How to get clients for a cleaning business: 12 ways, ranked by cost per client

Most advice on how to get clients for a cleaning business is a list of 22 ideas with no prices and no ranking. Print flyers. Post on Facebook. Join Thumbtack. Start a blog. All of it “works,” in the sense that somebody, somewhere, once got a client that way.

This guide does something different. It ranks every channel by one number: what it costs you to win one recurring client, and whether that channel keeps producing after you stop paying for it.

That’s the right number because cleaning is a recurring business. The sale isn’t the first visit. The sale is the client who books every two weeks for the next two years.

First, put a number on one client

Before we rank anything, here’s what you’re winning. These are Thumbtack’s national price ranges from their cost guides:

Keep that $4,940 in your head. Every channel below is judged against it.

Owned vs rented: the idea that matters most

Sort every channel into two buckets.

Owned channels are assets you control: your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your list of past clients. They take time to build, but they stack. A page that ranks today still brings quote requests next month.

Rented channels are leads you pay for each time: Thumbtack, Angi, Care.com, Bark, Google Ads, Local Services Ads. Stop paying and the leads stop. On the marketplaces, the platform also keeps the client relationship: the profile, the reviews, the rebooking button all belong to them.

Neither bucket is bad. But if all your marketing is rented, you’re building someone else’s business.

The 12 ways, ranked

Ranked from best long-term cost per recurring client to worst. Where a channel’s cost depends on prices the platform sets and doesn’t publish, I say so instead of inventing a number.

1. Your Google Business Profile (free, owned)

This is the listing with the map, the stars, and the “Call” button that shows up above the regular results when someone searches “house cleaning near me.” For a local cleaning company it’s the most valuable piece of real estate on the internet, and it’s free.

Most owners set it up once and forget it. That’s why they don’t show up. The work: pick the right primary category (House Cleaning Service, or Commercial Cleaning Service / Janitorial Service for the commercial side), list every city you serve, add your services with price ranges, upload photos of real finished rooms (not stock), post something short every week, and reply to every review.

Cost per client: your time. A couple of hours a week, forever.

2. Reviews (free, owned, and the easiest in any trade)

In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, 47% won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months. That last number is the one that should make cleaning companies smile. Recency is hard for a roofer who sees a client once a decade. It’s easy for you. You see your clients every two weeks.

The system: ask after the third clean, not the first (by then they trust you). Ask by text with a direct link. Ask one client per crew per day. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, in plain English.

What not to do: never pay for reviews, never offer a discount for one, never write them yourself, never ask a client to say something that isn’t true. It’s against Google’s policies and the first time a client notices, you lose them and their neighbors.

Cost per client: zero. Reviews make every other channel on this list convert better.

3. Referrals and a referral credit (nearly free, owned)

Your best clients already talk about you. Give them a reason to do it on purpose: a $25 or $50 credit on their next clean for every friend who books a recurring plan. Put it in the email you send after every visit. Put it on the magnet you leave on the fridge.

Cost per client: the credit. At $4,940 a year per client, a $50 credit is about 1% of first-year value.

4. Your own website with service pages, city pages, and prices (monthly fee or your time, owned)

This is the channel that compounds the most, and the one that most cleaning companies get wrong. A one-page site with a contact form is not a marketing asset. A site that ranks has a page for every service (recurring, deep, move-out, commercial), a page for every city you serve, what’s included with a starting price, your Google reviews pulled in, a tap-to-call number, and a short quote form.

Why prices? Because “house cleaning near me prices” and “how much does house cleaning cost” are among the most common searches in this industry. A page that answers them gets the quote request. A page that hides them sends the visitor to Thumbtack to find out.

Google’s data on where clicks go is brutal: Backlinko’s study of about 4 million results found the #1 organic result gets 27.6% of clicks, the top 3 get 54.4%, and only 0.63% of searchers click anything on page 2. Being “on Google” is not the goal. Being in the top three in your city is.

Cost per client: if you hire it out, a monthly fee divided by the clients it produces. Our flat $1,000 a month is on the pricing page. Break-even in the middle of Thumbtack’s range is two or three new biweekly clients a year who stay. The honest caveat: it takes two to four months before a new site produces steady quote requests. That’s why the next two channels exist.

5. Google Local Services Ads (per lead, rented, exclusive)

The “Google Guaranteed” listings at the very top. You pay per lead at a price Google sets by category and city, and the lead comes to you only. Good for filling the schedule quickly. Prices rise every spring as more companies pile in, and the leads stop the day you pause the account. Google doesn’t publish a fixed price list; check your own category in your own city.

