Sell a domestic cleaning business
A domestic cleaning business with regular weekly and fortnightly clients usually sells for about one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit, and smaller agencies often sell within two to four months.
A domestic cleaning business with regular weekly and fortnightly clients usually sells for about one and a half to three times a year's adjusted profit, and smaller agencies often sell within two to four months.
The price depends most on how many clients book every week or fortnight, how many leave each year, and whether your cleaners are employed or self-employed, since that last point decides how much risk comes with the business. This guide explains how to prepare and what a sale with Saxon Vane looks like.
The value of a domestic agency rests on the number of active clients, how often each is cleaned, the average weekly charge and how long clients have stayed, and a book of households cleaned every week for several years is worth far more than one built on occasional and end-of-tenancy cleans, so these are the figures we lead with in the sales pack.
Some agencies employ their cleaners, pay them through payroll and charge clients for the clean, while others introduce self-employed cleaners to households and charge a fee or commission, with the cleaner setting their own hours and often being paid directly by the client.
Buyers care because employment status depends on how the work is actually done, rather than what the paperwork says, and if HMRC or a tribunal later decided that self-employed cleaners were really workers or employees, the business could owe holiday pay, back pay up to the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026, and employer National Insurance at 15% (GOV.UK). A buyer of an introductory agency will therefore read your cleaner agreements, check who sets the rota, who supplies materials and whether cleaners can send a substitute, and may ask for a warranty or indemnity covering the period before the sale.
An employed model costs more to run but usually carries less risk for a buyer, and in an asset sale those employees transfer under TUPE on their existing terms, as our guide to TUPE when selling a cleaning business explains.
We start from a year's profit and add back the owner's wage and personal costs to reach adjusted profit, and agencies usually sell for about one and a half to three times that figure, so adjusted profit of £60,000 would suggest roughly £90,000 to £180,000.
| What the business shows | Effect on the price |
|---|---|
| Most clients on weekly or fortnightly cleans for several years | Towards the top of the range |
| Low client churn with clear records of why clients left | Towards the top of the range |
| Employed cleaners or well-documented self-employed arrangements | Towards the top of the range |
| Clients and payments run through booking software | Easier to sell |
| Owner still cleaning several days a week | Lower, or a longer handover |
| Self-employed cleaners working like staff | Lower, or a warranty and indemnity |
In an introductory agency the turnover a buyer looks at is your fee income, not the full amount households pay their cleaners, so we always work from what the business itself keeps. Our page on what your cleaning business is worth covers the adjustments.
A client list with start date, frequency, weekly charge and payment method lets a buyer see the shape of the book, and a twelve-month record of clients lost and gained shows them churn without guesswork.
For cleaners, prepare a list with start dates, hours, pay or fee arrangements and the written agreement each one signed, together with right-to-work checks and DBS checks where clients rely on them. If you still clean, take bookings or cover holidays yourself, start moving that work to a coordinator, since a business where cleaners and clients deal with someone other than you can be handed over cleanly. Domestic clients do not usually sign contracts, so your terms of business and a history of clients staying do the job that contracts do in commercial cleaning.
First-time owners leaving corporate jobs are the largest group, and they want a business with a coordinator or senior cleaner already running the rota, while larger cleaning companies nearby buy to add households and cleaners to a rota they already run in the same towns.
Franchisors sometimes buy back territories or buy independent agencies to convert, and commercial cleaners occasionally buy a domestic agency to add work their staff can do in daytime hours. We approach these buyers directly as well as listing your business, as described on our selling a cleaning business page.
We value the agency from your accounts and booking data, agree our fees in writing (£495 to list and 4% on completion), then write a sales pack that presents the business at its best and sets out the case for its value, then list it anonymously on our own site and the main UK business-for-sale websites, approach the buyers we already know are looking and follow up every enquiry, sharing the business's name only once a buyer has signed our confidentiality agreement.
Once a buyer is agreed they check your client records, cleaner agreements and accounts, and we work with both solicitors on the sale agreement, the transfer of your booking system, phone number, website and reviews, and a handover period in which you introduce the buyer to clients and cleaners, until the money is in your account. If you are thinking about selling your agency, we are happy to have an informal chat first.
Yes, and many such agencies sell, though a buyer will check that the cleaners really work as self-employed people. Expect questions about who sets their hours, who supplies materials and whether they can send a substitute, and expect the sale agreement to include a promise from you about the period before the sale.
Some clients leave every year through moving house, changing budgets or changing cleaner, and buyers expect that. What they check is whether you replace them steadily and whether the clients who stay have been with you for years, so a twelve-month record of losses and new clients is the best answer.
Most will if their cleaner stays the same, since domestic clients are loyal to the person in their home more than the business. A short handover in which you introduce the buyer and keep cleaners on their usual rounds keeps losses low.
Yes, because a buyer can see every client, clean and payment in one place and take the system over on the day of sale. Agencies run from a diary and a phone are still sellable, but the checks take longer and buyers allow more for clients being lost.
Yes, your Google Business Profile, website and phone number can all be handed to the buyer as part of the sale. They are listed in the sale agreement so the buyer receives them on the day the money is paid.
A free valuation from us looks at your contracts one by one and comes back with a figure and the reasoning behind it.
