A small owner-run contract cleaning company usually sells for about one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit, and the price within that range is set mostly by its contracts, its spread of clients and whether a supervisor runs the sites.
The price is highest for signed contracts with notice periods, daily or weekly cleans, no client above about 15 to 20% of turnover and a settled workforce that will transfer under TUPE. A sale typically takes six to nine months from valuation until the money is in your account.
The value of a contract cleaner rests on its contract schedule, so we build one listing every site with the client, the annual value, the cleaning hours, the start date, the contract end date and the notice period, and it shows how secure your turnover is once the business changes hands.
For an owner-run firm we start from last year's profit and add back your own wage and personal costs to reach adjusted profit, and the business then usually sells for about one and a half to three times that figure, so adjusted profit of £120,000 would point to roughly £180,000 to £360,000.
| What the business shows | Effect on the price |
|---|---|
| Signed contracts with notice periods and no change-of-control clause | Towards the top of the range |
| Daily and weekly cleans making up most of turnover | Towards the top of the range |
| A supervisor or operations manager running the rota | Towards the top of the range |
| One client above about 20% of turnover | Lower, or part paid later |
| Heavy reliance on one-off builders' cleans and deep cleans | Lower |
| Owner still cleaning sites and covering absences | Lower, or a longer handover |
Larger companies with managers in place and profit above roughly £250,000 are priced on profit after paying that management team, at a higher level agreed case by case, and that higher level should never be applied to an owner-run firm's adjusted profit. Our page on what your cleaning business is worth explains the adjustments in more detail.
The National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026, and employer National Insurance went up to 15% with the threshold cut to £5,000 from 6 April 2025 (GOV.UK), so a contract priced in 2024 and never reviewed may now make little or nothing.
A price review or pass-through clause that lets you raise the charge when statutory wage rates change adds to the value of a contract, as does evidence that clients accepted the April increases, ideally as signed letters or updated schedules. Some public sector and corporate clients also require the voluntary Real Living Wage, which a buyer will check against your pay records, and a schedule showing the hourly charge and the hourly wage for each site answers most of these questions at once.
In an asset sale your cleaners move to the buyer under TUPE on their existing terms, and in a share sale they stay with the same company, as explained on GOV.UK and in our guide to TUPE when selling a cleaning business, so buyers will ask for a full staff list with site, hours, pay, start date, right-to-work checks and any staff who came to you under TUPE on older terms when you won a contract.
Supervisors and area managers add a great deal to the value of a contract cleaner, because they hold the client relationships on the ground, run the rota and cover sickness at six in the morning, and a buyer will want to know they intend to stay. Buyers also ask how you mobilise new contracts, meaning how quickly you can recruit, vet and train a team for a new site, since that tells them whether the business can keep growing after you leave. Contracts themselves need checking for consent and change-of-control wording, which our guide to moving cleaning contracts to a buyer covers in full.
Larger cleaning companies in your region buy to add sites near their existing ones, so their supervisors can cover both and their rotas fill up, and they are often the buyers willing to pay most for a dense cluster of contracts in one town.
Facilities management groups buy cleaning firms to add cleaning to security, maintenance and other services they already sell to the same clients, investor-backed groups buying regionally look for firms with managers in place and profit large enough to stand on its own, and first-time owners leaving corporate jobs buy smaller firms where a supervisor already runs the work. We already know many of these buyers, having sold contract cleaning businesses this year with more under offer, and we approach each of them directly as well as listing the business, and buyers registered for commercial cleaning businesses for sale hear about a new business before it is advertised, as our selling a cleaning business page explains.
We value the business from your accounts and contract schedule, agree our fees in writing (£495 to list and 4% on completion), and write a sales pack that presents your contracts, your team and your margins at their best and sets out the case for the price. We then list the business anonymously on our own site and the main UK business-for-sale websites, approach the contract cleaners, facilities management groups and investor-backed buyers we already know are looking, and follow up every enquiry, sharing client and site names only once a buyer has signed our confidentiality agreement.
Once an offer is agreed the buyer checks your contracts, staff files, insurance and accounts, and we work with both solicitors on client consents, the TUPE consultation where it applies, and any part of the price tied to clients staying, until the money is in your account, which usually takes six to nine months from first valuation. If you would like to talk through selling your contracts, get in touch and we will call you back.
In a share sale you usually do not, because the contracts stay with the same company, unless a contract contains a change-of-control clause. In an asset sale the contracts generally need each client's agreement to move to the buyer, which is normally gathered near the end of the sale.
You can still sell, though a buyer will usually pay part of the price later, once that client has stayed for an agreed period. Above about 15 to 20% of turnover in one client most buyers start adjusting the offer, and above a third it becomes the main point in the negotiation.
Yes, because in an asset sale TUPE moves them across on their existing terms and in a share sale their employer does not change. A buyer cannot lawfully cut pay or hours simply because of the sale.
They help, mostly by making your contracts easier to keep and renew, since many public sector and corporate clients require them. A buyer values the contracts first, and accreditations support those contracts rather than adding a separate amount.
Yes, most commercial cleaning contracts in small firms run on one to three months' notice and buyers are used to that. What they look for instead is a long record of clients staying, so a schedule showing how many years each client has been with you does a lot of the work.
A free valuation from us looks at your contracts one by one and comes back with a figure and the reasoning behind it.
