Best guide to starting a cleaning business in the UK on a budget

Chances are you are aware of my Youtube channel on how to start a cleaning business. However if you want to check it out please visit my Youtube channel as I have made 100+ videos on starting a cleaning business and how you can make money from it.

I put up a load of videos on youtube just giving advice, I never thought anybody would really watch them but now pretty much everyday I get emails from people asking for help, which I am always happy to provide (free of charge). However I get asked the same question all the time and thought it would be very useful for people to actually have a written article they can visit and refer to at any point and that is the reason I have written this.

1. Think of a name

This will be needed when you put adverts out for your business and for future branding you can change the name. You can either go with a local area branding such as “London cleaning company” or a brandable name such as “mr.mop and bucket”.

2. Advertise (for free)

Ideally you first want to advertise for free in your first month or so and once you get some income coming in monthly you can spend a bit on advertising. I will only be covering free promotions that actually worked for me and I got regular customers from. I tried many different websites but some I received no customers from so I will not be mentioning. 

Yell.com is free to list and I did receive a small amount of customers from it but it is worth it list your business and you can link back to your website if you have one has well as adding your phone number and email to be contacted on.

Freeindex.co.uk this website allows you to list your business to be contacted simply but filling in your details, it is review focused so if you can encourage reviews then you will obviously be higher on the list and get more contact.

Airtasker.co.uk customer are actively positing on here everyday and you can pick up some amazing long term business on there. It works by a client posting their requirements for the job and you are free to message them and if they accept you can go along and complete the job and get paid. If you turn this into a long term position you will earn a great deal more.

Google Business it is free to list on here and you will show up in the local search for “cleaners in *****” when the clients search on there. It is free and you can login and check how many times your business has been viewed in the last month.

3. How much should you charge

Now this all depends on where you are located and what sort of cleaning you will be doing. The fact of the matter is if your cleaning business is something you want to do on the side you can charge anywhere from £8-10 per hour as you can simply just pocket all the money as it would be just your labour and a bit of supplies you would have as expenses. However if you are looking in the future to hire other cleaners to do the job then you would need to charge £12.50+ in order to pay a good cleaner £9+ an hour. This will give you about a £3-5 profit every hour and take it from me that is a good profit margin in the cleaning industry. Think if you had 100 jobs a week you would hands off be making nearly £500. If you was to be cleaning then you would probably make £800-1,600 a week. 

4. How to treat the customer and what to say

Most people who hire cleaners have probably had cleaners in the past and from what I heard from pretty much every customer was the same “I can’t find good cleaners”, “they are unreliable”, “they didn’t show up”, “they never communicated with me”. Basically the cleaning industry is full of people who do a bad job and tend not to show up from week to week and cancel last minute. If you can offer a professional approach, do a fantastic clean every time and communicate well with the customers you will keep the customer long term and grow faster then you think is possible. 

When somebody calls you, go through the size of their property and write it all down for example “3 bedroom house, 1 bathroom, 1 reception and 1 WC downstairs. Tell them it would take 3-4 hours to clean and the total cost would be £35 (for example). If they are happy you can either book them in or go do a quote and visit them before hand. Many customers will want the above house cleaned in 2 hours as they want a lower quote and will say things like “my last cleaner did it in 2 hours”, “Do you work slower”. Just assure them that it clean will be top quality and if the job is priced wrong at the start you will find yourself rushing through and doing a bad job or worse… working over time for free. 

5. Equipment you will need

I started on a very low budget and it was my down fall, I ended up spending more time on the clean as I didn’t have the right equipment or supplies. This list below will be a minimum of what you need for each clean but most importantly you will need a ton of micro fibre cloths! I have linked to Amazon if you wish to purchase the equipment and so you know exactly what I mean.

