrive early: 15–30 minutes early likely means they believe if you're not early, you are late.
2. Arrive on time: 15 minutes early to two minutes late means they believe in being on time.
3. Arrive late: If you are waiting on them, they likely have a diva mindset. They might view their time as more important than yours. I'd thank them for coming out, but I don't appreciate the "fashionably late" mentality.

Ask good questions

• Our weekends.
• Where the industry is going.
• Our interests.
• Where the company is going.
• How we can create a mutually beneficial scenario.

Ask open-ended questions, but make them meaningful

Congratulations! You get to deal with the Labor Board!

• Race
• Age
• Marital status
• Sexual orientation
• Transportation (except for a reliable way to get to work)
• Health conditions

Step 6. How to hire the right employees

• Title: You should have this match the title on the job description.
• Start Date: The first day of work is when the employee starts the job.
• Pay: Specify the amount and payment frequency. Make sure it is over minimum wage.
• Type of employment: Specify whether the offer is hourly, full-time, part-time, contract and duration, or for an independent contractor.
• Benefits: List any additional compensation like PTO, health care, etc.
• Intellectual property (IP) guidelines: Specify how intellectual property is used. Who owns it, how can previous IP can be used in the company services? These are mostly in tech-related concepts.
• Non-compete agreement (if applicable): Use these sparingly. Unless the employee has enough information to destroy your company by selling it to a competitor, you probably don't need these. Here's a non-compete template.
• Non-disclosure agreement (if applicable): Use a Form to prevent sharing insider information. Disclosing this information could be a violation of security laws. It also can harm the company. These are fairly standard practice.

Step 7. What to do after hiring employees

• W-4 form: Employee fills this out to specify how to withhold taxes. A W-9 is for tax purposes for independent contractors. These are necessary to calculate payroll taxes and income tax and send employment taxes to the federal government.
• I-9 form: Submit to the federal government to prove employment eligibility.
  • E-Verify system: Verify employee eligibility in the U.S. without any paper.
• State tax withholding form: If your state has an income tax, you'll need to provide employees your state's tax agency form.
• Direct deposit form: You'll need to provide a direct deposit form to know how to pay an employee.
• E-Verify system: This is not a form but a way to verify employee eligibility in the U.S.

Bonus Step: How to improve your employee retention

• Improve your benefits package.
• Pay more.
• Recruit staff.
• Add transparency to the steps of the hiring process.
• Perform exit surveys.

Friendly Reminder About Hiring

Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring

How to hire 1099 employees

1. Prepare to hire people. (You won’t need to do tax deductions.)
2. Create a job description.
3. Find applicants.
4. Screen job hunters.
5. Interview potential candidates.
6. Offer the best candidate a job.
7. Onboard employee. (You’ll use a W-9 instead of a W-4.)

How to hire your first employees

1. Establish what you need to hire employees to do.
2. Get an EIN if you don’t already have one.
3. Create an employee handbook.
4. Establish a benefits package.
5. Get a payroll provider. 
6. Purchase workers’ compensation.
7. Get workplace posters.
8. Follow the rest of our guide.

How to hire employees for a startup

1. Prepare to hire people. (Consult a lawyer about alternative forms of payment.)
2. Create a job description. (Make sure to include information about the alternative payments.)
3. Find applicants with diverse backgrounds.
4. Screen job hunters.
5. Interview potential candidates and make sure they understand the pay. Have a lawyer advise you regarding communications if you plan to offer pay in stock (because you can’t ask about their finances).
6. Offer the best candidate a job.
7. Onboard the employee.

[/su_note]

How to hire diverse employees

• Go to college job fairs.
• Use TikTok to find employees.
• Ask minority influencers to help you find candidates.

How to hire part-time employees

1. People spend time getting ready for work, going to the location, and going home. Let them choose how they want to get their hours. They might prefer six 4-hour days or three 8-hour days, and with a little creativity, you can work with that either way.
2. Make sure to keep their shifts consistent. Unless you are paying them $5K per month for part time work, they need a second job.
3. The quality of employees is equal to the quality of treatment. They know you are hiring part time to avoid benefits. Be nice. Seriously. Low-paying jobs tend to be customer-facing. That means they deal with rude people all day long. Treat them well. Otherwise, they’ll run away like an ostrich.

How to hire temporary employees

How to hire good employees

1. Industry-leading pay: Just disclosing your pay for each position improves your success. In Colorado, job postings dropped by 8.2% while the participation rate increased by 1.5%. If you really want to lead your industry in pay, the average 1-bedroom is $1,326 per month and people have to make three times that ($3,978 or $24.86 per hour). I know that sounds crazy, but at those wages, you’ll be getting much better candidates. Even $2 over the median pay will normally lead to better employees.
2. Generous time off: People have lives. They have stuff come up. We all know we don’t own our employees, but sometimes we get so focused on our own problems we forget to be compassionate about others. If you fall into this category, it’s your responsibility to train yourself to be more compassionate. It’s hard. I struggle with it every day, but we have to try to be good to those around us. Don’t make them beg for time off.
3. Remote work when possible: Many positions don’t require people to be in the same space. If they can work from home, let them. You just need systems that make it easy to do so. The additional costs should be made up by better efficiency.
4. Don’t skimp on benefits: Let people choose the benefits that are right for them. With medical insurance, don’t offer minimum wage employees plans with $10K deductibles. They are unusable.

