Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How U.S. house cleaning works and where video fits, and the evidence behind it: our own read of 229 cleaning business homepages; how big cleaning content is on YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest; how cleaning businesses get customers; how big residential cleaning is next to commercial janitorial work; how many cleaning businesses and maids there are and what they earn, including Florida; what the franchises and marketplaces say about themselves; how much time Americans spend cleaning and what cleaning costs; the tax, wage and safety rules; and where the popular numbers came from.
25.8% of 229 U.S. house cleaning and janitorial homepages showed a video player in November 2026, against 0.0% of 132 franchise location pages; 72.5% offered recurring cleaning plans (our measurement). (Mark Studios)See details
Janitorial firms earned $5.19 billion from residential interior cleaning in 2022, 7.1% of the industry's receipts and 47.7% more than in 2017 (Census; our calculation). (U.S. Census Bureau; Mark Studios)See details
1,095,927 U.S. cleaning businesses had no paid employees in 2023: 94.2% of the industry's businesses by our calculation. (U.S. Census Bureau; Mark Studios)See details
Americans averaged 0.33 hours a day of interior cleaning in 2025, about 2.3 hours a week, not the six hours a week from a 2018 trade-association poll. (BLS; American Cleaning Institute)See details
Facebook was the top marketing channel for 36% of cleaning businesses in Jobber's December 2025 survey; 64% said leads come from repeat customers. (Jobber)See details
YouTube videos titled "clean with me" drew more than 250 million views in 2024; TikTok put #CleanTok at nearly 98.5 billion views in November 2023. (YouTube; TikTok)See details
Merry Maids' owner put the U.S. residential cleaning market at $3 billion for 2016 and $16 billion for 2017, a 5.3-fold jump with no explanation. (ServiceMaster; Mark Studios)See details
The "Commerce expects 80% of two-income households to hire a cleaner" line traces to a 2008 Molly Maid press release; we found no Commerce source. (Molly Maid)See details
Maids and housekeeping cleaners earned a median $35,510 in 2025, and 86.4% were women (BLS). (BLS)See details
How many house cleaning businesses use video on their websites?
About one in four. We read the homepages of a random sample of U.S. house cleaning, maid service and janitorial businesses listed in OpenStreetMap on November 2, 2026: 25.8% of the 229 readable cleaning homepages had a video player (our measurement). That is far more than the franchise location pages we read the same day, where 0 of 132 had one: independent owners choose video more often than the brand templates do. The video splits evenly between files hosted on the site itself (12.7% of homepages, often a muted background loop: 9.6%) and embeds from YouTube or Vimeo (12.7%; 10.5% YouTube). Of the homepages with video, 44.1% used only self-hosted files. Cleaning sits close to the electricians and landscapers we measured the same way, below pest control and pool service companies (25.8% against 24.4%, 23.3%, 28.0% and 32.5%).
The homepages sell the routine and the trust. 72.5% offered recurring cleaning and 79.5% move-out or deep cleans; 62.0% offered a free estimate and 39.7% a satisfaction or re-clean guarantee. Trust wording is common but not universal: 51.1% said they were licensed, bonded or insured, 41.9% that their cleaners are background-checked, and 62.4% said one or the other. 42.4% advertised green or non-toxic products. Most firms do both kinds of work: 91.7% mentioned home cleaning and 85.2% commercial, office or janitorial cleaning, while 14.4% mentioned only homes and 7.9% only businesses.
Many let the customer start online.72.1% had a quote or estimate button, 47.6% a form on the homepage, and 31.9% online booking; 17.9% loaded a booking or scheduling widget, most often MaidCentral, Launch27 or Jobber (41 sites). 17.0% showed an instant price or a price calculator, and 39.7% offered online booking or an instant price. 20.1% loaded a chat widget. Few showed prices: 16.2% had a dollar amount on the homepage. 64.6% linked to a careers page or advertised for cleaners, and only 7.0% used before-and-after wording.
How we measured. We took OpenStreetMap records tagged as cleaning businesses (craft, shop, office or service = cleaning) or named for maids, house cleaning, cleaning services or janitorial work, and dropped dry cleaners, laundries and other cleaning trades by name, such as carpet, window, pressure-washing and restoration companies. That left 463 distinct U.S. website hosts on November 2, 2026; we read a random sample of 400 homepages once in a headless browser, without clicking or submitting anything, and skipped sites whose robots.txt disallows our crawler. After a title review that removed exterior, carpet, restoration and other cleaning trades, 229 were readable house cleaning or janitorial sites. Franchise brands count once per website, and 8.3% of homepages showed a franchise or multi-site affiliation. A hand check of 29 homepages agreed with the automatic video classification on 96.6% of them (one background video that had not loaded was missed, so the video share is a slight floor), and with the online booking rule on 96.6%. The site list with every indicator is in homepages.csv and the method in crawl-summary.json. Shares from 229 sites carry a margin of about plus or minus 6 points at 26%.
How is video used around house cleaning?
Cleaning is one of the biggest video genres on social platforms, and most of that video is made by creators and product brands, not cleaning companies. YouTube says videos with "clean with me" in the title drew more than 250 million views worldwide in 2024 (YouTube). The genre was already large in 2017, when such videos were drawing close to 50 million views a day, and on one day in March 2018 they drew over 100 million views (Tubefilter, reporting YouTube data). The most-cleaned room in those videos was the bedroom, followed by the bathroom and kitchen (Tubefilter).
On TikTok the counts come from interested parties and do not agree. Unilever, which sells cleaning products and partnered with TikTok on #CleanTok, said in June 2023 that the #Cleaning hashtag had 63.2 billion views, #CleaningHacks 11.4 billion and #HomeHacks 6.3 billion; that #CleanTok content had grown 63% in a year, with 3 million posts over the past three years; and that #CleanTok had passed #BeautyTok's 50 billion views (Unilever). TikTok itself said in November 2023 that #CleanTok had been viewed nearly 98.5 billion times, 35 billion more than in June 2023 (TikTok). TikTok's earlier figure was 78 billion (June 2023) and its later one 79 billion (May 2024), so its own totals do not run in order; we show them as a conflict. TikTok's first CleanTok Awards, in the UK in November 2023, had four categories, including one for extreme cleaning transformations and one for satisfying ASMR (TikTok).
