How to start a cleaning business, with insurance and the bond in the right order

Most guides to starting a cleaning business spend their length on business plans and logos and give insurance one line. This one goes in the order the risk arrives: you can't legally take a payment before you're registered, and you shouldn't walk into a client's home before you're insured. Costs come from published sources only, with the seller's name on each figure, and where nobody publishes a number, we say so.

Step 1: Decide who you'll clean for

Two decisions here change the rest of the page. The first is homes or businesses. Housecall Pro's guide says most new cleaning businesses start with a radius of 5 to 10 miles around their base to keep travel time and costs manageable, and suggests listing what you won't offer as well as what you will (deep cleans, move-out cleans, laundry, windows). Homes are the easier start. Offices bring bigger limits, after-hours access and, in California, possibly a different registration. Both are covered in the janitorial insurance guide.

The second is whether you take work from platforms and short-term rental hosts. A booking app's guarantee isn't your insurance, and the platforms guide covers what Handy, Thumbtack, Airbnb and Turno do and don't pay.

Step 2: Register the business

The order that most sources agree on:

1. Choose a structure. The SBA says to choose one before you register your business with the state, and that most businesses also need a tax ID and licenses and permits. Housecall Pro sets a sole proprietorship, easiest and cheapest but with no protection for personal assets, against an LLC. The LLC guide prices the filing in five states and says what an LLC leaves out.
2. Get an EIN before you hire anyone. The IRS lists hiring employees among the reasons you need one, issues it free online and says you never have to pay a fee for it.
3. File for a general business license and, if you use a name other than your own, a DBA. Insureon says most states require house cleaning businesses to file for a general business license, and that local rules can add a specific license, bond or permit.

There is no trade license to study for. Housecall Pro says you generally don't need formal schooling or a specialized license to work as a house cleaner. The exceptions are about size and place. Washington's Department of Revenue says to get a business license if your gross income is $12,000 a year or more, if you use a name other than your legal one or if you plan to hire within 90 days. California's janitorial registration exempts a person or entity that only cleans residential dwellings. The state-by-state license table has the rest, and the requirements page covers workers' comp thresholds.

Step 3: Insure before the first job

The ranking guides shortchange this step. Buy in the order below; each line links to the page that goes deeper.

1. General liability, $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. Insureon says 87% of cleaning business owners who buy through it choose those limits, and its median for house cleaners is $51 a month, or $608 a year. See general liability.
2. A fix for the care, custody and control gap. Standard policies can exclude the vase you pick up to dust. Thimble says its cleaning policy includes cover for that automatically; with other insurers you ask for a bailee endorsement. See the care, custody and control guide.
3. Lost key coverage, if you hold client keys or alarm codes. See the lost key guide.
4. Auto. The Hartford says most personal auto policies don't cover property damage or injury from driving your personal vehicle for work, and Insureon calls hired and non-owned auto a must if you drive your own car to jobs.
5. A janitorial bond, when a client, host or contract asks. It reimburses the client for theft by a cleaner and, per Insureon and most bond sellers, you repay the surety (BondsExpress says you don't). Insureon's median is $9 a month; SuretyBonds.com lists $125 a year for $10,000 for five or fewer employees. Buying, amounts and fine print are on the janitorial bond page, and the meaning of the phrase is on bonded and insured.
6. Workers' comp, as soon as a state's threshold puts your first helper over the line. Thresholds are in the workers' comp guide.
7. Tools and equipment, once the machines cost more than you'd replace out of pocket.

If you're working alone, the self-employed cleaner guide trims that list. The coverage page covers every policy, and the best cleaning business insurance page compares the sellers.

Step 4: What it costs to start

Nobody publishes a survey of what cleaners actually spent in year one. What exists is estimates from software and insurance companies, and they disagree, sometimes with themselves.

Source and figure	What it covers	Whose estimate it is
Housecall Pro, startup guide: $2,000 to $8,000	Supplies, licenses, first-year insurance and bond, marketing. Add $3,000 to $10,000 if you need a vehicle	Housecall Pro's estimate from "typical startup costs reported by small business owners and industry guides"
Housecall Pro, startup costs page: $500 to $5,000 or more	Equipment, supplies, registration, marketing, plus a first month of recurring costs	Housecall Pro's blend of benchmarks, with insurance ranges from its partner Coverdash
Insureon, startup guide	No dollar figure; calls the costs relatively low	Insureon

Two pages from the same company start four times apart. The first guide puts equipment and supplies at $1,000 to $3,000, licenses and permits at $250 to $1,000, insurance at $600 to $1,500 a year, a bond at $115 to $175 a year and marketing at $1,000 to $2,500. The second puts equipment at $200 to $2,000, initial supplies at $100 to $500, registration usually under $100 and marketing at $100 to $1,000 or more, with general liability at about $54 to $75 a month and cleaning supplies at $50 to $300 a month. Both are estimates from a software company that sells to cleaners.

The insurance lines are the ones you can check against buyers. Insureon's medians for house cleaners, $608 for general liability and $112 for a bond, come to $720 a year. That sits at the low end of Housecall Pro's $715 to $1,675 for insurance plus bond in the first guide. No source we read publishes a price for lost key coverage or a bailee endorsement.

Step 5: Supplies and equipment

Housecall Pro's list is a HEPA vacuum, mops, buckets and an initial stock of chemicals. A solo residential cleaner can start with that plus a caddy, a bag of microfiber cloths and scrub brushes, which is our view of a starter kit, not a sourced list. Machines are a separate decision. Progressive names commercial vacuums, pressure washers and carpet steamers as gear where inland marine coverage can be a good fit once it travels, and Insureon says inland marine reimburses a vacuum stolen from your vehicle.

Buy machines when a job asks for them. Carpet extraction and floor buffing also change the insurance conversation, since damage to the surface you're treating is where carriers disagree, as the general liability page shows.

Step 6: Price the work

Pricing models, as the sources describe them:

• Hourly, flat rate, per room and per square foot. Housecall Pro lists all four. Stripe's guide describes hourly, flat and per square foot, and says per-square-foot pricing is standard for commercial jobs, with $0.10 to $0.50 as its example.
• Insureon suggests calling local services to see how they charge, and says an hourly rate can be the best start because you learn how long each type of property takes.
• Housecall Pro says many house cleaners charge $25 to $75 an hour and that the average house cleaning business runs about a 15% profit margin. Those are its figures, and the page names no survey.

Build insurance into the rate. An illustration, not a benchmark: suppose you bill 1,000 hours in a year. At Insureon's medians for general liability and a bond ($720), insurance costs 72 cents of each billed hour. Add Insureon's workers' comp median ($1,204) and it is $1.92. Your numbers will differ, but the math takes ten minutes and keeps insurance from eating your margin.

Step 7: Collect the paperwork clients ask for

Condos, property managers and hosts ask before you start. A Los Angeles HOA's vendor rules want a certificate showing at least $1,000,000 of general liability, and more. Ask a client what they need, then ask your insurer for it. The certificate of insurance guide shows the items and what to say to your agent.

Before your first paid clean

• You are registered where you live, under the name on your certificate.
• Your general liability is in force and you have a certificate saved as a PDF.
• You've asked your insurer, in writing, whether the policy pays for property in your care.
• You've photographed anything fragile or already damaged on the first visit.
• You know what your car insurance says about driving to jobs.