How to hire international employees

How to hire remote employees

• Upwork
• Freelancer
• Fiverr
• Toptal

What Part of the Hiring Process Do You Find Most Challenging?

Get ready for the most boring blog you’ve ever read! In just a few minutes’ time, you’ll know a lot more about 17 boring businesses that could bring in serious revenue.

In this post, we’ll discuss an array of boring business ideas and explain how to start or buy them. We’ll also provide some general tips on what to look for when investing in boring businesses.

By the time you finish reading, you’ll know which boring business is right for you, and how to make it profitable.

[su_note note_color="#dbeafc"]
Click on any of the boring links below for more information on the “boring business” model, or just continue reading.

• What are boring businesses?
• Best boring businesses to buy
• How to buy a boring business
• Property management businesses
• More boring business ideas
• ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the most boring business of them all?’
• Start your own business [/su_note]

What are boring businesses?

The term “boring business” has become popular because of Codie Sanchez, the owner of the business education service Contrarian Thinking. A major part of her wealth-building strategy is buying boring businesses.

A boring business is defined by four characteristics. It is:

1. Stale: There is little to no disruptive innovation opportunity in the business model, which means you can implement best practices and let the business run with minimal participation.
2. Old: An old business is at least five years old. The older the small business is, the more likely it is to remain successful.
3. Weak: Industries with less competition or lots of dissatisfied customers tend to find it easier to stand out from the pack by simply improving customer service.
4. Simple: You want a small business model that is easy to understand, doesn’t require research and development costs, and has clear opportunities to improve service or technology to improve profit margins.

You might hear this boring business framework called SOWS for short.

Best boring businesses to buy

The industries in this list aren’t the sexiest, but they offer essential services and make a steady income with recurring revenue. Steady income means there aren’t huge fluctuations in cash flow; recurring revenue is achieved by having customers return regularly.

Many have low startup costs and can serve as passive income streams.

The boring business ideas below can help you hit the ground running as a business owner.

1. Laundromats
2. Car washes
3. Vending machines
4. ATMs
5. Franchises
6. Rental properties
7. Home maintenance
8. Office supplies
9. Bookkeeping
10.  Storage units
11.  Landscaping
12.  Shipping centers
13.  Ice vending
14.  Renting your car
15.  Pre-made meals
16.  Petsitting
17.  Waste removal

Keep reading to get the low-down on each boring business.

#1. Laundromats

• Average Annual Revenue: $311,220
• Average Profit Margins: 22.10%
• Startup Cost: $100K-$3.5M
• Time to Revenue: 6-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: -0.1%
• Best For: Customer service pros with high attention to detail

Laundromats have recurring revenue and provide a valuable service for the 16% of American households that do not have washers and dryers in their homes.

These small businesses provide a steady income because Americans do an average of eight loads of laundry per week, and laundromats charge $2 to $4 per load.

Laundromats in zip codes below the poverty line will normally have the most profit potential. Cities like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles have higher percentages of people without laundry machines in their homes.

#2. Car washes

• Average Annual Revenue: $73,100
• Average Profit Margins: 16.10%
• Startup Cost: $500+
• Time to Revenue: 3+ months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 1%
• Best For: Car enthusiasts and detail-oriented entrepreneurs

A car wash is another boring business with heavy cash flow.

With a quick online search, you can find lots of car washes for sale. Sometimes, you can find them for as low as the cost of the land. From there, you can increase cash flow with simple fixes like adding automation, cashless payments, or even leasing extra space to other businesses.

You’ll also be able to use the land to secure capital through small business loans and grow your business empire faster.

#3. Vending machines

• Average Annual Revenue: $182,100
• Average Profit Margins: 4.30%
• Startup Cost: $2K-$10K
• Time to Revenue: 3+ months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 0.5%
• Best For: Organized entrepreneurs who like driving, people who want a semi-passive business

Automated vending appears to have a small growth rate and average profit margins. Meanwhile, it’s one of those business opportunities that combines low startup costs and good cash flow, and it gets more profitable as you add more machines to a route.

Just ask vending machine business owner Adam Hill, who makes $700K per year working just two days per week.

Did you enjoy the video? Check out our vending machine business course.

