$20k in First Month – How to Push Margins from 20% to 30%?
Hey everyone, I’m just about a month into running my home service business and wanted to share where I’m at + get some advice. We’re on track to finish around ~$20k in revenue in the first month. Current breakdown: Contractors: 62% Expenses (VA, tools, etc.): 18% Net profit: ~20% Overall, I’m happy with the start, but I know there’s room to improve margins. For those more experienced: Would you focus first on raising prices or reducing contractor costs? What contractor % do you aim for at scale? Any early changes that helped you break into the 25–30% range? Appreciate any insight—working on tightening systems and scaling the right way.Personal Phone Number Vs. Business Phone Number?
As I continue growing my cleaning business, I’ve been thinking more about whether it’s better to use my personal phone number or set up a separate business line. Right now, I handle most communication directly, which makes things simple—but I’m starting to see how it can blur boundaries between work and personal life, especially with calls and messages coming in at all hours. I’m curious how others have handled this as they’ve grown. Do you use your personal number for your business, or did you switch to a dedicated business line? If you made the switch, at what point did it feel necessary? Have you noticed a difference in professionalism or client trust with a business number? What systems or apps do you recommend for managing calls, texts, and voicemails efficiently? How do you set boundaries with clients regarding response times or after-hours communication? For those managing a team, how do you handle incoming calls—do you delegate or keep it centralized? I want to make sure I’m building systems that will grow with my business while still staying responsive and professional. Would love to hear what’s worked (and what hasn’t) for you!
Airbnb Cleaning Automated Scheduling
Hi Everyone, We own a cleaning business in Australia and use Jobber as our software. We have a lot of clients that have Airbnb properties that we clean for them. We have been researching and trying to come up with the best solution to automate the booking process, as you can imagine cleaning 100 Airbnb properties with multi bookings per week can become a admin logistical nightmare. Does anyone have any experience in this area. How have you automated the process, can you connect Airbnb with Jobber, what is the best practice of booking and scheduling these appointments?
Invoice Due Date
Jobber currently lacks a lot of options to set the invoice due date. We run a cleaning business and have set the default Due Date that caters for 65% of of our business. The rest of the customers we need the due date to either be 20th of the following month, 20th of This month of 30 days from date of invoice. This needs to be set at a client level. We have these options in Xero however we make use of Jobber to generate our invoices and sync it to Xero. I have raised this multiple times with Jobber but it is not on their roadmap. Hoping there are more people out there with the same requirement to help boost this post so that Jobber can do something about it. Unless someone has found another way to do it. this will save at 10 hours a month of man hour to change every invoice.
Forecasting in Jobber Feels Impossible — What Are Other Companies Doing?
Has anyone figured out a solid way to forecast monthly, quarterly, and yearly revenue inside Jobber? Ever since switching to Jobber, we’ve felt completely in the dark when it comes to forecasting and planning. We base a lot of our company goals around projected monthly, quarterly, and yearly revenue, but the reporting tools seem heavily focused on completed work only — not future scheduled work. We’ve tried: Pulling Visits reports (not very accurate for forecasting revenue) Separating recurring vs one-off work (also not very accurate) Looking through Insights/dashboard reports But we still can’t get a clear picture of: Forecasted revenue Upcoming scheduled revenue Total jobs scheduled for future months/quarters Number of jobs completed vs upcoming How many jobs we’re actually doing each month Ideally, we’d love to see: Revenue projections based on scheduled visits/jobs Monthly/quarterly/yearly forecasting Scheduled vs unscheduled work totals Job counts by month A future-facing reporting dashboard Right now it feels like all the reports only show historical/completed numbers, which makes planning really frustrating. What are other companies doing for forecasting inside Jobber? Are you using a workaround, exporting reports to spreadsheets, integrating with another software, or using a marketplace app? Would really appreciate hearing how others are handling this because we can’t be the only company struggling with this.Quoting for contract cleaning for Apartment Complexes
I’m currently looking to expand into contract cleaning for apartment complexes and would love to hear how others in the industry approach pricing and structuring these types of agreements. I understand that apartment contracts can vary a lot depending on factors like unit size, condition, frequency of service, and whether it’s turnover cleans, common areas, or full-property maintenance. I want to make sure I’m pricing competitively while still protecting my time, labor, and overall business profitability. For those of you with experience in this area: How do you typically structure your pricing for apartment complexes (per unit, hourly, or flat contract rate)? Do you offer different pricing for standard turns vs. deep cleans or heavily soiled units? How do you account for things like pet hair, excessive buildup, or damages when quoting? Do you build long-term contracts with set pricing, or adjust pricing based on each unit’s condition? What’s your approach to quoting common areas like hallways, offices, or laundry rooms? Do you require walkthroughs before giving a final quote, or provide estimates upfront? How do you ensure you’re not underbidding larger contracts? I’m especially interested in learning how to balance competitive pricing with maintaining high-quality, detailed work—since we focus more on deep, time-intensive cleaning rather than quick surface-level jobs. Any advice, examples, or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated!
Cancellation report
So apparently there is no report to run that shows cancelled/unscheduled jobs in a given time period. Has anyone else asked for this feature? I just asked customer service to submit as a requested feature - hopefully, it's fast-tracked as I can't see how this isn't available. Has anyone found some way with zapier to track your canceled jobs and their values so you can track that metric?Improving Jobber's Online Booking for a Cleaning Business
Hey everyone, I love using Jobber for my cleaning business, but I’m finding the online booking functionality a bit lacking. We’re losing potential clients and wasting ad spend because customers can't book instantly online. While we always respond quickly to inquiries, the inability to offer instant booking is really hurting us. We provide a range of services—End of Lease, General Home Cleaning, Airbnb Cleaning (based on the number of rooms, bathrooms, etc.)—and have optional extras like oven cleaning and linen hire. Setting all this up in Jobber's online booking system has been a nightmare! I know some of our competitors use platforms like Booking Koala or Launch27, but I really don’t want to switch. Has anyone found a good workaround within Jobber or a solution that works for similar businesses? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