In the same June 2023 post Unilever said 54% of TikTok users had bought a household product after seeing it on the platform, that 71% of those purchases were unplanned, that almost 70% said TikTok played a role in discovering household products, and that TikTok users were 1.5 times as likely as users of other platforms to buy something right away (Unilever). It gives no sample size or field dates for any of these.
Before-and-after content is still growing on search-led platforms. Pinterest's Spring 2026 Trend Report put searches for "before and after cleaning" up 60%, "cleaning list by room step by step" up 175%, "natural cleaning" up 545%, "non toxic cleaning" up 125% and "cleaning reset" up 60% (Pinterest). In March 2021 Pinterest reported U.S. searches for "cleaning plan" up 33% year on year (Pinterest). Pinterest does not publish the base volumes.
Cleaning advice on video has a safety side. Calls about household cleaner exposures to the Massachusetts and Rhode Island poison center rose 34% between January 20 and May 5, 2020 against the previous eight years, and daily tweets about treating COVID-19 with cleaners tracked call volumes about 7-10 days later (Clinical Toxicology, Chary et al.).
How do house cleaning businesses get customers?
Mostly from people who already know them, and then from Facebook. In Jobber's December 2025 survey of U.S. home service owners, 64% of cleaning businesses said leads come from repeat customers and 60% from referrals (Jobber). The top-performing paid or online channel was Facebook (36%), ahead of lead-generation sites such as Angi and Thumbtack (20%), Google search (17%) and Google Local Services Ads (15%) (Jobber). Jobber sells field-service software to cleaning businesses; the survey covered 1,050 U.S. owners across trades, fielded in December 2025.
Cleaners answer fast. 85% of cleaning businesses in the same survey said they respond to leads the same day, and 26% within an hour, the fastest of any trade (HVAC: 11%) (Jobber). Cleaning businesses also reported the most open capacity of any trade: only 12% saw job sizes grow significantly, and AI adoption among them was 50% (Jobber). In Jobber's own platform data for Q2 2026, cleaning bookings fell every month, bottoming at a 5.2% year-on-year drop in May, while cleaning revenue growth rose to 7.6% by June (Jobber).
Trust signals matter on the marketplaces. Thumbtack said in early 2025 that pros with a background-check badge on their profile are hired 44 percent more than pros without one (Thumbtack). Google lists house cleaning services as a category that can run Local Services Ads in the U.S. (Google), and in categories that require it, every employee or contractor who performs the service must pass a background check (Google). In BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 U.S. adults, 49% trusted online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and after reading a positive review 66% would research further rather than book straight away (BrightLocal). The same survey found YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok gaining ground as places people read local business reviews (BrightLocal). BrightLocal sells software to local marketers.
Do cleaning franchises put video on their local pages?
Almost never. On November 2, 2026 we read a random sample of the local location pages of four U.S. house cleaning franchise brands (Molly Maid, MaidPro, Two Maids and Home Clean Heroes) in a headless browser: 0 of 132 readable pages had an embedded video player, and none linked to TikTok (0.0%). 59.8% linked to a YouTube channel, 69.7% to Instagram, and 71.2% used background-check or "bonded and insured" wording. Nearly every page showed reviews or a star rating (99.2%), carried a careers or hiring link (100.0%) and 90.2% offered online booking or a price calculator. A second, broader reading of the saved pages found 0 disagreements with the video flag.
Because local pages are built from each brand's template, these shares describe four templates more than four hundred owners. The brand differences show it: 74.4% of MaidPro pages used the words "before and after", 5.0% of Molly Maid pages mentioned background checks or bonding, and 0.0% of Two Maids pages linked to Instagram. The Maids is the exception: all 5 of its pages we could read (its robots.txt asks for five minutes between requests) embedded the same YouTube video. Of eight brand homepages we could read, 0 embedded a player.
The brands list very different numbers of local pages: Merry Maids 1,208 city pages, MaidPro 279 office pages (U.S. and Canada), The Cleaning Authority 255, Molly Maid 248, Two Maids 209, The Maids 194, Maid Right 36 and Home Clean Heroes 13. A listed page is not proof of an operating franchise: some brands publish one page per city they serve. Merry Maids, The Cleaning Authority and Maid Right showed bot challenges on their local pages, so they are not in the sample. Every sampled page and flag is in our location pages file; the method is in the evidence ledger.
How big is the house cleaning business?
The only census measure of residential cleaning revenue is small next to the commercial side. In the 2022 Economic Census, janitorial services employer firms (NAICS 561720) earned $5.19 billion from residential interior cleaning, reported by 22,925 establishments, against $59.4 billion from general commercial cleaning reported by 50,663 establishments (U.S. Census Bureau). The industry's total receipts were $72.6 billion across 68,108 employer establishments (U.S. Census Bureau). By our calculation residential interior cleaning was 7.1% of the industry's employer receipts in 2022, and establishments that reported it took an average of about $226,000 from that line.
It is growing. In 2017 the same product line was $3.51 billion from 17,458 establishments (U.S. Census Bureau), when the industry's total was $49.7 billion (U.S. Census Bureau). Residential receipts rose 47.7% from 2017 to 2022 before inflation, and the number of firms reporting them rose 31.3%, by our calculation. These figures leave out the self-employed: 1,095,927 nonemployer janitorial and cleaning businesses took in $22.8 billion in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau), an average of about $20,785 each. Census does not split nonemployer receipts into residential and commercial work.
Company estimates of the market disagree by a factor of five. ServiceMaster, which owned Merry Maids, put the U.S. residential professional cleaning market at about $3.7 billion for 2013, $3 billion for 2015 and $3 billion for 2016, then at about $16 billion for 2017 in its next annual report (ServiceMaster 10-K filings): a 5.3-fold jump with no change of method explained. It then switched to a combined commercial and residential figure of about $78 billion for 2018 and $145 billion for 2019 (ServiceMaster 10-K filings). In 2015 it counted more than 800,000 janitorial companies, most with five or fewer employees (ServiceMaster 10-K). Franchise recruiters quote unsourced figures: MaidPro's $18.8 billion "cleaning market" (MaidPro) and Two Maids' $20+ billion residential industry (Two Maids). The paywalled market-research estimates are covered in the last section.