#4. ATMs

• Average Annual Revenue: $182,100
• Average Profit Margins: 4.30%
• Startup Cost: $2K-$10K
• Time to Revenue: 3+ months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 0.50%
• Best For: Organized entrepreneurs who like driving, people who want a semi-passive business

Another boring business you can start is placing ATMs in other small businesses. Many businesses need ATMs but don’t want to manage them. You’ll make $2 to $5 per transaction, and potentially even more in high-demand areas, like Vegas casinos.

You can manage the services or turn the revenue into 100% passive income by using services like ATM Together, which help (or completely) set up your business.

There are even specialized ATMs like Bitcoin ATMs or Coinstar.

#5. Franchises

• Average Annual Revenue: $621,212
• Average Profit Margins: Varies by industry
• Startup Cost: $1K-$3.5M
• Time to Revenue: 3-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: Varies by industry
• Best For: People who want to skip the trial-and-error phase of small businesses

Companies in several industries offer franchising opportunities, making it easy to start making money as a business owner.

Over 10% of companies are a franchise, and franchises account for 3% of GDP. The McDonald’s down the street, for instance, is likely a franchise, meaning it’s owned and run by an independent franchisee with the company’s permission.

Franchises are boring businesses because the business model's success has already been proven and you can use existing intellectual property and processes in day-to-day operations to make a great living.

If you’re ready to buy a small business, check out our blog on the best franchises to own.

#6. Rental properties

• Average Annual Revenue: $27,375 per home
• Average Profit Margins: -11% to +10%
• Startup Cost: $60K+
• Time to Revenue: 3-12 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: Fluctuates with tourism and value compared to hotels
• Best For: Recognized real estate professionals or service business owners

Real estate ownership is the number one driver of wealth for most American households. In fact, second homes contribute to wealth creation in 4% to 6% of the population. That makes rental properties a great way to earn more money and develop a steady stream of recurring revenue.

Two particularly successful rental property management strategies include opening Airbnb rentals and buying and leasing quadplexes.

Find out how to turn real estate rentals into a $3M per year business below:

#7. Home maintenance services

• Average Annual Revenue: $204,700
• Average Profit Margins: 5.40%
• Startup Cost: $500-$5K
• Time to Revenue: 3+ months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 0.7%
• Best For: Construction and repair pros, creative problem solvers, outgoing and hands-on entrepreneurs

Providing home maintenance can be a very consistent way to earn money because you’re providing an essential service. It’s also one of the few small businesses in the construction industry that doesn’t require a contractor's license.

Learn how to start a home maintenance service company from a handyman making $250K per year with just two trucks.

#8. Office supplies

• Average Annual Revenue: $1.94M
• Average Profit Margins: .9%
• Startup Cost: $100-$5K
• Time to Revenue: 1-3 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: -2.3%
• Best For: SEO experts and people who are great at finding low-competition keywords

The office supply industry can be risky to invest money in because there is declining demand for many of the products they offer. But there are plenty of ways to get customers, especially if you run an online business.

You can make a steady stream from eCommerce if you offer business supplies with a dropshipping business model. If you have a physical location, you can include services-based offerings, like graphic design, printing, and shipping.

#9. Bookkeeping

• Average Annual Revenue: $1.57M
• Average Profit Margins: 18%
• Startup Cost: $500-$5K
• Time to Revenue: 1-3 months (not including time training as a CPA)
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 1.7%
• Best For: CPAs, finance experts, entrepreneurs with strong math skills

One of the most boring businesses you can conceive of is an accounting or bookkeeping business.

There’s a high demand for these services because 33 million small businesses and 124 million U.S. households need tax advice and other services. You can increase your success by specializing in niche areas, like eCommerce accounting.

Of course, accountants and bookkeepers require specialized education.

#10. Storage units

• Average Annual Revenue: $135,882
• Average Profit Margins: 66.5%
• Startup Cost: $100K-$10 million
• Time to Revenue: 6-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: -1.8%
• Best For: Commercial landowners, remote workers, and people who like having spare time during their day job

When you invest in storage space, most of the cost will be the purchase of the building and any upgrades you do. Many businesses in this industry can be turned into almost entirely passive income sources by adding keypads, automated locks, and online booking.

#11. Landscaping companies

• Average Annual Revenue: $272,790
• Average Profit Margins: 8.7%
• Startup Cost: $1K-$100K
• Time to Revenue: 1-3 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 8.1%
• Best For: Gardeners, landscape designers, people who love hands-on, outdoor work

There’s constant demand in this growing market, and there’s also great opportunity.

Most landscaping companies lose 8% to 10% of their customers each year, and their biggest challenge is when people aren’t happy with their services. That makes the industry ripe for businesses that focus on offering clients great customer service. If you can automate the business processes, your revenue could increase even more.

Mike Andes started in landscaping services when he was just a teenager, and today, he’s sold over 133 Augusta Lawn Care Services franchises and has expanded into real estate. Check out our playlist of interviews with Mike Andes below:

#12. Cleaning companies

• Average Annual Revenue: $755,180 ($62K for solo)
• Average Profit Margins: 10.8%
• Startup Cost: $1K+
• Time to Revenue: 1-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 5.1%
• Best For: Friendly professionals with an attention to detail

This boring business idea is in high demand. You can clean homes on a one-time or routine basis, and people pay good money for it.

