Residential cleaning franchise finance
Averan read the 2026 FDDs of five residential cleaning brands.
The median brand here reports average revenue of $491,294 an unit. Percentage fees at the median brand come to 9.2% of sales. The median cost to open runs $109,860 to $158,650.
Where to next
- Fractional CFO, for the forecast behind a second location and the cash plan that carries it
- Bookkeeping for franchise owners, what this looks like when someone else keeps the books
- Home & Commercial Services Franchise Finance, the category guide
- Āveran Franchise Resource Center, every breakdown in the library
- Bookkeeping, monthly close built around the way your brand reports
Find a residential cleaning brand
5 brands in this guide, each from its own 2026 FDD. Open one, or pick two and compare them.
The brands in this group
Each brand has its own business model breakdown, with every figure set out against the brand’s disclosure document it comes from.
- MaidProquartile · Job counts published beside sales
- Merry Maidsquartile · Per-business revenue falls as the ownership group grows
- Molly Maid Revenue by group · Every charge priced per target household, so the minimum marketing charge lands 46 times harder on the lowest-selling
- The Cleaning Authoritythirds · Customers, cleans, customers lost and the full lead funnel published
- Two Maidsquintile · Household count accounts for almost nothing
Questions owners ask next
The figures above raise these, and each one is answered on its own page.
- At what level of sales does a minimum fee stop costing me more than the percentage?How royalty, ad fund and minimums actually work on a monthly statement.
- How much cash do I fund before a new location covers its own costs?A 13-week forecast for the months before break-even.
- My payroll percentage keeps climbing. Is that a payroll problem?Usually it is a revenue problem wearing a payroll costume.
- What should I be looking at every week?The handful of numbers that move before the P&L does.
- Do I need a bookkeeper, a controller, or a CFO?What each one owns, and the point at which the next one pays for itself.
Run your own numbers.
The Franchise Finance Diagnostic runs the same checks on your own numbers. It scores where you stand and compares you with Item 19 of your brand’s FDD. It works out what one location earns and spends, and builds a 13-week cash forecast. Checks whether you are ready to open another one. It is free and it runs in your browser.
Launch the diagnostic →How many jobs did you run last week?
A structured review of your unit economics, cash forecast. Reporting, built around job count, a minimum fee your brand imposes. A chart of accounts mapped to the benchmark you are being measured against.
Request the reviewThe model
The business model the top performers in residential cleaning are running
What the top performers can do that others cannot
3 of the 5 brands here sell a cleaning schedule. Rostering against demand is the constraint: wages run 45.0% of sales at the middle brand, more than any other line.
What the customer is buying
The customer buys a visit that repeats every week or two. At 1 of them the model is different: the customer buys a quoted job, usually once, which asks something else of the owner. A location at the middle brand sells $491,294 a year; the top group sells $1,005,377. The offer is the same at both ends of that range, so the difference is volume rather than product.
Who the customer is, and how often they come back
This is a retention business. The money is made in the second year of a customer, not the first month, so the number that decides the year is how many stay. A median 39% of locations reach their own brand’s average, so most of the system is below the number the brand advertises, and the gap is usually a demand gap rather than an effort gap. The top group sells $1,005,377 against $180,372 at the bottom. Trade area and site set that range before an owner takes a booking.
How the money works
Opening costs $92,850 to $203,950 across the group, and inside one brand the top of the range is typically 1.4 times the bottom. At the middle brand the cost stack runs wages 45.0%, cost of sales 55.0%, franchise fees 9.2% of sales.
Top performers
These are the things that separate top performers in residential cleaning
At the typical residential cleaning brand, the best group of locations sells $1,005,377 a year. The worst group sells $180,372. That is $825,005 more a year, 5.6 times over, for the same brand on the same agreement. Across these brands, a median of 39% of locations reach their own brand’s average. The average describes the top of a system, not the middle. 4 of the 5 brands here publish bands; the rest disclose no spread at all.
Decided before you open
- What it costs to open.Opening costs run $92,850 to $203,950 across the group, and the top of a single brand’s range is typically 1.4 times its bottom. The top group sells $1,005,377 a year against a build that tops out at $203,950, so at the heavy end of the range a location sells $4.93 for every dollar it cost to open. That build is recovered inside a year or two of sales at that end of the system.
- What a location sells.Average sales run $491,294 at the middle brand and $1,005,377 at the top group. Format and site decide most of that before an owner does anything, which is why the same operator produces different results in different trade areas.