Public companies barely mention the trade. EDGAR full-text search finds 117 annual reports since 2001 containing "maid service", 38 containing "house cleaning" and 22 containing "residential cleaning" (SEC EDGAR full-text search). Of the 10-Ks filed in 2025, 0 mention "house cleaning" and 2 mention "maid service", a senior-housing REIT and a utility (SEC EDGAR).
How many cleaning businesses are there?
Over a million, nearly all of them one person. The federal series cover janitorial services (NAICS 561720), which mixes commercial janitorial firms and residential maid services; no federal count separates them except the product-line figures above. BLS counted 83,041 private janitorial services establishments in 2025, employing 1,069,828 people at average annual pay of $34,443, or $662 a week (BLS QCEW). In 2019 there were 74,049 establishments with 1,095,975 jobs and average pay of $24,922 (BLS QCEW). By our calculation that is 12.1% more establishments, 2.4% fewer jobs and 38.2% higher average pay (not adjusted for inflation). Pay in 2022 averaged $31,264 (BLS QCEW).
Census County Business Patterns counted 67,799 employer establishments in 2023, with 1,088,193 employees in mid-March and annual payroll of $32.7 billion (U.S. Census Bureau); in 2019 there were 62,592 establishments and 1,096,144 employees (U.S. Census Bureau). 41,548 of the 2023 establishments had fewer than 5 employees and 83 had 1,000 or more (U.S. Census Bureau): 61.3% were under 5 employees by our calculation.
The self-employed dwarf the employers. Census counted 985,676 nonemployer janitorial and cleaning businesses in 2019, with $16.6 billion in receipts (U.S. Census Bureau), and 1,095,927 in 2023: 11.2% growth. By our calculation 94.2% of the industry's businesses had no paid employees in 2023 (nonemployer businesses and employer establishments are different units, so treat the share as indicative). BLS projections data agree on the shape for the occupation: 13.7 percent of maids and housekeeping cleaners were self-employed in 2025, against 4.8 percent of janitors (BLS Employment Projections).
Households also hire cleaners directly. BLS counted 184,901 private households as employers with unemployment-insured workers in 2025, employing 205,372 people at average pay of $44,222 (BLS QCEW, NAICS 814110), down from 248,945 households and 285,957 jobs in 2019 (BLS QCEW): a 25.7% fall in household employers by our calculation. These are only households that report a worker for unemployment insurance; most cash-paid help is not in this count, and the series covers nannies and other domestic workers as well as cleaners.
How many cleaning businesses are in Florida?
Florida had 8,596 private janitorial services establishments in 2025, employing 73,796 people at average pay of $32,607 ($627 a week) (BLS QCEW), up from 7,632 establishments, 72,768 jobs and $21,249 average pay in 2019 (BLS QCEW). By our calculation establishments rose 12.6% and average pay 53.5% (before inflation), and Florida held 10.4% of U.S. establishments but 6.9% of the jobs, so its firms are smaller than average. Its employment location quotient was 1.08 (BLS QCEW).
County Business Patterns counted 6,675 Florida employer establishments in 2023 with 65,978 employees (U.S. Census Bureau), up from 5,890 in 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau); 4,983 had fewer than 5 employees (U.S. Census Bureau), 74.7% by our calculation. Florida had 166,471 nonemployer cleaning businesses in 2023 with $3.5 billion in receipts (U.S. Census Bureau), up from 135,842 in 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau), and employer firms there took in $4.2 billion in 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau). 12,746 Florida workers were employed directly by private households in 2025 (BLS QCEW).
How many house cleaners are there, and what do they earn?
About 1.3 million people work as maids and housekeeping cleaners. BLS counted 1,332,100 jobs in the occupation (SOC 37-2012) in 2025, including the self-employed, and projects 1,339,500 in 2035, growth of 0.6 percent, with about 175,500 openings a year from people leaving the job (BLS Employment Projections). The median annual wage was $35,510 (BLS Employment Projections). The occupation includes hotel and hospital housekeepers, not only house cleaners; BLS no longer publishes a Handbook page for it.
The wage survey counts 860,670 wage and salary jobs in May 2025, at a median of $17.07 an hour and a mean of $37,080 a year (BLS OEWS). Janitors and cleaners (SOC 37-2011) are a separate, larger occupation: 2,209,760 wage jobs at a median of $17.71 an hour (BLS OEWS), and 2,432,600 jobs in 2025 including the self-employed (BLS Employment Projections). BLS's Handbook puts janitors and building cleaners at about 2.4 million jobs, 35% of them in services to buildings and dwellings, where the median wage was $17.21 an hour (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook).
The household survey shows who does the work. 1,392 thousand people were employed as maids and housekeeping cleaners in 2025: 86.4 percent women, 49.8 percent Hispanic or Latino and 15.0 percent Black (BLS Current Population Survey). In 2019 the count was 1,475 thousand and 89.0 percent were women (BLS Current Population Survey), so employment was 5.6% lower in 2025 by our calculation. Among janitors and building cleaners, 36.2 percent were women (BLS Current Population Survey).
What do the franchises and marketplaces say about themselves?
Franchise brands publish their own location counts, and none is audited today. Molly Maid, a Neighborly brand, says more than 450 individually owned franchises operate in the U.S. (Molly Maid); its franchise-sales site says 445+ locations and average gross sales of $173.43 per cleaning (Molly Maid franchise site). It says it performed 1.7 million cleanings "last year", 90 percent for repeat customers (Molly Maid), and that it came to Ann Arbor from Canada in 1984 (Molly Maid). Merry Maids says it has over 400 locations across North America (Merry Maids). MaidPro says more than 250 locations across the U.S. and Canada (MaidPro) and that 40% of its franchisees have been in business over 10 years (MaidPro). The Maids reported average revenue of $1,061,250 for its 101 full-year franchisees in 2022, from its January 2023 disclosure document (The Maids), and Two Maids claims $1,085,621 average gross revenue for its top fifth of mature locations in 2025 (Two Maids).
