Agency, freelancer or do it yourself: marketing help for a cleaning company
What each option really costs, the red flags in a cleaning marketing pitch, how Thumbtack and Angi fees compare, and why any offer should start with a trial.
Cleaning company owners get pitched more than most trades, because the industry is full of small operators with cash flow and no marketing person. The pitches come from three directions: lead marketplaces, franchise-style marketing packages, and local agencies. This guide is about telling them apart and knowing what a fair price is.
Start from the benchmark, because it changes the calculation. Among 45,428 house cleaning listings, 59.5% have under 10 reviews and 37.3% have no website. The bar you are trying to clear is low. A lot of what gets sold as sophisticated marketing is really just doing the basics that most of your competitors never did.
What each option costs
Doing it yourself. Free plus your evenings. Realistically five to eight hours a week for the first two months, then two to three. The parts that are genuinely doable alone: the Google Business Profile, review requests, Nextdoor and neighborhood groups, and a template website if you write the text. The parts that go badly alone: Google Ads, which loses money quietly, and any technical site work.
A freelancer. $400 to $1,500 a month, or $50 to $110 an hour. Best for a defined project such as a website build or a Google profile rebuild. Weakest for ongoing ad management, because one person managing eleven accounts checks yours on Tuesdays.
An agency. $800 to $3,000 a month for a small cleaning company, plus ad spend. Above $3,000 you should be getting a dedicated strategist and weekly calls. Below $800 you are usually getting an automated report and a template.
Lead marketplaces. No monthly fee, $15 to $60 per shared lead on Thumbtack and $25 to $60 on Angi in most metros, with each lead sold to three or four companies. That is the model to understand carefully.
The marketplace math
A shared lead at $35, with three other companies calling the same person, closes at maybe 20% if you call fast. That is $175 per booked job. If the job is a $300 move-out clean, you have spent 58% of the revenue on acquisition before paying a cleaner. If the client goes biweekly, $175 is excellent.
So the question is not whether marketplaces are good or bad. It is what share of marketplace clients you convert to recurring. Track that number for 90 days. If it is above 25%, the channel works for you. If it is under 10%, you are renting jobs at a loss and the platform keeps the client relationship, the review, and the ability to sell that same homeowner to a competitor next year.
Two structural problems worth naming. You cannot build a brand on a marketplace, because the customer remembers the app, not you. And the platform can raise lead prices or change the matching algorithm at any time, which has happened repeatedly in cleaning.
Use marketplaces as a starter or a gap filler. Do not build the company on them.
Red flags in a pitch
- They will not name the monthly price until the second call. Price should be on the first call.
- They own the accounts. Your Google Ads account, your Google Business Profile, your domain and your website must be in your name, with you as owner and them as manager. Agencies holding client assets is the most common way an owner gets stuck.
- A twelve-month contract with a cancellation fee. For a service that should prove itself in 60 days, that is a bet against their own work.
- Guaranteed rankings or a guaranteed number of leads. Nobody controls Google's results. A guaranteed lead count usually means junk leads counted generously, including hang-ups and wrong numbers.
- Reporting that shows impressions and clicks but not booked jobs. The only numbers that matter are leads, booked first cleans, and recurring conversions.
- No experience with recurring service businesses. A cleaning company is not a plumbing company. If the pitch treats every booked clean as the goal, they will optimize you into a pile of one-time move-outs.
- Prewritten review requests that filter unhappy clients. Review gating violates Google policy and can get your reviews stripped. See the reviews guide.
What to ask before you sign
- Who owns the ad account, the website and the domain, in writing?
- What is the monthly fee, and is ad spend separate?
- What happens in month one, specifically, day by day?
- Can I see a cleaning company you work with now, and may I call them?
- What do you need from me each month, in hours?
- How do you report booked jobs, not leads?
- What is the cancellation notice, and what do I keep if I leave?
Question seven separates the honest ones. The good answer is that you keep everything, because it was built in your accounts.
What you should keep in house regardless
Even with help, do not outsource these:
- Answering the phone and the speed of first response, covered in the missed calls guide.
- The doorstep review ask and the counter card.
- Asking existing clients for recommendations in neighborhood groups.
- Your pricing decisions.
- Hiring, which is the real constraint on growth in this industry.
An agency that improves your lead flow while your close rate stays at 20% is expensive. Fix the phone first.
Why trial-first is the right structure
Marketing for a cleaning company shows a signal fast. Google Ads produce calls in days. Missed-call text-back produces recovered leads in the first week. A rebuilt Google profile moves within a month. There is no honest reason to require a card and a contract before any of that is visible.
That is why every service on this site is offered as a free 14-day trial, set up in your own accounts, with no card and nothing that renews. Two weeks is long enough to see whether the phone behaves differently and short enough that you risk nothing but a setup call.
Frequently asked
Is a franchise marketing package worth it? If you are in a franchise you usually pay a national fund regardless. Local execution is still yours, and the profile, reviews and phone answering are still where your results come from.
Should I hire someone in house? At roughly $40,000 a month in revenue an in-house marketing coordinator starts to make sense, usually a part-time office manager who owns reviews, follow-up and social. Ads stay specialist work longer.
What if I only have $500 a month? Spend it on Google Ads in one tight campaign and do the profile, reviews and follow-up yourself. Do not split $500 across four channels.
Any service, free for 14 days, no card, in your accounts. See the free trial page or text or call (385) 832-6175.