Before you invest in a cleaning business, review our resources for cleaning businesses that we created with Chris Mondragon. He’s a featured speaker at housecleaning conventions and runs a multi-million-dollar house and Airbnb cleaning service.

We even have a cleaning business course that promises to help you earn $10K and comes with a 90-day refund policy.

#13. Parking lots

• Average Annual Revenue: $1.47M
• Average Profit Margins: 5% to 10%
• Startup Cost: $100K-$3.5M
• Time to Revenue: 6-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 4.3%
• Best For: Landowners in high-traffic areas

Owning parking lots is perfect for people who want to run an automated business or sit outside all day at work.

Many businesses in this industry have lots of land in high-demand areas, like downtown in major cities. They charge by the hour and make money accepting cash and credit cards, so no one is required to be on site.

Parking lot owners commonly have relationships with the local government so law enforcement tickets people who don’t pay to use their parking spaces.

#14. Dry cleaning

• Average Annual Revenue: $265,808
• Average Profit Margins: 22.10%
• Startup Cost: $100K-$3.M
• Time to Revenue: 6-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: -6.7%
• Best For: Customer service pros with high attention to detail

Dry cleaning can be decent money, but the industry is in decline with the rise of work-from-home jobs. That just means you have opportunities to buy businesses at a discount.

Many of the dry cleaners for sale online are asking for less than two times the annual cash flow. If you buy them using seller financing with 20% of the money down, you could buy a dry cleaner for as little as $20K now and pay it off over time.

For more on seller financing, check out our guide to buying businesses with little to no money.

You may have difficulty getting loans from traditional lenders when considering this investment because of the industry decline.

#15. Pre-made meals

• Average Annual Revenue: $25.4M
• Average Profit Margins:1%-10%
• Startup Cost: $1K+
• Time to Revenue: 1-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 7%
• Best For: People who love cooking

Providing customers with pre-proportioned meals is boring because it consists of primarily repetitive tasks and has a low profit margin.

A small business in this industry makes money by cooking food in bulk and breaking it into individual meals. Its clients are mostly busy professionals who want to eat healthier and don’t have time to do their own meal prep.

People can pay by the meal and may get a discount if they return the reusable packaging.

#16. Pet sitting

• Average Annual Revenue: $73,533
• Average Profit Margins: 11.5%
• Startup Cost: $1K-$100K
• Time to Revenue: 3+ months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 1.1%
• Best For: Pet lovers and experts, salon and grooming professionals, empathetic and detail-oriented entrepreneurs with strong customer service skills

Pet sitting and grooming companies are boring business ideas that can make decent profits. They aren’t high-growth and are labor-intensive, but you get to play with cute dogs and kitties.

Martin Burt and his wife explain how to start a pet sitting business in our definitive guide. We have information on pet boarding, too.

#17. Waste management

• Average Annual Revenue: $8.72M
• Average Profit Margins: 7.29%
• Startup Cost: $1K+
• Time to Revenue: 3-18 months
• Annual Market Growth Rate: 1.9%
• Best For: Customer service pros with high attention to detail

Waste management companies remove junk from sites and take it to the dump. Society’s reliance on them is here to stay.

When you buy a waste removal business, you’ll want one with employees already if you’d like it to be a passive income source. Otherwise, you’ll have to work in the business until the hiring systems, insurance, and payroll are in place.

Learn how Kyle Landwehr started his junk hauling business and turned it into a $3 million per year business.

Next, let’s look at how to buy a business with little money and convert it into a steady stream of revenue.

How to buy a boring business

You can buy many small businesses with less capital than it takes to start a new business, but you’ll need to go through a defined process before you invest. We suggest the following process for buying businesses:

1. Work with business brokers.
2. Identify your goals.
3. Find the right business for sale.
4. Value the business.
5. Negotiate the deal.
6. Close the deal and transition into ownership.

You’ll specifically want to master securing seller financing to achieve the most success when pursuing boring businesses for sale. Again, you can learn about the process in our blog about how to buy a business without money.

Now let’s look at a list of property management businesses that can help you make a great living.

Property management businesses

Real estate and property management businesses are boring businesses that lots of people look to for investment opportunities. Whether you’re just getting started in the real estate investment world or have years in the space, you can make a great living.

You’ll earn cash flow, at least, but you may also earn additional funds from appreciation of assets when you sell them. Check out the list of real estate businesses I love:

• Airbnb rentals
• Apartment buildings
• Car washes
• Farmland
• Mailbox centers
• Mobile home parks
• Property management and repair companies
• Quadplexes
• Rental arbitrage
• RV parks
• Storage space rentals
• Tiny home rentals

The best thing about these boring businesses is you can manage your entire investment portfolio from a single platform and website, which makes it easier to manage multiple businesses as the demand grows.