Merry Maids is the one brand with a filed history. At the end of 2003 it served about 300,000 U.S. customers through 61 company-owned and 760 franchised locations (ServiceMaster 10-K); at the end of 2013 it had about 75 company-owned and 395 franchised locations (ServiceMaster 10-K), 48.0% fewer franchises by our calculation. Royalties were 18 percent of its revenue in 2013 (ServiceMaster 10-K). ServiceMaster then sold its branches to franchisees: company-branch revenue fell to $42 million in 2015 and $8 million in 2016 (ServiceMaster 10-K), and the brand was fully franchised in 2016 (ServiceMaster 10-K). The ServiceMaster Brands group, Merry Maids included, had $257 million of revenue in 2019 (ServiceMaster 10-K) and was sold for $1,541 million to a Roark Capital affiliate in October 2020 (Terminix 10-K).
The marketplaces disclose little about cleaning itself. Angi bought Handy, a booking platform for "primarily cleaning and handyman services", on October 19, 2018 (ANGI Homeservices 10-K), part of $167.8 million invested in acquisitions that year (ANGI Homeservices 10-K). In 2025 Angi had about 111,000 average monthly active pros in the fourth quarter and consumers used it for about 16 million projects (Angi Inc. 10-K); it spent $334.1 million on advertising (Angi Inc. 10-K), and it lists as a risk that laws could force it to reclassify pros from independent contractors to employees (Angi Inc. 10-K). Care.com had 31.7 million members at the end of 2018, with housekeeping among its categories (Care.com 10-K), and said over 1.7 million matches had been made since 2007 (Care.com 10-K). Its 2018 filing cited IBISWorld for $335 billion of U.S. care spending, a figure that bundles day care, nursing homes and housekeepers (Care.com 10-K). Care.com's revenue fell to $347.4 million in 2025 (People Inc. 10-K), and its HomePay service files household-employer taxes for families that employ nannies or housekeepers (People Inc. 10-K). Homeaglow says it serves 50 U.S. cities and 200,000+ customers (Homeaglow).
The largest cleaning company in the filings is commercial. ABM Industries employed about 113,000 people at October 31, 2025, and its janitorial line earned $5,233.1 million in fiscal 2025 (ABM Industries 10-K), about as much as every employer firm's residential interior cleaning receipts combined in 2022.
How much time do Americans spend cleaning?
About 20 minutes a day on interior cleaning, averaged over everyone. In the 2025 American Time Use Survey, people age 15 and over spent 0.33 hours a day on interior cleaning (0.20 for men, 0.45 for women) and 0.56 hours on all housework, including laundry (BLS American Time Use Survey). By our calculation that is about 2.3 hours a week of interior cleaning and 3.9 hours of housework. On an average day 23.4% of people did some interior cleaning and 36.1% some housework; those who cleaned spent 1.39 hours on it, and those who did any housework 1.55 hours (BLS ATUS). 47.9% of women did housework on an average day against 23.8% of men, and 31.0% of women did interior cleaning against 15.5% of men (BLS ATUS). Laundry took 0.17 hours a day (BLS ATUS).
Wider household activities reach almost everyone: 81 percent of people did some on an average day in 2025, spending about 2 hours (BLS ATUS), and Eighty-seven percent of women and 75% of men did (BLS ATUS). 40 percent did housework on an average weekend day against 35% on a weekday (BLS ATUS). BLS did not collect data during the October-November 2025 shutdown and reweighted the missing days.
The trend is flat over two decades. Housework took 0.62 hours a day in 2003, the survey's first year, when 55 percent of women and 20% of men did some on an average day (BLS ATUS), and 0.62 hours again in 2024 (BLS ATUS). Interior cleaning took 0.31 hours a day in 2019, with 22.6% cleaning on an average day (BLS ATUS), and 0.40 hours in 2024, with 25.7% (BLS ATUS). In 2024 41 percent did housework on a weekend day (BLS ATUS).
Who cleans is shifting slowly. In Gallup's 2019 survey of 3,062 married or cohabiting adults, the woman was mainly responsible for cleaning in 51% of opposite-sex couples (Gallup), down nine points since 1996 (Gallup). Pew found in October 2020 that 59% of partnered women said they do more chores than their partner (Pew Research Center); among couples where both parents work full time, 43% said in 2026 that the mother does more (Pew Research Center). In marriages where spouses aged 25-54 earn about the same, wives spent 4.6 hours a week on housework in 2016-2021, by Pew's analysis of time-use data (Pew Research Center).
Product-industry surveys add attitudes. The American Cleaning Institute, the cleaning-product makers' trade group, found in February 2026 that 80% of U.S. adults spring clean at least once a year (American Cleaning Institute), that 17% are motivated by social media or cleaning trends, that 39% turn more often to digital tools such as social media, Google or AI for cleaning advice (American Cleaning Institute), that 31% clean more than their parents did and that 56% would be embarrassed to say when they last cleaned the fridge (American Cleaning Institute). 1% send all their laundry out (American Cleaning Institute). In ACI's 2025 surveys, 45% of spring cleaners expected to do more than usual and 17% said their home had not been deep cleaned in a year (American Cleaning Institute); in 2024, 45% said spring cleaning takes them three or more days (American Cleaning Institute); in 2022 the spring-cleaning share was 78% (American Cleaning Institute). Each is a Wakefield or Ipsos online survey of about 1,000 adults. In YouGov's January 2025 poll of 1,247 adults, 38% wanted a robot for household tasks, and 93% of those choosing tasks picked cleaning floors (YouGov).
What do households spend on cleaning help?
No federal series publishes a readable figure for paid house cleaning alone. The narrowest readable Consumer Expenditure Survey lines bundle it with other services: U.S. consumer units spent $1,849 on household operations in 2022, from $3,914 in the top income fifth to $794 in the bottom (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey), and $1,361 on "other household expenses", which include housekeeping (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey). Both lines include childcare or other services.
