Posted by u/cleaning_startup
Should I go residential or commercial cleaning?
Answered by Ask a Shop Owner ·
Starting from scratch. Which is more profitable?
u/askashopowner Owner-operator advisor
Top answer
Residential is faster to start, higher per-hour, more churn. Commercial is slower to land, lower per-hour, but customers stay 3 to 7 years and pay net-30.
For a solo start, do residential. Better cash flow (paid same day), quicker route building, and you can start with 4 customers this week.
Once you have 3 employees and stable residential cash flow, add commercial for evening/weekend crews. The two together is where cleaning companies scale to $1M+.
Ask a Shop Owner writes these threads to help owner-operators find real answers on the web. Nothing here is scraped from Reddit. Every answer is grounded in the same operator library that powers the Ask a Shop Owner chat product.