Cost per client: your per-lead price divided by your close rate. Exclusive leads close better than shared ones, so this is the best of the rented channels.

6. Google Ads (per click, rented, exclusive)

The text ads above the organic results. You pay per click at an auction price that changes by the hour. High intent, exclusive, fast. Also the easiest place in marketing to waste money, because a badly set up campaign happily spends your budget on “cleaning jobs near me” (people looking for work) and “how to clean grout” (people doing it themselves).

Cost per client: click price divided by the share of clicks that become quote requests, divided by your close rate. Only you can get that number for your city. Track it or don’t run it.

7. Lead marketplaces: Thumbtack, Angi, Care.com, Bark (per lead, rented, often shared)

You pay per lead at a price the platform sets, and the same request can go to several cleaning companies at once. You race to reply, the homeowner compares quotes, and the job usually goes to the lowest price. It’s usually a one-time clean, because the platform’s design pushes the homeowner to shop each job. And the platform keeps the client: the profile, the reviews, the rebooking button are theirs.

Marketplaces are not useless. They can fill a new company’s first month. But treat them as what they are: a rented channel with a built-in ceiling, where you pay for the first visit and the platform keeps the next 25.

Cost per client: the per-lead price divided by a close rate that is lower than any other channel, because you’re competing on price with people you can’t see. Then subtract the lifetime value you don’t get because the client books through them next time.

8. Partnerships with realtors, property managers, and landlords (your time, owned)

Move-in and move-out cleans have a date on the calendar and a motivated buyer. Realtors need vacant homes cleaned before showings. Property managers need turnovers every month. Short-term rental hosts need turnovers every weekend. One good property-manager relationship can be worth a dozen one-off homeowner leads.

The pitch is simple: a fixed turnover price, same-week availability, photos after every clean. Thumbtack puts a move-out clean at $199 to $354, and a property manager with 40 units turns over a few every month.

Cost per client: coffee and a follow-up email. Slow to start, very sticky.

9. Nextdoor and neighborhood Facebook groups (free, rented attention)

“Looking for a house cleaner, any recommendations?” gets posted in every neighborhood group every week. Being the name that three neighbors reply with is worth a lot. Being the company that spams the group is worth less than nothing.

The move: get your existing clients in those neighborhoods to recommend you (they will, if they’re happy and you ask), post a real before-and-after once a month, and answer questions without pitching.

Cost per client: your time. Low intent, inconsistent, but the clients it produces are usually recurring and usually referrals in disguise.

10. Flyers, door hangers, and yard signs (printing plus time, rented)

They work best in the exact situation the “we clean your neighbor’s house” card describes: a dense subdivision where you already have a client and a van parked out front. Beyond that, you can’t tell which flyer produced which client, and the calls stop when you stop walking.

Cost per client: printing, plus your crew’s hours. Fine as a supplement in a neighborhood you already serve.

11. Commercial outreach: email, walk-ins, proposals (your time, owned)

For the commercial side, office managers rarely search “janitorial company” the week they’re unhappy with their current vendor. They decide at budget time or after a complaint. A short, specific email (“we clean three medical offices in your building’s zip code, here’s our checklist and a per-visit price”) with a walkthrough offer works better than any ad. So does ranking for “commercial cleaning services [city]” so you’re there when they do search. We cover this in how to get commercial cleaning contracts.

Cost per client: hours, not dollars. Long cycle, big accounts.

12. AI search (free, owned, and new)

In 2026, 45% of US consumers used an AI tool to find a local business, up from 6% in 2025 (BrightLocal, 1,002 US adults). ChatGPT led at 31%, Google’s AI Mode followed at 23%. When someone asks “who’s a good house cleaner in Raleigh,” the AI answers with two or three names.

You can’t buy a spot in that answer. The AI builds it from your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your website, and your listings across the web. In other words, from channels 1, 2, and 4 on this list. Do those well and you’re the easiest company for the AI to recommend. We check what the AI tools say about our clients every month; details on the AI search page.

Where to start if time and money are tight

The honest summary

Rented channels are fast and expensive and they stop. Owned channels are slow and cheap and they compound. A cleaning company with employees should be building the owned ones from day one and using the rented ones to bridge the gap, with every lead tracked so the money moves toward what works.

If you’d rather have the owned channels built and run for you, that’s what we do: the website, the Google Business Profile, the reviews system, the tracking, and the AI check, for a flat $1,000 a month with no contract. The math, the inclusions, and a calculator with your own numbers are on the pricing page. And if you just want to know where you stand today, the free audit shows you your rankings, your reviews against your top three competitors, and the three fixes that would move you fastest.