Live operating levers
- 2 of the 5 brands here run a recurring plan.A plan turns a business that waits for the phone to ring into one that knows roughly what next month looks like, and that predictability is what lets an owner staff properly. It is built by asking the customer to book the next visit before they walk out, not by spending more on marketing afterwards. They are MaidPro, The Cleaning Authority.
- Wages. Same labor market, different result.Wages run 45.0% of sales at the middle brand and 45.0% to 45.0% across the 1 that disclose it. These brands hire from the same pool at the same rates, so a 0-point spread is not a pay-rate gap. It is scheduling and productivity: rostering against booked demand hour by hour, managing sales per paid hour as the number, and keeping enough of the pay variable that the line falls when the week is quiet. On the top group’s $1,005,377 of sales, a point of wages is $10,054 a year; on the bottom group’s $180,372 it is $1,804. The same discipline is worth more where the volume already is.
- Cost of what you sell. The line that compounds.Products and materials take 55.0% of sales at the middle brand, 48.0% to 62.0% across the 2 that disclose it. Buying on the brand program rather than locally, holding the price list instead of discounting to close, and counting waste weekly are what separate the ends of that range, and each of them compounds with volume, which is why the gap widens as a location grows.
- What the brand charges. The line that works backwards.Fees run a median 9.2% of sales across 5 brands, from 8.0% to 15.0%. Where a minimum sits underneath the percentage, the weakest location pays the highest effective rate, so the fee line costs most exactly where it can least be afforded. The top performers clear the minimum early and stop thinking about it. At $1,005,377 the fees cost $92,495 a year; at $180,372 they cost $16,594. The percentage is the same and the burden is not.
Context you underwrite around
- How many brands show a ramp.1 of 5 filings in this group show how a new location builds up. For the rest the first year has to be assumed, and the assumption is usually wrong in the same direction.
- What is not banded.1 brands publish no bands at all, so their spread is unknown rather than narrow. Read a single average as the upper-middle of a distribution you cannot see.
The figures, brand by brand
| Measure | Median | Brands | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average sales per unit | $491,294 | 4 of 5 | Median of each brand’s disclosed average |
| Median sales per unit | Fewer than three disclose | 2 of 5 | Median of each brand’s disclosed median |
| Initial franchise fee | $20,000 | 5 of 5 | |
| Royalty | 6% | 5 of 5 | Headline rate |
| Brand or advertising fund | 2% | 5 of 5 | |
| Percentage fees, all in | 9.2% | 5 of 5 | Royalty, funds and local marketing set as a share of sales |
| Cost to open, low | $109,860 | 5 of 5 | |
| Cost to open, high | $158,650 | 5 of 5 | |
| Profit margin | Fewer than three disclose | 0 of 5 | Each brand’s own profit line; definitions differ |
| Labor, share of revenue | Fewer than three disclose | 1 of 5 | |
| Building costs, share of revenue | Fewer than three disclose | 0 of 5 | |
| Unit growth, 2025 | 3.4% | 5 of 5 | (End − start) ÷ start |
| Customers lost, 2025 | 2.1% | 5 of 5 | Terminated, non-renewed, reacquired and ceased, ÷ opening units; transfers excluded |
Each figure is the median of the brands that disclose it, and the Brands column counts them.
How we calculated this
Revenue is each brand's own reported figure on its own unit basis, so the median describes the group and no single brand. Growth and customers lost are our calculations from each brand's outlet table. Where fewer than three brands disclose a figure, no benchmark is shown.
These are the things that separate top performers in residential cleaning
The top group at the typical residential cleaning brand sells $1,005,377 a location. The bottom group sells $180,372. That is $825,005 more a year, 5.6 times over, on the same agreement, the same fee schedule and the same playbook. A median 39% of locations reach their own brand’s average, so the average describes the upper part of each system rather than the middle of it. 4 of the 5 brands here publish bands; the rest disclose no spread at all.
Decided before you open
- What it costs to open.Opening costs run $92,850 to $203,950 across the group, and the top of a single brand’s range is typically 1.4 times its bottom. The top group sells $1,005,377 a year against a build that tops out at $203,950, so at the heavy end of the range a location sells $4.93 for every dollar it cost to open. That build is recovered inside a year or two of sales at that end of the system.
- What a location sells.Average sales run $491,294 at the middle brand and $1,005,377 at the top group. Format and site decide most of that before an owner does anything, which is why the same operator produces different results in different trade areas.
Live operating levers
- A recurring plan is a lever at 2 of the 5 brands here.It turns an appointment book into a subscription, which smooths the utilization that drives the wage line. Rebooking before the customer leaves is what builds it, not marketing spend afterwards. At MaidPro, The Cleaning Authority.