• Microfiber Cloths – You need at least 10 per clean (Machine wash them when you come home)
• Duster – For those hard to reach places and when the customer sees you using it they will know you are doing a good job. It is also very quick when dusting a door or a skirting boards.
• Sponges – Not just for doing the dishes you can use it all over the house and throw them away once you are done with them. 
• Bathroom cleaner – You need a spray for the bathroom such as flash or Dettol. 
• Kitchen cleaner – I would recommend flash
• Viakal – This is a must have, basically it is the best product for limescale and water mark removal. If you use this on the bathroom taps, shower glass, chrome and kitchen sink the customer will 100% complement you on it. Every single customer used to ask me how I get their sinks to shine like I do. It is a must purchase!
• Scouring pads – I found the green pads good to use and you will need it to take limescale off from the sinks as well as cleaning the cooker and ovens. 
• Dettol – I used the original antiseptic as it can be used on any surface and is non toxic, it can be used on leather, wood, glass and it smells amazing. The good thing is the bottle lasts ages as you only have to use a small amount each time. 
• Bleach & floor cleaner – You will need bleach and floor cleaner for certain places.
• Cif cream cleaner – I never used anything else as I knew Cif works so well by taking marks off of plastic and walls. 
• Glass cleaner – I would recommend Mr.Muscle glass cleaner, the liquid is green. 
• Gloves – nitrile gloves are a must have, if you don’t care for dirt and think your hands will be washed after every room you will end up with dry hands. Also let the customer see you using different gloves for each room. 

Total cleaning business set up cost: £20-50

Those are pretty much the essential items you will need. If the customer asks you to clean with pet friendly or eco friendly products I recommend starting off with Method products as well as vinegar, bicarbonate soda and lemon. 

Things that saved me time was a handheld vacuum for quickly vacuuming after you have swept up. 

Note: always ask the customer if they have a broom, dust pan and brush, mop, bucket, and vacuum. If they don’t you will have to bring one along but I never needed to bring my own. Also your insurance would not cover you if you bring equipment to and from customers homes due to allergies and transferring foreign bodies over from house to house.

6. Insurance

Until you hire cleaners you will not need employee liability insurance. However you will need to get public liability insurance which costs around £100 a year or around £12 a month (you can pay monthly on most plans). This will usually cover you up to £1 million worth of damages to customers property and believe me that is so worth it. Accidents happen and it is better to be safe then sorry. Also customers do sometimes ask if you have insurance, from my experience about 50% would ask during the first phone call or during a walk through. I would have the policy on my phone and be able to show the customer very easily which they was always pleased with. 

7. When you arrive at a customers home

When you arrive of course come on time or 10 minutes early so you can say to the customer “can you show me around”. Once they show you around ask them “what is important to you in terms of cleaning” and then ask them how exactly they want the house kept. Chances are they will tell you the reason why the last cleaner got fired before so you can avoid making the same mistake. I can give you an example, one of my very first clients said when I asked her that question that the other cleaner she has never wiped the doors which I took extra care to do as I knew she would be checking and would regard me as better than the other cleaners. In the end she called me back to clean again and was very pleased with my work. 

Once you have completed the clean you need to ask the customer to check over the work this will allow them to tell you bits you may have missed. It is better they tell you while you are there then find bits out later and then never call you back because they think you done a bad job. Another thing to mention is that no other cleaner ever does that, getting the client to check over the work this will help you stand out and leave the customer with a great first impression of you.

8. Payment

You would of agreed a price before hand so in terms of receiving payment I would always ask for cash upon completion of the cleaning service. But I would mention that in future you can set up a direct debit payment into your business account in future. The reason for this is when you scale up your business you will send a cleaner over to the house and they can pay you direct.

9. Reviews and referrals 

If you know or don’t know how the customer found you always say to them “how did you hear about our services?”. If they are pleased with your work ask them if they can leave you a review on the website or on your google business page. This will obviously help boost your business and bring in more customers and most people are happy to do so. I never really asked to much for referrals only when conversation came up. I remember one of my customers had 2 people around when I was cleaning and they actually gave me their number to call them and come and clean their properties, they actually were from the local church and had me clean that once in a while as well which was a £150 payment which took me 6 hours to clean.

10. Invoice

It is good practice to always invoice your customers with work carried out which will give the professional approach as well as help you keep a record of customer information and also your gross profit and dates of the cleaning. Also I kept a record of how the customer came to find me and put more effort into marketing through that method. 

To conclude, offer great customer service as well as setting yourself apart. You do not need to worry about uniforms, hiring staff and buying equipment until you end up with a few regular customers and then you can worry about all that later on.