Marketplaces publish price ranges from their own data. Thumbtack puts an average house cleaning at $185–$324 nationally, a standard cleaning at $146-$202, a deep cleaning at $190-$265 and a move-out cleaning at $200-$286 (Thumbtack), with tips of 10-15% for individual cleaners (Thumbtack). Its pricing page lists $185–$324 in the same place, recurring cleanings every two weeks at $160-$220 a visit (Thumbtack), and standard cleanings at $146-$202 (Thumbtack). HomeAdvisor, an Angi brand, puts the average at $176 a visit (HomeAdvisor), independent cleaners at $12 to $25 an hour and cleaning companies at $25 to $80 an hour (HomeAdvisor), and deep cleaning at $200 to $400 (HomeAdvisor). Care.com listed 30,700 housekeeping providers at an average posted rate of $22.00 an hour in November 2026, averaging 4.6 stars across 7,777 reviews (Care.com). Taskrabbit says cleaning starts at about $30 an hour (Taskrabbit). Homeaglow advertises a member rate of $25/hr (Homeaglow) and a normal price of $75 for a three-hour cleaning on one offer page (Homeaglow). All of these sell into the market, and their ranges are list prices, not transactions.
What rules apply to house cleaning work?
A household that hires a cleaner directly can become an employer. The IRS names Housecleaning workers, housekeepers and maids among the workers who can be a household's employee (IRS Publication 926). A household that pays one of them $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026 must withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes (IRS), which total 15.3% split between worker and employer (IRS), on wages up to the $184,500 Social Security wage base (IRS). Paying household employees $1,000 or more in any calendar quarter brings federal unemployment tax (IRS). Cleaners hired through a company or as independent businesses are not the household's employees.
Federal wage law covers domestic workers who earn Social Security wages or work more than 8 hours a week in one or more households (29 U.S.C. 206(f), Cornell LII). DOL's 2013 domestic service rule (published October 1, 2013, effective January 1, 2015) extended minimum wage and overtime to most home care workers (Federal Register); after court challenges it took effect October 13, 2015, with enforcement from November 12, 2015 (Federal Register). DOL projected it would transfer $321.8 million a year to workers (Federal Register). In July 2025 DOL proposed rescinding it (90 FR 28976), estimating up to 3.7 million agency-employed home care workers could be affected (Federal Register).
Worker classification keeps moving. DOL's independent contractor rule took effect March 11, 2024 (Federal Register); on May 1, 2025 DOL told investigators to stop applying it (DOL Wage and Hour Division); and on February 27, 2026 it proposed a replacement, 91 FR 9932 (Federal Register). Five lawsuits against the 2024 rule were stayed (Federal Register). The classification question matters to cleaning marketplaces: Angi lists it as a risk in its 10-K, as above.
States add their own protections. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, an advocacy group, counts domestic worker bills of rights in 12 states, two major cities and the District of Columbia (NDWA), starting with New York in 2010 (NDWA); New Jersey and Rhode Island, in 2024, are the latest (NDWA). New York's law gives overtime after 40 hours a week, or 44 hours for live-in workers (New York State Department of Labor), and Three paid days of rest a year after one year with the same employer (New York State Department of Labor). California's law (AB 241, 2013; SB 1015, 2016) gives domestic workers overtime after 9 hours a day or 45 hours a week, per NDWA's summary (NDWA); check the state's own text for coverage. NDWA says about 2.2 million domestic workers work in U.S. homes every day, without naming a source (NDWA). Florida has no statewide house cleaning license; cities may levy a local business tax under F.S. 205.042 (Florida Legislature).
What does the safety record say?
Cleaning products are among the most common poisonings. U.S. poison centers logged 176,818 human exposures to household cleaning substances in 2024 (America's Poison Centers), 6.94% of all exposures and second only to painkillers (America's Poison Centers), out of 2,092,689 cases in total (America's Poison Centers). For children 5 and under, cleaning substances were the top category at 9.96% (America's Poison Centers). In January to March 2020, calls about cleaners and disinfectants rose 20.4% and 16.4% over the year before (CDC MMWR), with bleaches 62.1% of the rise (CDC MMWR), and children 5 and under made 39.9% to 47.3% of such calls in 2018-2020 (CDC MMWR).
For cleaning workers, an OSHA and NIOSH infosheet warns that cleaning chemicals can cause problems from skin rashes to coughing and asthma (OSHA-NIOSH). OSHA's updated Hazard Communication Standard, which covers labels and safety data sheets for workplace chemicals, took effect July 19, 2024 (Federal Register); a January 2026 extension moved chemical makers' first deadline to May 19, 2026 and employers' to November 20, 2026 (Federal Register). EPA says nearly 2,000 products carry its Safer Choice label (EPA), which replaced the Design for the Environment label in February 2015 (EPA). BLS counted 74 fatal work injuries among building cleaning and pest control workers in 2024 (BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries) and 356 across building and grounds cleaning and maintenance (BLS CFOI); the group mixes janitors, maids and pest control workers.
What rules apply to cleaning business videos and reviews?
The FTC's revised Endorsement Guides were published July 26, 2023 (88 FR 48092) (Federal Register). When an endorsement is made in both pictures and sound, as in a video, a disclosure of a paid or family connection should appear in both the visual and audible parts (Federal Register), and online it should be unavoidable (Federal Register). The guides added an example on reviews by employees (Example 8) (Federal Register). The FTC made no civil penalty inflation adjustment in 2026 and keeps the 2025 levels (Federal Register).
What the popular house cleaning numbers really say
"Americans spend six hours a week cleaning"
Where it came from: a trade-association poll. The American Cleaning Institute reported in November 2018 that Americans spend about six hours a week cleaning (American Cleaning Institute), from a Wakefield Research online survey of 1,000 adults fielded in March 2018 (American Cleaning Institute). The answers were spread wide: 28% said more than seven hours and 10% under one hour (Happi). Merry Maids repeats "6 hours" without a source (Merry Maids) and says a cleaner could cut it to three hours (Merry Maids). A 2026 Swiffer survey's "six hours" (Talker Research) counts preparing and recovering as well as cleaning, among 2,000 online respondents (Talker Research). Other polls found far less: 3 hours and 20 minutes a week in a 2017 Kärcher survey (Domino, relaying Kärcher) and 4 to 6 hours a month in a 2020 ImproveNet survey (CMM, relaying ImproveNet).