More boring business ideas

Want more bloody boring business ideas?

Check out the list of 99 more boring businesses below!

Now you have plenty of boring businesses to consider buying or starting up. They span several industries and skill sets. You might want to start with a business that costs less and build up to more expensive ones as you develop wealth.

‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the most boring business of them all?’

The Boring Company is the most boring business in all the world. Seriously! 

Maybe not the take on “boring” you expected, but Elon Musk started The Boring Company because he was tired of dealing with traffic.

The Boring Company uses boring machines called Prufrocks to bore tunnels at a rate of one mile per week, but they aim to eventually bore seven times faster than that. The tunnels are used to transport passengers around the Las Vegas Convention Center and to Resorts World in Tesla vehicles. There are other tunnels in the works.

Start your own business

The world is full of opportunities with lots of demand and not a lot of competition. It’s up to you to find the boring businesses that work for your portfolio.

What boring businesses do you find the most appealing for your investment strategy?

Professional house cleaning is a major industry. The global cleaning industry is currently valued at over $55 billion, and that’s expected to double by 2030. That means it's a great market for new entrants, but you'll need a house cleaning pricing guide to make sure you charge properly, which is exactly what we provide here.

[su_note note_color="#dbeafc"] Read from start to finish or click any of the links below to jump to the section you need right now.

• Case study: Queen Bee Cleaning
• How much to charge for cleaning a house
• What kind of house cleaning services should I provide?
• Ways to charge for professional house cleaning
• Sign up for our exclusive 7-Figure Cleaning Business Blueprint[/su_note]

Case study: Queen Bee Cleaning

Chris Mondragon’s wife started cleaning houses in 2015 to make some extra money. Their company, Queen Bee Cleaning, took off so quickly Chris quit his job and helped build it into a $1.5 million empire. Today, Queen Bee is also top-rated on Nextdoor, Yelp, Houzz, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Porch.

We'll share Chris’s insights to help you create a cleaning pricing guide that will allow you to make a great living in the house cleaning services industry. We'll cover the types of services and different ways to charge—and share a pricing list.

Keep reading for a rare opportunity to learn Chris's unique pricing strategies from his UpFlip-exclusive course. You'll discover exactly how he prices his cleaning services, which skyrocketed the growth of his business to $4.5M in record time.

How much to charge for cleaning a house

House cleaning prices for a home should be between $100 and $800, but each house cleaning service will have different prices depending on the size of the home, the type of cleaning, and where you live.

There are three typical ways house cleaning prices are calculated by a house cleaner:

• Hourly: $25 to $90 per hour, per cleaner
• Flat fee: $100 to $800 weekly or biweekly for standard cleaning of a single-family home
• Room rate: $100 for 1 bed/1 bath + $10 to $20 for each additional bedroom and bathroom
• Per square foot: $0.05 to $0.10 per square foot

Now that you know how much to clean a home, let’s discuss the different kinds of house cleaning services.

What kind of house cleaning services should I provide?

A housecleaning service will normally offer other services besides just cleaning homes for people who live in them. They may also provide services for Airbnbs, moving, apartments, and commercial spaces. For instance, Queen Bee also offers:

1. Airbnb cleaning
2. Carpet cleaning
3. Disinfecting services
4. Home cleaning
5. Move-in cleaning
6. Deep cleaning
7. Move-out cleaning
8. Office and commercial cleaning

Chris told us:

[su_quote]If I was to start today, I would probably focus on Airbnb cleaning because it has a higher profit margin.[/su_quote]

For standard house cleaning services, Queen Bee includes:

• Dusting all furniture, walls, fans, counters, and other hard surfaces
• Vacuuming all floors
• Mopping wood, marble, tile, and linoleum floors
• Mirror and window cleaning with a glass cleaner
• Cleaning and sanitizing all bathroom surfaces including toilets, sinks, tubs, and showers
• Sanitizing all kitchen surfaces including inside the microwave and the front of the fridge
• Spot-cleaning cabinets
• Changing linens (if fresh linens are left out) and making beds
• Emptying the trash and relining the trash can before exiting each room

These are just some of the house cleaning services Queen Bee offers. You can find Chris’s complete cleaning services checklist, including 11 add-ons, in our Cleaning Business Master Course.

Let's look at what you might offer as the owner of your own house cleaning business, starting with Airbnb cleaning.

What should I include in Airbnb cleaning services?

In addition to your standard offerings as a house cleaning service, Chris suggests maintaining an inventory of your own supplies to replace toiletries, kitchen essentials, and linens. For the laundry portion, you'll need to have someone do laundry or partner with a laundry service.

He also told us:

[su_quote]I charge extra for the toiletries and linens, but it basically takes me the same time as a normal home clean.[/su_quote]

Check out our interview with Chris below:

[su_youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Iip7BHXwg"]

What should I include in carpet cleaning services?