- Wages. Same labor market, different result.Wages run 45.0% of sales at the middle brand and 45.0% to 45.0% across the 1 that disclose it. These brands hire from the same pool at the same rates, so a 0-point spread is not a pay-rate gap. It is scheduling and productivity: rostering against booked demand hour by hour, managing sales per paid hour as the number, and keeping enough of the pay variable that the line falls when the week is quiet. On the top group’s $1,005,377 of sales, a point of wages is $10,054 a year; on the bottom group’s $180,372 it is $1,804. The same discipline is worth more where the volume already is.
- Cost of what you sell. The line that compounds.Products and materials take 55.0% of sales at the middle brand, 48.0% to 62.0% across the 2 that disclose it. Buying on the brand program rather than locally, holding the price list instead of discounting to close, and counting waste weekly are what separate the ends of that range, and each of them compounds with volume, which is why the gap widens as a location grows.
- What the brand charges. The line that works backwards.Fees run a median 9.2% of sales across 5 brands, from 8.0% to 15.0%. Where a minimum sits underneath the percentage, the weakest location pays the highest effective rate, so the fee line costs most exactly where it can least be afforded. The top performers clear the minimum early and stop thinking about it. At $1,005,377 the fees cost $92,495 a year; at $180,372 they cost $16,594. The percentage is the same and the burden is not.
Context you underwrite around
- How many brands show a ramp.1 of 5 filings in this group show how a new location builds up. For the rest the first year has to be assumed, and the assumption is usually wrong in the same direction.
- What is not banded.1 brands publish no bands at all, so their spread is unknown rather than narrow. Read a single average as the upper-middle of a distribution you cannot see.
Compare these brands side by side →
Also disclosed across this group: $0, $1,468,011, $169,325, $34,391, $4,913, $430,998, $439,243, 10.0, 5.9, 7.0, 8.4, 9.0.
Operating levers
What each brand’s top performers actually work on
The levers the filing supports, brand by brand. Three to five each, read from that brand’s own 2026 FDD. Filter by type of business, or open a brand for the figures underneath.
5 brands
MaidPro
Residential cleaning
- Jobs, the operating driver. This model bills on jobs. Every job is won again, so the owner works on how many quotes turn into work and what the average job is worth when it does. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Membership and rebooking. A recurring plan turns a high-fixed-cost business from an appointment book into a subscription, which smooths the utilisation that drives the wage line. Rebooking before the customer leaves is what builds it, not marketing spend afterwards.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites. Fees run about 8.0% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
Merry Maids
Residential cleaning
- Recurring cleans, the operating driver. This model bills on recurring cleans. The owner works on how many cleans happen each week, how many customers are still there in six months, and how tightly the route is packed. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites. Fees run about 10.0% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
Molly Maid
Residential cleaning
- Recurring cleans, the operating driver. This model bills on recurring cleans. The owner works on how many cleans happen each week, how many customers are still there in six months, and how tightly the route is packed. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites. Fees run about 9.2% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
The Cleaning Authority
Residential cleaning
- Cost of what you sell. Products and materials take 62.0% of sales. Buying terms, price discipline and waste are where this is won, and each of them compounds at volume.
- Customers, the operating driver. This model bills on customers. The owner works on how many customers are won, how many are lost, and what each spends in a year. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Membership and rebooking. A recurring plan turns a high-fixed-cost business from an appointment book into a subscription, which smooths the utilisation that drives the wage line. Rebooking before the customer leaves is what builds it, not marketing spend afterwards.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites. Fees run about 9.0% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
Two Maids
Residential cleaning
- Cost of what you sell. Products and materials take 48.0% of sales. Buying terms, price discipline and waste are where this is won, and each of them compounds at volume.
- Recurring cleans, the operating driver. This model bills on recurring cleans. The owner works on how many cleans happen each week, how many customers are still there in six months, and how tightly the route is packed. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites. Fees run about 15.0% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
- The first year. This filing shows how a new location builds up, so the ramp can be underwritten from the document rather than assumed. Read two things out of it: the month sales cross the point where costs are covered, and how much cash you fund before that month arrives. Everything before break-even is paid for by you.
Where these figures come from
Every figure here comes from the brands' 2026 FDDs and is unaudited by us. We are unaffiliated with the brands. The medians, growth and customers lost figures are our own calculations. The figures describe past performance at other businesses. They are not a projection of your results. This page is an educational summary and is not an offer to sell a franchise or financial, legal or tax advice. All trademarks belong to their owners. How Averan reads a Franchise Disclosure Document.