Use instead: the federal time-use survey. Americans 15 and over averaged 0.56 hours a day of housework in 2025 (BLS ATUS), about 3.9 hours a week; on a given day 36.1% did any (BLS ATUS), and those who did spent 1.55 hours (BLS ATUS). 81 percent did some household activity, including cooking and household management (BLS ATUS).
"10% of households hire a cleaning service" and "Commerce expects 80%"
Where it came from: we found no original for either. A cleaning booking company says nearly 10% of U.S. households paid a cleaner "last year" with no source (BookCleanGo), and that the Department of Commerce expects 80% of two-income households to use one (BookCleanGo). CB Insights credits the 10% to a January 2023 Jobber report we could not find (CB Insights). Two Maids repeats both, as "at least 10%" (Two Maids), and Merry Maids' franchise page says Commerce predicted 80% by 2024, a date that has passed (Merry Maids). The earliest form of the Commerce claim we found is a January 2008 Molly Maid press release quoting its president: 80 percent of two-income households by the end of 2008 (Molly Maid via Franchising.com). We found no Commerce document behind it. We searched the exact figures and older wordings, Wayback captures of the franchise pages, and the press of the period.
Use instead, with caveats: in 2002 a Maritz survey found 18 percent of Americans had hired someone to clean their home in the past year (The Seattle Times). Marketdata, a market-research firm, estimates about 16 % of households (22 million) used a maid service in 2026, up from 8% in 2012 (Marketdata), but its method is behind a paywall. No federal survey asks the question.
"A clean home lowers stress (and clutter raises cortisol)"
Where it came from: three studies that measured something else. Saxbe and Repetti (2010) analysed the words 60 dual-income spouses used on recorded home tours, not how messy the homes were (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin); over 3 weekdays, wives whose descriptions scored more "stressful" had flatter cortisol curves, a correlation, with no cleaning tested (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). The Maids restates it as thirty couples whose messy homes raised cortisol (The Maids), and cites an Indiana University study of 998 people as proof clean homes make people healthier (The Maids). That 2010 study followed 998 African American adults aged 49-65 in St. Louis and found a link between home cleanliness and physical activity, not cause and effect (Indiana University via ScienceDaily). The Princeton "clutter" study (2011) was a brain-scan experiment on how shapes on a screen compete for attention, with n = 10 (Journal of Neuroscience); a UK cleaning marketplace describes it as studying people in cluttered environments in 2011 (Urban), and a cleaning blog says it shows spring cleaning makes you smarter, citing Princeton (Clany cleaning blog). The only "X% less stress" figure we found is a self-reported 60% credited to a 2024 ACI poll by a UK marketplace (Urban); we could not find ACI's release.
Use instead: say what was measured: a correlation in one small study of how couples talk about their homes. There is no published percentage for how much a clean home lowers stress.
"Video increases conversions by 80%"
Where it came from: one vendor's test on one client. EyeView, which sold landing-page video, reported in November 2009 that its first test boosted one client's conversions by over 80 percent (EyeView Digital). Its 2010 white paper says the boost was over 80% only "in some cases" (EyeView Digital), and its one fully described test found 32 percent (EyeView Digital). Unbounce generalised it to "using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%" in August 2010 (Unbounce). Service Autopilot, software sold to cleaning businesses, now tells cleaners video can lift conversions "up to 80%" with no source (Service Autopilot).
Use instead: nothing general. No neutral source measures what video does for cleaning businesses; the closest figures are the marketplace and survey numbers in the sections above, each with its seller named.
"The house cleaning industry is worth $X billion"
Where it came from: paywalled market-research estimates that disagree. Marketdata puts U.S. residential maid service revenue at $17.2 billion in 2025 (Marketdata) and warns the industry is not tracked separately by the Census Bureau (Marketdata). IBISWorld's free page labels the same $18.8bn as its 2026 market size (IBISWorld) and its summary says revenue reaches $18.8 billion in 2024 (IBISWorld). A booking company says "approaching $20 billion" growing 20% a year, unsourced (BookCleanGo), and Two Maids cites Expert Market Research for $20.2 billion in 2023 (Two Maids).
Use instead: the census line: $5.19 billion of residential interior cleaning receipts at employer firms in 2022, plus some share of the $22.8 billion taken by nonemployer cleaning businesses in 2023. The paid estimates may well be closer to the true total, since they count residential work done by firms classed elsewhere, but none publishes its method.
We started from the questions people search for about house cleaning video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 384 figures from 54 publishers.