Carpet cleaning services focus only on rugs, carpets, and other floorings. You'll need to assess your time differently from other services and have the special cleaning equipment to do the job best.

Chris shared his cleaning pricing guide for carpet cleaning, and it includes five main cleaning points with time and price for:

1. Rooms
2. Hallways
3. Landings
4. Each stair
5. Rugs

It's typical for a carpet cleaning business to have a minimum amount, such as $99 for two bedrooms.

What should I include in disinfecting services?

Disinfecting services are focused on cleaning surfaces with medical-grade cleaning products. The goal here is on keeping the space particularly clean in a way that helps to minimize germs. I would imagine this is popular for businesses or households that have had a COVID outbreak.

Christ told us:

[su_quote]Eliminating germs & pathogens requires more than just a wipe of a towel with bleach. We use an electrostatic sprayer to apply the disinfectant. The sprayer ‘loads’ the mist with a positive charge, making the disinfectant stick to all surfaces killing 99% of the pathogens. Our hospital-grade disinfectant is an EPA-certified product safe to use around children and pets [that’s] safe on all surfaces.[/su_quote]

What should I include in deep cleaning services?

Deep cleaning services should include everything you do in standard house cleaning, plus baseboards and behind furniture. Chris also includes dishes in his standard deep clean service and offers a variety of additional offerings.

How much does a deep clean cost?

Deep cleaning services are normally charged at a premium compared to a standard cleaning price. For Queen Bee clients, deep house cleaning costs between $199 and $319 above the standard house cleaning prices.

So, once you know how much you'll charge for regular services, it's easy to decide how much to charge for deep cleaning a house.

What should I include in a move-out cleaning service?

Move-out cleaning is a service offered to renters to help them save time and money by helping them get their deposits back. These services include:

• Thoroughly cleaning all counters, cabinets, and appliances
• Cleaning bathrooms, including toilets, sinks, and showers
• Cleaning floors and carpets
• Wiping down light switches, walls, and doorknobs
• Disposing of any expired food items
• Deep-cleaning the oven

Chris recommends using the move-out checklist provided by the client's landlord as the basis for bidding on the cleaning job and told us:

[su_quote]I charge $279 to $479 more for move-out cleaning costs than my standard cleaning rates.[/su_quote]

Want more great tips like this? Check out all of our UpFlip courses.

What should I include in office and commercial cleaning?

Offices and commercial cleaning jobs are different for every building. Chris recommends touring the property and establishing the following:

• Square footage
• Number of desks
• Percent of floors that are carpet and tile
• Number of windows
• Number of toilets and sinks
• Square footage of counters
• Kitchens in the building
• Parking lots
• Special requirements

These jobs can be more complex, but businesses need more routine cleaning services, which could be a win for you. Commercial buildings also tend to be better suited for pricing per square foot because you can assign a price per square foot to each task and then just multiply quantities. It might look like the table below. (Note that sqft = square feet.)

House cleaning prices vs. operating costs

Every cleaning company will have costs associated with operating. One powerful difference between a successful cleaning business and other cleaning companies is how well the business owner manages their cleaning costs. Your house cleaning prices need to cover the following expenses:

1. Payroll expenses, taxes
2. Marketing costs
3. Cleaning supplies
4. Fuel
5. Repairs
6. Rent
7. Utilities
8. Professional fees

Based on Queen Bee Cleaning Service's annual expenses, you might expect your total overhead costs to be approximately 87% of the amount that you make if you have employees. If you are a single-person house cleaner, the total overhead will be between 30% and 50%.

In the following sections, we share a few examples. You can use similar math regardless of what type of cleaning business you run. Queen Bee is primarily house cleaning, so I refer to house cleaners in these sections.

Let's look at each of these to give you an idea of what they are for Queen Bee and what you can expect to pay when you start to charge for housecleaning.

How labor impacts house cleaning prices

Labor typically accounts for approximately 50% of the costs of running a house cleaning company. Whether this amount is going to you or your employees will vary. If you have employees, you'll typically need to pay them either an hourly rate or billable hours.

Just make sure you don't try to consider them independent contractors. Chris told us:

[su_quote]I was misclassifying the maids and got a hefty fine.[/su_quote]

To help establish an hourly rate, check what house cleaning companies in your area pay their housekeepers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a lot of data on the hourly rate of the house cleaning industry, too. In most places, a house cleaner will be paid an hourly rate of $15 or more.

Remember to train your staff well because employee efficiency can impact both quality and overhead.

Assuming the following:

• Employee pay: $15 per hour
• Employee hourly rate, revenue: 50%
• Number of people on cleaning crew: Two

You'll want to charge the customer no less than $60 per hour. That is far lower than the cleaning rates for many house cleaning companies. The reason is that a house cleaner has other costs that go into the standard cleaning fees.

