🎯 The business: the same homes, every week or two, on a schedule. Two people, one car, a trunk of supplies. It is the cheapest serious business on this list, and the one whose income you can predict a month out.

Two-income households, people over seventy who want to stay in their house, and landlords between tenants. A standard clean of a three-bedroom home runs about $120 to $180 in most metros; a deep clean or move-out, two to three times that. Recurring customers are the whole point: a weekly house is worth about $6,000 a year to you, and it books itself.

Set three flat rates by bedroom count and refuse to quote hourly. Clean five homes at half price for friends-of-friends in exchange for honest Google reviews and before-and-after photos. Door-hang the street around every job the same afternoon. Quote the recurring rate before you leave the driveway of any one-time job.

A $140 house takes about two and a half hours solo once you are practiced, with maybe $15 of supplies and fuel in it. Twenty weekly homes is roughly $2,800 a week of revenue and a full life. With one helper at $18 to $20 an hour plus workers’ comp, thirty-five homes clears $6,000 to $8,000 a month before tax.

No state license in most places. Your city business license, a bond (customers will ask), and payroll done properly from the first hire. Cleaning has a long history of under-the-table labor; it caps your growth and one audit can end you.

Something breaks or goes missing in a client’s home and the accusation lands the same either way: the bond, walk-through photos and working in pairs are how professionals handle it. Helpers quit without notice, so pay a dollar above the local rate and protect the schedule. And guard your knees and back; the calendar is the asset, not the mop.