On November 2, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages open data, Employment Projections, occupation wage estimates, the Current Population Survey, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the American Time Use Survey, the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the fatal injury census; Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics and the 2017 and 2022 Economic Census product lines (through the Census data API); IRS, Department of Labor, OSHA, EPA and FTC rules and Federal Register notices; CDC's MMWR and America's Poison Centers; New York's labor department and Florida statutes; the filings of ServiceMaster, Terminix, Angi, Care.com, People Inc. and ABM Industries and EDGAR full-text search; YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and Google on their own platforms; Jobber, BrightLocal, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Care.com, Taskrabbit and Homeaglow; the American Cleaning Institute, Gallup, Pew and YouGov; franchise brands' own websites; and the pages behind each popular claim. BLS, CDC, Unilever and Merry Maids pages refuse automated requests, so we read Internet Archive copies. We left out BLS occupation pages newer than March 2025 for Florida (no archived copy and the BLS data API's daily limit was reached), Consumer Expenditure tables published only as spreadsheets, Thumbtack's pro-center pages (down during the run), Maid Right's site (it refuses scripts), state franchise disclosure databases (they sit behind search forms) and paid market-research reports. The homepage and franchise page figures are our own measurement on the same day.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
count of distinct URLs matching the rule in crawl.py build_frames(): local office pages (a path whose sitemap entries include /service-areas or /reviews); includes Canadian offices
count of distinct URLs matching the rule in crawl.py build_frames(): local office pages (a path whose sitemap entries include /areas-we-serve or /about-us)
Hand-check: analyze.py handcheck re-reads each saved HTML with <style> removed, looking for any <video>, player iframe, YouTube embed or thumbnail URL, Wistia, Vimeo or Vidyard embed, or <source> .mp4/.webm
765 Overpass elements -> minus 251 out of scope by name -> 513 with a usable URL -> minus 2 on directory/social/marketplace hosts {'facebook.com': 2} -> 511 records -> 463 distinct registrable hosts
59 / 229 readable homepages with video_player = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: video player: a <video> element or player iframe/placeholder (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Vidyard, Brightcove, Loom, Facebook video ...) at least 150x80 px, or a labelled click-to-play control or hidden player embed
29 / 229 readable homepages with video_self_hosted = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: video player that is a native <video> element (file served by the site or its site builder/CDN, incl. background videos)
29 / 229 readable homepages with video_embedded = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: video player from a third-party host (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook, TikTok ...)
24 / 229 readable homepages with youtube_player = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: a YouTube player (iframe, lite-youtube placeholder, lightbox embed link or hidden embed)
36 / 229 readable homepages with youtube_channel_link = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: link to a YouTube channel or handle (not a single video; template placeholders excluded)
112 / 229 readable homepages with instagram_link = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: link to an Instagram profile (template placeholders excluded)
166 / 229 readable homepages with recurring_plans = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: weekly, biweekly, every other week, monthly, recurring/regular/ongoing cleaning or service, maintenance cleaning, cleaning plans or subscriptions in the page text (newsletter/specials/payment contexts excluded), or a link labelled recurring/weekly
182 / 229 readable homepages with move_out_or_deep_cleaning = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: move-in/move-out cleaning, deep cleaning or end-of-lease cleaning in the page text, or a link labelled move-out / deep clean
97 / 229 readable homepages with eco_or_green_products = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: eco-friendly/conscious/safe products or cleaning, green cleaning/products/Green Seal, non-toxic, natural products, environmentally friendly/safe, Safer Choice, chemical-free, plant-based, organic, pet-safe or biodegradable in the page text, or a link labelled so
117 / 229 readable homepages with licensed_and_insured = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: "licensed and insured" (incl. licensed, bonded and insured; bonded and insured; insured and bonded), "fully licensed/insured/bonded" or "bonded" in the page text
96 / 229 readable homepages with background_checked = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: background checks/checked/screened, criminal background checks, screened and trained/vetted, vetted cleaners, drug-tested or E-Verify in the page text, or a link labelled background check
39 / 229 readable homepages with instant_price_or_quote = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: an instant price, quote or estimate, a price/pricing/quote calculator, get/see your price, book and get a price, transparent/flat-rate/upfront pricing, or a quote in N seconds, in the page text, a button or a link
91 / 229 readable homepages with satisfaction_guarantee = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: a satisfaction/happiness/100% guarantee, guaranteed satisfaction, a free re-clean or re-clean guarantee in the page text, or a link labelled guarantee
6 / 229 readable homepages with same_day_service = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: same-day or next-day cleaning/service/appointments in the page text
142 / 229 readable homepages with free_estimate = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: free/complimentary/no-cost (no-obligation, on-site, written ...) estimate, quote, assessment, consultation, evaluation or bid in the page text, a button or a link
210 / 229 readable homepages with residential_mention = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: residential, home(s), house cleaning, maid or housekeeping in the page text, or a link labelled so
195 / 229 readable homepages with commercial_mention = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: commercial, janitorial, office(s), businesses or medical offices/facilities in the page text, or a link labelled so
37 / 229 readable homepages with dollar_amount_shown = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: a dollar amount shown in the page text ($ followed by digits) excluding amounts in an insurance/liability/bond/coverage, tax credit/rebate, revenue, wage/pay/hiring or $0 context and amounts followed by million/billion/k
16 / 229 readable homepages with before_and_after = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: before-and-after wording in the page text, or a link labelled or pathed before-and-after
165 / 229 readable homepages with quote_or_estimate_request = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: quote or estimate request: a button or link labelled get/request/schedule/book a (free) quote/estimate/bid/consultation or free/instant quote or estimate, or a /quote, /estimate or request-a-quote URL path (not tel:/mailto:, not labels starting "Call")
109 / 229 readable homepages with online_form = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: an online form on the homepage: a non-search <form> with at least 2 visible fields, or 1 visible email/phone/message field, or an embedded third-party form or quote/booking widget (HubSpot, JotForm, GoHighLevel/LeadConnector form, Typeform, SmartMoving, Supermove, MoveitPro, Elromco, Granot, Housecall Pro, Jobber, ServiceTitan ...); tel: and mailto: links never count
41 / 229 readable homepages with online_booking_widget = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: an online booking/scheduling vendor detected: a network request, iframe or link to ServiceTitan Scheduler, Schedule Engine, Housecall Pro online booking, Jobber client hub / work request, Workiz, Netic, Thryv/vCita, Calendly, Acuity, Setmore, Square Appointments, LeadConnector booking or Zoho Bookings while the homepage loaded (schedulers that load only after a click are missed: a floor)
73 / 229 readable homepages with online_booking_any = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: an online booking widget as above, or a button or link labelled book/schedule online/now/service/an appointment/a visit, or make/request/set an appointment (not tel:/mailto:, not labels starting "Call"); the control may open a booking widget or a request form
171 / 229 readable homepages with reviews_testimonials = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: testimonials or reviews shown: page text with testimonials, customer reviews or stories, "what our customers say", Google reviews, star ratings or review counts; a link labelled testimonials/reviews or to a /testimonials or /reviews path; or a review-widget request (Birdeye, Podium, Elfsight, Trustindex, NearbyNow ...)
