Most small UK cleaning businesses sell for roughly one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit, meaning profit with the owner's own pay and personal costs added back, and a typical sale takes six to nine months from first valuation until the money is in your account.
The price is highest where the business has written contracts with notice periods, regular weekly or daily cleans, no client above about 15 to 20% of turnover and someone other than the owner running the rota. This guide covers each cleaning trade we sell and how a sale with Saxon Vane runs from the first conversation to the day you are paid.
These are the parts of a cleaning business that set where its price falls, and each one is something we draw out of your records and present with the evidence behind it in the sales pack.
A business that can show each of these on paper sells faster and at a better price, and the trade pages below go into the detail for each kind of cleaning firm.
Small owner-run firms are priced on adjusted profit, while larger firms with managers already in place are priced on what is left after paying a full management team.
| Type of business | What the price is based on | Rough guide |
|---|---|---|
| Owner-run commercial, domestic, window, exterior, carpet or oven cleaning | Adjusted profit for the last full year | About one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit |
| Larger firm with managers in place, profit above roughly £250,000 | Profit after paying a full management team | Higher than the owner-run range, agreed case by case |
| One-person window cleaning round | Monthly round value | Commonly 2 to 5 times monthly turnover, per Cleaning Matters |
Labour is most of the cost in cleaning, so buyers look closely at how you absorbed the National Living Wage rise to £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026 and the increase in employer National Insurance to 15%, with the threshold cut to £5,000, from 6 April 2025 (GOV.UK). Our page on what your cleaning business is worth shows how we work out adjusted profit, and owners of window cleaning companies should read selling a window cleaning business.
The British Cleaning Council counts 78,915 businesses in the UK cleaning, hygiene and waste industry in 2025, up from 77,535 in 2024, a count that also takes in facilities management, waste and landscaping firms. Within cleaning itself, each trade has its own buyers and its own case for value, and we present each one accordingly.
Larger cleaning companies nearby buy to fill their rotas and add sites in areas they already cover, facilities management groups buy contract cleaners to add cleaning to their other services, and investor-backed groups buying regionally look for well-run firms with managers in place.
First-time owners, often people leaving corporate jobs, buy many of the smaller firms and usually want a supervisor already running the day-to-day work, while window cleaning companies buy others to move into new areas and franchisors sometimes buy back territories from franchisees who want to sell. We already know many of these buyers and approach the ones who suit your trade directly as well as listing the business, and this year we have sold commercial window cleaning, contract cleaning and carpet cleaning businesses, with more under offer.
Most sales take six to nine months, and smaller domestic businesses often two to four, as our guide on how long it takes to sell a cleaning business explains. When you are ready, a free valuation is the easiest place to start.
As our general view, a small owner-run cleaning business usually sells for about one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit, which is profit with your own wage and personal costs added back. Where it falls in that range depends mostly on how much income is under written contract, how spread out your clients are and whether the business runs without you.
A typical sale takes six to nine months from first valuation until the money is in your account. Smaller domestic businesses and window rounds often sell in two to four months, while contract cleaners with many staff and client consents to gather tend to take longer.
Yes, in most sales your cleaners move across with their existing pay, hours and length of service. In an asset sale TUPE moves them to the buyer automatically, and in a share sale they stay employed by the same company, so their employment does not change at all.
We do everything we can to keep it quiet, listing the business anonymously and sharing its name only with buyers who have signed our confidentiality agreement, and clients are usually told near the end, often with the buyer introduced in person. That said, no sale can be kept completely under wraps, so we talk through with you when and how to tell people.
Yes, though the price will reflect the cost of replacing your work and a buyer may ask you to stay on for a handover period. Moving the cleaning and the rota to a supervisor before you sell usually raises the price and widens the pool of buyers.
A free valuation from us looks at your contracts one by one and comes back with a figure and the reasoning behind it.
