December 12, 2024
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Experts in this article:
Stacey owns an office cleaning business that makes $500,000 in annual sales. She has over 27 years in the cleaning industry and...
Kari is a writer for SideHustles.com. She previously managed a website in the privacy and digital compliance industry and...
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NoneHouse cleaning is a job that can take many forms. You can work as an independent contractor, through a maid service, as a live-in cleaner, or for your own business.
Even if you aren’t ready to adopt a full-time occupation as a house cleaner, there are still tons of ways to score jobs and make good money. Here are the best cleaning job apps to use to make fast cash cleaning houses.
One of the easiest ways to find house cleaning jobs is to use home maintenance and tasking apps. This is a particularly good option if you’re only looking for part-time work or a side gig you can do alongside your full-time job.
TaskRabbit is one of the most popular work-on-demand job apps out there. You can become a “tasker” for TaskRabbit and complete small jobs and chores for people in your area.
If you’re trying to start a cleaning side hustle but aren’t fully committed to a gig cleaning houses, TaskRabbit is a great place to start because you can offer all kinds of services or complete odd jobs that crop up.
The best part about TaskRabbit is that they don’t take a cut of your earnings. You’ll pay a $25 registration fee when you sign up, then you’ll get to keep 100% of the money you make on jobs (based on the hourly rate you set).
TaskRabbit claims that they’ve seen taskers earn up to $10,000 per month, but this is likely well above the norm.
Another tasking app, Handy connects homeowners with contractors to perform home-maintenance tasks like cleaning, lawn care, and repairs. To qualify as a contractor for Handy, you’ll need to have some experience in the field, so this isn’t the place to start fresh if you’ve never done professional house cleaning before.
It’s worth noting that many users have lodged grievances against the company for its punishing penalty fees, which workers have to pay for small quibbles, like leaving a job early (even if it’s completed) or not being able to complete a job due to a homeowner’s error, like forgetting to leave a house key.
Additionally, Handy isn’t totally transparent about their commission structure, and many contractors complain that the app takes a large cut of their earnings. This app may be worth exploring, but we wouldn’t recommend it as a first choice.
An all-in-one job management platform, TIDY is an app you can use to find house cleaning jobs and clients, manage your gigs, process payments, and even advertise your services.
They offer two membership tiers:
TIDY sends out payments weekly, and they claim that you can make up to $27 per hour or $160 per day, depending on your location. 1
Sign up for Thumbtack to get leads on house cleaning gigs near you. This home maintenance platform links homeowners and renters with home-care professionals (including cleaners) based on their profiles and prices.
Although you don’t need to pay subscription fees or commissions, Thumbtack charges a percentage fee for leads. This means each time you contact a customer to give them a quote, Thumbtack will charge you a fee that varies depending on the value of the lead.
The popular cleaning-service app MaidsApp is not a marketplace for independent contractors. Instead, it’s a dedicated maid service that hires cleaners and contracts them out to perform jobs.
This makes the app incredibly convenient if you’re not ready to start sourcing your own clients. Another big plus is that you can choose your own hours, so you don’t need to commit yourself to a full-time cleaning job.
One of the company’s posts on the MaidsApp Facebook page says that housekeepers can make up to $25–$30 per hour. However, beware that recent reviews of the app suggest that it may have some administrative issues or is no longer widely used.
You’ve probably already heard of the popular side hustle site Care.com. Care.com also has a mobile app, and although the company is usually associated with babysitting and pet sitting, they also list house cleaning gigs.
Care.com offers two pricing options for subscription memberships:
Like TaskRabbit, the Care.com app offers a variety of job opportunities, making it one of the best options for novice side hustlers who haven’t committed to a cleaning career.
Turno is a company that connects professional cleaners with Airbnb owners who are looking for someone to clean their rental properties. The company’s app for workers, Turno for Cleaners, doesn’t list job openings—instead, it’s designed to help you find new clients and manage your cleaning business.
This app gives you a place to compile contacts, schedule appointments, and automate your workflow. It also provides a marketplace for you to find Airbnb owners looking for cleaners.
On one hand, this system gives you a ton of control over your cleaning services and complements anyone trying to start their own business. On the other hand, you’ll have to put in a lot of legwork and find your own cleaning gigs.
Angi Leads is the contractor end of the HomeAdvisor service for homeowners. This platform is a good option not only for cleaners but also for those who want to start a handyman business or become a professional mover.
When you sign up to the platform as a contractor, you get sent “leads.” These come from customers who have seen your ad and want to connect with you, although you’re not guaranteed to get jobs from every lead. HomeAdvisor charges you a fee when they send you a lead, with the amount depending on the type of project involved and the location.
We spoke to one former cleaner, Stacey Freeman, who grew her office cleaning side hustle into a business and now provides consultancy services for owners of cleaning businesses. She had previously used HomeAdvisor to find cleaning work and highly recommends them.
However, it’s possible that the platform has gone downhill since Freeman used it. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission ordered the company to pay up to $7.2 million for “deceptive and misleading tactics.” 2
Housekeeper.com is an online marketplace that connects house cleaners with people who need their services. To get a house cleaning job on this site, you need to create a profile. Homeowners and prospective clients then browse through profiles of cleaners near them and hire the one that best suits their needs.
The site lists housekeeping jobs in the US, UK, and Canada. The catch is that it’s not the most widely used housekeeping job site, so you may only be able to find cleaning gigs if you live in one of the site’s top cities.
Supposedly attracting the attention of 1.3 million homeowners each month in the US, HomeGuide works a little differently than your typical house cleaner job site. Instead of charging you signup, membership, or commission fees, the company charges you for each job lead you get.
