The Cleaning Authority franchise unit economics

How much does a Cleaning Authority franchise make?

The average Cleaning Authority unit reported $1,468,011 of revenue in the 2026 FDD. What a Cleaning Authority owner keeps depends on the costs set out below. Fees come off the top first, at about 8.1% of sales across royalty, brand fund and the rest of the stack. Revenue is not income. Rent, wages, cost of goods and the franchise fees all come out before an owner is paid. The figures for the highest-selling and lowest-selling businesses are below.

Top performers

What separates the top Cleaning Authority performers

The three groups of locations

Performance by territory, 2025

Territory counts, revenue, medians, ranges, attainment, price per clean, customers, cleans, cost of goods and employee counts are as the brand reported it. The per-territory, per-customer, cleans-a-week, revenue-per-employee and all-212 columns are marked *.

A clean sells for $178.56 at the top and $171.21 at the bottom. That is a 4.3% difference across territories billing $2,486,854 and $629,131. The work is priced almost identically wherever it happens, which puts the whole four-fold gap in how many customers are on the books.

Every customer buys about 20 cleans a year, wherever they are. That is 20.0, 19.6 and 19.0 *. That is a fortnightly schedule with a few weeks missed. It holds across the entire system, so revenue per customer varies by just 9.9%, from $3,579 to $3,257.

The lower third's range runs from $105,551 to $953,652, nine times. That compares with three times in the top third and less than twice in the middle. The bottom of this system is where the real dispersion lives. 59% of that third reaches its own average. So the group is dragged by a small number of very low-selling territories.

A top-third territory runs 268 cleans a week with 45 people. That compares with 71 cleans with 14 people in the lower third *. Revenue per employee moves from $45,211 to $55,246, a 22% productivity gain that arrives alongside the volume.

Cost of goods is 61%, 61% and 63%, and the royalty sits inside it. So the published profit share of 37% to 39% already has the brand's largest charge. What remains has to cover rent, telephones, employee advertising, a manager, the local marketing spend and the owner. That is why the 2-point difference between 61% and 63% matters more than it looks.

Customers won and lost

Customer loss and retention

Weekly customer loss and customer counts are as the brand reported it; retention, replacement and per-week figures are marked. We compounded the published weekly rate across 52 weeks.

The lower third keeps 57.8% of its customers through a year; the top third keeps 69.0% *. That compounds the published weekly rates. A third of a point of weekly loss is 11.3 points of annual retention. That is the difference between rebuilding two fifths of the book each year and rebuilding under a third.

Closing that gap is worth $70,900 a year to a lower-third territory. That is 21.8 extra customers on a 193-customer book at $3,257 each *, 11.3% of its $629,131. That is achieved by keeping customers already won, and it needs no extra marketing spend.

A top-third territory replaces 215 customers a year and a lower-third one replaces 81 *. That is four a week against under two. The larger operation is working harder in absolute terms, but each replacement covers a smaller share of its book because its weekly loss rate is lower.

Roughly half of every group sits worse than its own published loss rate. That is 39 of 71, 27 of 70 and 35 of 71. So the averages here describe a middle, and an owner comparing their own weekly cancellation rate against 0.71% is comparing against a figure that 55% of the top third fails to beat.

Revenue per customer runs $3,579, $3,298, $3,257 *. That is a 9.9% difference. Since each customer is worth roughly the same everywhere, the customer count and the retention rate are the only two numbers that decide this business, and retention compounds while acquisition repeats.

From lead to customer

Lead funnel by third, 2025

Lead counts, appointment rates, sales counts and revenue shares are as the brand reported it; the conversion rates and per-territory figures are marked *.

One-time-only enquiries are 48% of all leads and deliver 1% to 4% of revenue. That is nearly half the phone and web traffic across every group. Handling those calls costs the same staff time as a recurring enquiry worth roughly $3,400 a year. So how that queue is triaged is a real operating decision.

One-time work is 4% of revenue at the bottom and 1% at the top. A lower-third territory is leaning on single cleans to fill a schedule that recurring customers should be filling. That is a symptom of the same 1.05% weekly loss rate.

The top third converts 42.8% of recurring leads into sales; the other two convert 39% *. That is a 3.8-point difference. Appointment rates are effectively identical at 41% to 42%, so the whole difference arrives after the estimate is given.

A top-third territory works 1,493 leads a year and a lower-third one works 743 *. That is twice the volume against 3.6 times the customers, so lead flow accounts for part of the gap and retention accounts for the rest. Buying leads alone would take a lower-third territory only part of the way.

Recurring sales per territory run 332, 198 and 149 a year *. That is six a week, four a week and three a week. Set against replacement needs of 215, 133 and 81 customers a year, every group is selling more than it loses. The gap between the two is the growth rate.

Fees and what it costs to open

Royalty, brand fund and technology fees

We applied the amended FDD’s rates (6% royalty, 2% brand fund, $40.24 a week technology) to the filed 2025 revenue. The combined rate is royalty, brand fund and technology together. The last column is the extra royalty against the 6%, 5% and 4% ladder the 2025 territories paid.

The amended FDD replaces the royalty ladder with a flat 6%. The April 2026 FDD charged 6% on the first $600,000 of a calendar year, 5% up to $1,300,000 and 4% above that. The amended FDD charges 6% of all Gross Revenue. At The Cleaning Authority, royalty, brand fund and technology together come to 8.08% at the top third’s average and 8.33% at the lower third’s *.

At the top third’s average the flat 6% royalty is $30,737 a year more than the ladder. That is $149,211 at 6% against $118,474 on the ladder *. At the highest reporting territory the difference is $80,911. Owners on agreements signed before the amendment may still pay on the ladder.

The Cleaning Authority’s brand fund is 2% of Gross Revenue with no cap. The amendment drops the lesser of 1% or $200 a week. At the top third’s average that is $49,737 a year against $10,400 under the old cap *. The franchisor can raise it above 2% on 30 days’ notice if 50% or more of franchised businesses consent.

A minimum local marketing spend replaces the local marketing fee. A franchisee of The Cleaning Authority must spend at least $75,000 a year on approved local marketing up to and including the first calendar year its Gross Revenue reaches $500,000, and at least 1% of Gross Revenue each year after that. The first year is prorated. After a fall in sales from one year to the next, the franchisor can raise the minimum by up to 2% of Gross Revenue a year, to at most the greater of $50,000 or 5% of Gross Revenue.

$75,000 is 11.9% of the lower third’s average sales and 5.1% of the system average *. Once a territory of The Cleaning Authority passes $500,000 in a year, the minimum the next year is 1% of Gross Revenue: $6,291 at the lower third’s average and $24,869 at the top third’s *.

What it costs to open a territory

As the brand reported it, reordered here by size.

The franchise fee is 42% of the low column. That is $50,000 of $119,100 *. The separate territory fee is gone. The rest is a washer, a dryer, an office, cleaning kit, three to five months of local marketing and three months of working capital (cash to run the business day to day).

The Cleaning Authority’s $50,000 fee covers a territory of up to 60,000 designated households. Each household above 60,000 adds $0.75 as an Additional Designated Household Fee. A designated household is a residence with an estimated income of at least $100,000.

Initial fees collected in 2025 ranged from $7,500 to $63,770. Those fees were paid under the earlier territory fee and franchise fee. The amended FDD no longer offers hometown markets to new franchisees.

Working capital of $27,000 to $30,000 covers three months. Item 7 separately estimates $18,750 to $31,250 for local marketing, three to five prorated months of the $75,000 minimum, which The Cleaning Authority requires to be spent in full during the first 12 months.

Questions we get asked

Questions owners ask.