Payroll expenses, taxes

On top of employee pay, your house cleaning price will also need to cover the costs of payroll expenses and taxes. The government requires employers to collect:

• Income taxes: You'll need to withhold these for all employees using the information in Publication 15-T.
• Payroll taxes: The employee pays 7.65%, and the employer pays 7.65%.
• State taxes: There are seven states without income taxes. You'll have to collect these from employee pay unless you live in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, or Wyoming.
• Other deductions: Insurance, 401K, etc., will be deducted if you offer them.

There are a lot of tasks associated with compliance, so you may want to outsource your human resources. Most of these services start around $39 per month plus $6 per month for each employee.

The 7.65% tax increases the $60 per hour fee to $65 per hour, which is starting to get closer to the cleaning rates of industry leader Molly Maid, which charges $75 to $96 per hour for a basic cleaning package.

Your revenue will also need to cover other costs such as cleaning supplies, which we'll discuss next.

Cleaning supplies

Based on standard cleaning services, you'll probably need to spend an average of $3 to $5 per hour on cleaning supplies. You'll be buying these in bulk to save money, but Chris estimates that the supply list for many cleaning companies will be around $900 for startup costs.

That means a rate of $70 per hour, which gets us even closer to the price your house cleaning service needs to charge.

Vehicle, fuel, insurance, and repairs

Local businesses will have to drive to provide weekly cleaning to residential and commercial clients. That means you'll need to maintain the vehicle and meet insurance requirements. At Queen Bee, these costs are approximately 17% of the revenue.

This is why your credit score is so important to businesses. Bankrate estimates that insurance costs 25% more for an average credit score than excellent credit, and those with poor credit spend twice as much as any other group.

If you add 17% to the $70 cleaning crew rate, that brings you to $81.9 per hour—without any administrative costs, marketing costs, rent, or other utilities.

Marketing and administration costs

The Small Business Administration advises spending 5% to 15% of your desired revenue on marketing your cleaning business (or any other business). Chris doesn't think you need to spend that much, though

If you have good software, you can automate many of your tasks and reduce the final cost of operating. Chris runs his marketing for between 2.4% and 6.2% of revenue per month, with the lower percentages during the holidays.

Pro Tip: To learn some of the ways Chris uses marketing, check out our blog on getting clients, and don’t miss our original report on small business marketing budget statistics that will help you make the most of your marketing spend.

Rent

Chris’s rent and utilities are based on running a home-based business. These are marvelous because they are mostly legal accounting maneuvers. If you store supplies in your home or do office work out of it, you can claim the space you use and the energy associated with it on your taxes.

There are a lot of rules governing this, but if you choose the simplified method of claiming, you get an allowance of up to $1,500 a year. If use your the actual expenses, it can go higher (but may increase the chances of an audit). You'll want to measure the square footage of the space used.

You don't have to include the costs of operating from home in your house cleaning cost, but if you do, it will raise the hourly rate by about $1 per hour.

Utilities

If you have a home-based business, you'll be using the energy associated with work as a write-off, but if you have a separate location where you store everything, you'll need to cover those costs.

Utilities shouldn't be too much unless your cleaning business does a lot of laundry or manufacturing in-house. To give you an idea, Chris only spends about $300 per month on utilities.

Professional fees

Local companies will often need a lawyer and an accountant to help them structure their domestic services correctly. You'll want to budget for these. Chris assumes approximately $1,000 per month for his cleaning company, but different cleaning services will have different needs.

Ways to charge for professional house cleaning

There are a variety of ways to charge for a cleaning service. We'll cover the most common pricing strategies cleaning businesses use, including:

• Charging by the hour
• Pricing per square foot
• Pricing per room
• Comparing house cleaning prices in your area
• Offering weekly cleaning subscriptions with discounts
• Proposing household chores as add-ons
• Giving free estimates

How much to charge for house cleaning per hour

The hourly rate for house cleaning is the easiest pricing structure to use, but it can create fluctuations in costs based on how long it takes to clean the property. This works best if the client provides all the cleaning supplies and just needs someone to help. You might want to do this if a client wants specific eco-friendly or other specific cleaning supplies.

You'll probably want to charge higher for the first hour. I typically assume that it will cost me $50 just to drive somewhere. Based on Queen Bee's pricing guide, Chris has established that cleaning services prices should be approximately $70 for the travel costs and booking fees.

To calculate how much you want to charge, assume:

• 2,000 hours per year
• 65% profit margin when you are the worker or 15% when someone else is doing the work
• Your income goals (let's say $100K per year to start)

Divide your income goal by the hours in a year to get an hourly rate. See the example below:

$100,000 / 2,000 = $50 per hour

$50 per hour would be revenue, though. To calculate the profit, you'd need to divide the hourly by .65.

$50 / .65 = $76.92 per hour

Let's make it a nice even number, so it's easy to multiply and make it a straight $80 per hour. You need to add your first-hour fee, though. Let's use the $70 Chris uses, and that will make the first hour $150, and each additional hour $80.