The benefit of this business model is that you get to keep 100% of your profits, potentially allowing you to earn a lot more money in the long run. The drawback, however, is that you have to pay up regardless of whether the prospective client actually books your cleaning services. This means this type of pricing model can get very costly if you struggle to convert leads into paying clients.
Although gig apps for house cleaners offer a lot of advantages—including flexibility as well as fast and secure payments—they’re not your only option when it comes to places to find house cleaning jobs.
You’d be amiss not to explore your other options, such as joining a cleaning agency or looking on general job boards. Here’s a breakdown of some other worthwhile places to look for cleaning jobs.
Signing up to work for a formal house cleaning service can take off a lot of the stress of finding your own customers. It’s not as flexible as working through an app or starting your own cleaning business, but it’s a good option if you want a part-time house cleaning gig.
The full-service cleaning company Molly Maid hires cleaners to join their team where they have physical locations. Check whether Molly Maid has an office in your area and offers house cleaning jobs near you.
As a cleaner with the company, you’ll partner with other cleaners to complete local jobs. The company will provide you with a car for transportation and supplies for cleaning. According to salaries reported on Glassdoor, cleaners tend to earn in the range of $13–$18 per hour. 3
On the downside, many employees claim that scheduling can be inflexible and that it’s tough to get time off. This means Molly Maid may not be your top option if you’re looking for a low-commitment cleaning side hustle.
Another location-based cleaning service, Merry Maids offers part-time and full-time positions to cleaners who live near a physical Merry Maids office. Through the company, you’ll enjoy paid training, employment benefits, and a flexible schedule.
The company claims that they provide a car to transport you between jobs, but some employee reviews indicate this isn’t always the case. Employee-reported salaries indicate the company pays around $13–$18 per hour, which is similar to competitors. 4
Similar to Molly Maid and Merry Maids, The Maids is a formal cleaning company with physical locations that offers part-time employment. They also offer paid training, cleaning supplies, resources, and employment benefits.
Also like the other services, the company claims to offer free transportation, flexible scheduling, and good pay—all points that have been refuted online by former employees. Self-reported salaries from cleaners indicate that the company tends to pay cleaners in the range of $12–$18 per hour. 5
You don’t need to use a specialized app or service to find work as a house cleaner. In fact, businesses and individuals post tons of house cleaning job listings every day on online job boards.
Some of these websites are generalized job boards with work opportunities in a variety of fields, such as graphic design, data entry, manual labor, and cleaning. On the other hand, some others are dedicated to home care.
Here are generic job platforms that you can use to look for cleaning jobs:
Freeman recommends Indeed, plus a few places where she’d hired cleaners for her own business.
“I posted jobs in places like local employment agencies that were federally or state funded to help locals find jobs,” she said. “These places were free for the employer and for the new hires. Check out Ada S. McKinley Community Services and Catholic charities.” She also says that workforce agencies like Goodwill Industries International are a good bet.
You can always take complete control over your cleaning hustle by starting your own cleaning business. You don’t need to launch an involved operation with a team of housekeepers, expensive steam cleaners, and a branded van. In fact, you can start a cleaning business on the side with relatively little overhead and fuss.
The main advantages to starting your own business include complete control over your schedule and rates and 100% ownership of your earnings. However, starting your own business comes with tax and legal implications, and you won’t have the guaranteed earnings or employee protections you’d get by working for a cleaning company.
House cleaning job apps have one obvious advantage: They make it easier than ever to connect with new clients and land jobs. You don’t necessarily need to build a business website, pay for advertising, or even register a business if you’re using these apps and job sites.
The people who will benefit the most from job apps for house cleaners are those who want to start a casual or part-time cleaning side hustle and those who are new to the industry and need to build professional cleaning experience. They can also be helpful for experienced cleaners who are moving to a new area and need to rebuild their client base.
While cleaning apps can be incredibly helpful for landing new business, especially when you’re just starting out as a professional cleaner, they do have some limitations. They also might not be as useful to you if you already have a strong client base.
For example, Freeman noted that house cleaning apps are less likely to yield work in small towns or less populated areas. She also shared her opinion that they have limited usefulness in the long term.
Generally speaking, you’ll earn slightly less money with cleaning apps than you would if you were working independently and sourcing your own clients. This is just because of the fees involves in using these services.
For example, according to Thumbtack, the national average cost of house cleaning is $40–$50 per hour, per cleaner. 6 While Freeman backed up these rates, she added that you would receive less than this if you were working for a cleaning company.
“The rate I would pay the employees would be about a third of these figures,” she said. “Independent contractors are paid about 60%–75% of the amounts per hour [i.e., about $24–$38 per hour].”
Even though cleaning apps simplify the whole process of landing gigs, there are a few tricks to making the most of their benefits.
Freeman suggested conducting an online search for “house cleaning company near me.” Check which apps and websites are on the first page or two; those are the ones clients in your area will hire from, meaning that they’re the ones you should sign up to.
At the end of the day, you want to make sure that you’re charging enough that your take-home pay is worthwhile for you. As such, you’ll need to figure out how much money you’ll lose from using a cleaning app and then increase your rates to cover those costs.
Here are expenses to consider:
Make a list of all your estimated costs and then calculate how much you expect to earn from cleaning apps each month. This should help you figure out how much is left over for you.
Cleaning apps are a great starting point for finding work, but they’re not always consistent. Sometimes they may only help you get one-time gigs. As Freeman noted, long-term success is dependent on finding clients who will book you time and time again.
“The money is in recurring clientele, not one-time cleaning jobs,” she said. “Strategy is very important when growing a cleaning business.”
Start establishing a list of contacts from the get-go. This could come in handy down the line in the event that you’re no longer able to use the app to find cleaning jobs, such as if your chosen cleaning app is eventually decommissioned, work dries up, or competition increases.
