Are you profiting more from one-time services or recurring contracts? How do you know?
Over the past year, our business has grown into a predominantly recurring-revenue model, with nearly 90% of our monthly income coming from weekly, biweekly, and monthly clients. While one-time cleans (like move-ins/outs and deep cleans) often bring in higher ticket prices upfront, we’ve intentionally prioritized recurring clients because they create long-term stability, stronger client relationships, and more predictable scheduling for our technicians. That said, we’ve noticed that one-time cleans play a powerful role as an entry point into our ecosystem—they’re often the first experience that converts into a recurring client. Now, as we scale toward $3M and expand into new markets, we’re looking more closely at: Profit margins by service type Customer lifetime value (LTV) from recurring vs one-time Conversion rates from one-time → recurring We want to better understand not just which service brings in more revenue, but which one truly drives profitability, retention, and sustainable growth—so we can refine our pricing, marketing, and sales strategy accordingly.You Don’t Have a Lead Problem You Have a Follow-Up System Problem
You’re not losing jobs to competitors you’re losing them in your follow-up. Most HVAC businesses I’ve seen don’t have a lead problem… they have a system problem: missed calls, no follow-ups, and zero tracking. The ones scaling consistently are doing 3 things right: Capturing every lead in a CRM Automating follow-ups (SMS/email) Running simple local campaigns that bring repeat jobs Curious what system are you currently using to track and convert your leads? If you’re open, I can share a simple setup that’s working for other contractors.
Scaling a Commercial Cleaning Business – What’s Working for Landing Larger Contracts?
I run a commercial and post-construction cleaning company operating across NYC, Connecticut, and New Jersey. We focus on long-term facility maintenance rather than one-time jobs, and I’m currently pushing to scale into larger commercial accounts and consistent contracts. I’ve been doing direct outreach, building internal systems, and focusing on service quality and retention. At this stage, I’m looking to refine what’s actually working for others when it comes to landing and maintaining higher-value contracts. For those operating at scale: – What has been most effective in securing larger commercial clients? – Are you seeing better results from direct outreach, partnerships, or platforms? – Any specific strategies that helped you move from smaller jobs to consistent contract work? Appreciate any insight from those who have already made that jump.
Do you know your actual effective hourly rate per client — once travel time is included?
Hi everyone — I'm a developer, not a cleaning business owner, so I'll be upfront about that. I'm doing early research before building anything. I've been spending time in this community and something keeps catching my eye. There are a lot of conversations about pricing, undercharging, and knowing your numbers — but the specific gap I keep noticing is this: Jobber shows you revenue per job, but it doesn't tell you your real effective hourly rate per client once you factor in drive time and how long a job actually ran versus what you quoted. For a residential cleaning business with recurring clients, that seems like it could matter a lot. The client who pays $200 but takes 45 minutes to drive to might look identical in Jobber to a client who pays $180 and is 5 minutes away. My question, specifically for cleaning business owners using Jobber: is this actually a problem you run into? Are you tracking profitability per client in any way right now — spreadsheet, gut feel, something else? And if you're not tracking it, is that because it's genuinely not a priority, or because there's no easy way to do it inside Jobber? Not selling anything — I haven't built anything yet. I'd genuinely love to have a 15-minute conversation with a few people who manage recurring residential clients in Jobber. Happy to share what I learn with anyone who's interested. Drop a comment or DM me.When is it time to hire an accountant?
I am wondering at what point some of you guys have hired an accountant? Did you hire one to grow? To maintain what you have? Or are you simply using one to file taxes at the end of the year? I am thinking about hiring an accountant to manage my finances for me and see where things go, but wondering when is the right time.How Much Should You Really Be Charging?
The number one question I receive is tied directly to the fact, most contractors are still guessing when it comes to pricing. Overhead. Profit. Labor rate. Trip fees. They think just because they throw a number they hear their competitors use, thats all that they need. It may work, but how and what do you divide these funds is just as important for your business health. If you don’t know how to do the math, you’re not building a business. You’re surviving check to check and think you need more work, when you do not. So here’s the plan: This Tuesday & Thursday on IG, I’m walking you through our Contractor Price Builder Worksheet FREE on instagram live. We will cover: - How to calculate your real hourly rate - The difference between markup and margin - Why profit is a non-negotiable - And how to price with confidence Join the session. Bring your numbers.When should businesses increase prices to keep up with rising payroll costs?
When's the last time you updated your pricing model to match your payroll reality? For example, our direct payroll (before tax) is 38% while our indirect payroll is 10%. As of January 2, we increased rates for all recurring clients by 4% to offload the indirect percentage. Going forward, we increased all first-time services by 5%. Thoughts?