That means you need five hourly cleaners to make the same $100K profit you would if you were doing all the cleaning yourself. Now, if you have five employees plus yourself, you can make $200K per year after paying your employees their house cleaning rates per hour.

How to calculate cleaning cost per square foot pricing

The price per square foot is straightforward to estimate. Given that almost every address has a public record, you can look it up to see how many square feet their house is. Then to charge by the square foot, multiply the square feet by 20 cents (or divide by five).

Example: How much should I charge to clean a 2,000 sq ft house?

2,000 x $.20 = $400

2,000 / 5 = $400

Example: How much should I charge to clean a 3,000 sq ft house?

You can make it more complicated and separate it by carpet and tile, where the carpet is 20 cents and tile is 25 (examples for easy math).

(2,000*$0.20) + (1,000*$0.25) = $650

As you can see, the square foot billing can change based on the type of cleaning.

How much does it cost to clean a house per room?

Another easy way is to price by the room or by the fixture. Chris charges a fee per room plus fees for other specific tasks. For instance, he has a table that details:

• 1- to 10-room pricing
• Full restroom pricing
• Half bath pricing
• Add-ons like full window cleaning

Each has a specific price, so he can quickly estimate based on the number of rooms, restrooms, and add-ons. You should really check out how he does it on the Queen Bee Cleaning Service booking page.

Pro Tip: Chris uses Booking Koala to automate the whole booking process. Check it out, and let us know what you think!

How much do other cleaning services charge?

Professional cleaners have plenty of sites to help evaluate the average house cleaning cost in their areas. Many of the sites are the same ones you'll use to find customers for your house cleaning service.

For instance, Thumbtack makes it easy to establish the rates house cleaners charge in a particular area. While you're on the site, you might want to sign up to provide cleaning services.

Offer weekly cleaning service discounts

Whether you are a residential cleaning business or offer commercial cleaning services, your cleaning company can benefit tremendously by offering regular cleaning services at a discount to loyal customers.

House cleaners benefit from offering discounts for routine cleaning in the following ways:

1. Increased efficiency: Less travel time, more cleaning jobs completed per day, reduced house cleaning costs.
2. Better forecasting: Order your own cleaning supplies with more accurate forecasts.
3. Better scheduling: You can schedule house cleaners working each day more effectively.
4. Better cash flow: The more of your cleaning jobs that occur on a recurring basis, the better your cash flow will be.
5. Reduces churn: CB Insights says that subscription models change the customer retention dynamic from mostly churning to mostly retention.
6. Increases lifetime value: The value of a customer increases consistently over time.
7. Reduced marketing costs: Your cleaning company will be able to spend less on marketing when you have higher retention rates.
8. Lower overhead-to-revenue ratio: As a cleaning company's recurring jobs grow, the overhead stays the same until you have to invest in more equipment or administration.
9. Happier customers: Everyone (except maybe hoarders) loves a clean home! Someone coming in each week and cleaning their home will delight customers.

When you have long-term relationships you may want to have a commercial cleaning contract. Chris doesn't use them, but a lot of his suggestions still work for contracts.

We used the pricing from Queen Bee Cleaning Service to show how their subscription model increases the revenue over the course of a year. As you can see, offering a 10% monthly, 15% bi-weekly, and 20% weekly discount can dramatically increase the revenue of a house cleaning business.

How much do house cleaners charge for add-ons?

Customers might want you to offer other services like appliance cleaning. Anticipate this and have easy ways to calculate cleaning cost estimates. Some of the most common add-ons are:

• Deep house cleaning
• Appliance cleaning
• Laundry
• Dishes
• Indoor and outdoor window washing
• Carpet cleaning

You can add each of these to the house cleaning cost to help improve your revenue per cleaning job. A $200 cleaning job easily turns into a full day if someone wants all the add-ons. It will increase the cleaning rate to potentially as high as $1,000 and make it so your cleaning crew only has to clean one house that day.

That's great for reducing expenses!

How much do house cleaners make for estimates?

Whether you are doing a deep clean, home cleaning, or post-construction cleaning, people love free stuff, and businesses should, too!

Chris told us:

[su_quote]Most people don't know the square footage of their house.[/su_quote]

A free estimate gives you a chance to view the property, manage the risk of underestimating with a flat rate, and establish the square footage and whether it needs a deep clean. Plus, it gives you a chance to develop a relationship, ask questions, and help your customer develop a plan. This may increase overhead costs, but it builds loyalty.

Sign up for our exclusive 7-Figure Cleaning Business Blueprint

Knowing how to correctly price your cleaning services determines if your business will grow and prosper, or fail before it even gets off the ground. Chris will show you the best pricing strategies so you can start earning $10,000 a month in just three months as you launch your business! Sign up for our exclusive seven-figure cleaning course today by clicking here.

What type of pricing do you plan to adopt with your cleaning business?