148 / 229 readable homepages with careers_or_hiring = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: link labelled careers, jobs, join our team, now hiring, employment, open positions, cleaners/housekeepers wanted or apply now, a link to a /careers or /jobs path, or cleaners/housekeepers/maids wanted or "now hiring" in the page text
46 / 229 readable homepages with chat_widget = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: a live-chat or web-chat widget: a network request to a chat vendor (Podium, Birdeye webchat, GoHighLevel/LeadConnector widgets, HubSpot chat, Intercom, Drift, Tawk.to, LiveChat, Tidio, Crisp, ApexChat, Ngage ...) or a chat-widget element on the page (form iframes excluded)
19 / 229 readable homepages with corporate_chain = true (or non-empty) in homepages.csv; rule: franchise, multi-site or national affiliation shown: the host is a flagged franchise brand host (Merry Maids, Molly Maid, The Maids, MaidPro, Two Maids, Maid Right, Maid Brigade, Home Clean Heroes, The Cleaning Authority, Jani-King, Coverall, JAN-PRO, Vanguard, Anago, Office Pride, Stratus ...) or has 5+ mapped locations, the page names such a brand with an ownership cue, or a member/part/division-of statement
agreement counts in own/osm/data/handcheck.json (validate.py); sample random.Random(11) of 30 readable sites; miss: a site-builder background <video> element (1366x150) whose file had not loaded when the page was read; empty-source <video> elements are not counted (rule unchanged; the video share is a slight floor).
agreement counts in own/osm/data/handcheck.json (validate.py); sample random.Random(11) of 30 readable sites; miss: a get-a-quote-and-book-online flow announced in headings and body text but with no control matching the label rule (rule unchanged; a floor). 'Book now' controls that dial a phone number and 'book your cleaning now' headings above estimate buttons correctly not counted.
count of online_booking_vendor values among readable rows in homepages.csv: {'MaidCentral': 20, 'Launch27': 7, 'Jobber': 7, 'Housecall Pro': 2, 'BookingKoala': 2, 'Thryv / vCita': 1, 'Calendly': 1, 'ZenMaid': 1}; rule: an online booking/scheduling vendor detected: a network request, iframe or link to ServiceTitan Scheduler, Schedule Engine, Housecall Pro online booking, Jobber client hub / work request, Workiz, Netic, Thryv/vCita, Calendly, Acuity, Setmore, Square Appointments, LeadConnector booking or Zoho Bookings while the homepage loaded (schedulers that load only after a click are missed: a floor)
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
No federal code separates house cleaning. Janitorial services (NAICS 561720) mixes commercial janitorial firms with residential maid services. Only the Economic Census product line for residential interior cleaning separates them, and only for employer firms.
Most cleaners are invisible to the payroll series. Over a million cleaning businesses have no employees, and households that pay cleaners in cash rarely appear in unemployment-insurance counts.
Nobody neutral counts cleaning business video. The platform view counts come from TikTok, Unilever and YouTube; the marketing figures come from Jobber, BrightLocal and Thumbtack, which sell into the market. Our homepage read measures whether a player is present, not whether the video is any good.
The homepage sample comes from OpenStreetMap. OSM is volunteer-mapped, so one-person cleaners without a website or map entry are missing, and other cleaning trades were removed by name and title. Shares from 229 sites carry a margin of about plus or minus 6 points.
Franchise sizes are self-reported. Only Merry Maids has a filed history, and it ends in 2019.
Prices are list prices. Marketplace ranges describe what the sites quote, not what customers paid.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics#WRK-045. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "House Cleaning Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 2, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, November 2). House cleaning video statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics
MLA
“House Cleaning Video Statistics.” Mark Studios, 2 Nov. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “House Cleaning Video Statistics.” Last modified November 2, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_house_cleaning_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{House Cleaning Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/house-cleaning-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-11-02}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
BrightLocal (vendor survey; sells local SEO and review software to local marketers and businesses), Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-02.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Nov 2, 2026: First published with 342 figures from 54 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Nov 2, 2026: Added our own measurement of independent businesses, held back at launch while the OpenStreetMap Overpass servers were down: a read of 229 U.S. house cleaning and janitorial homepages (video players, social links, services, trust wording, booking and pricing tools), with the site list (homepages.csv) and the method (crawl-summary.json). The franchise location page read stays as its own section.
Frequently asked questions
Do house cleaning companies use video on their websites?
About a quarter do. In our November 2026 read of 229 U.S. house cleaning and janitorial homepages, 25.8% had a video player, and 12.7% hosted a video file on their own site, often a background loop. Of 132 sampled franchise location pages, 0.0% embedded a video player.
How many house cleaning businesses are there in the U.S.?
No federal statistic counts house cleaning alone. Janitorial services, which includes maid services, had 83,041 employer establishments in 2025 and 1,095,927 businesses with no employees in 2023. 22,925 employer establishments reported residential cleaning receipts in 2022.
How big is the house cleaning industry?
Employer firms earned $5.19 billion from residential interior cleaning in 2022 by the Economic Census. Paid market-research estimates run higher, such as Marketdata's $17.2 billion for 2025, without a published method.
How much do house cleaners make?
Maids and housekeeping cleaners earned a median $17.07 an hour in May 2025, and the median annual wage was $35,510. Average pay at janitorial services firms was $34,443 in 2025.
How much time do Americans spend cleaning?
Averaged over everyone age 15 and over, 0.33 hours a day on interior cleaning and 0.56 hours on all housework in 2025. On an average day 23.4% did any interior cleaning.
What percentage of households hire a house cleaner?
No federal survey asks. A 2002 Maritz survey found 18 percent had hired a cleaner in the past year, and Marketdata estimates 16 % of households in 2026. The common 10% figure has no original we could find.
How do house cleaning businesses get customers?
Mostly from repeat customers and referrals: 64% and 60% of cleaning businesses in Jobber's December 2025 survey. Facebook was the top marketing channel for 36%.
Do I have to pay taxes for my house cleaner?
If you employ the cleaner directly and pay $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026, yes: Social Security and Medicare taxes apply. A cleaner who works for a company or runs their own business is not your employee.
