The Eva team
Your AI general manager
If you want to calculate your real cleaning margin, the first thing to accept is that revenue lies. A 20,000 dollar month feels great until you subtract payroll, taxes, supplies, fuel, and software and find a few hundred dollars left. Plenty of busy cleaning businesses run on thin air because nobody ever did the loaded math. This guide shows you the formula, the costs you are probably missing, and where the money leaks.
Revenue is not profit
Profit is what is left after every cost of doing the work and running the business. A full calendar means nothing if each job barely breaks even. The owners who survive are the ones who know their margin per job, not just their top-line number.
The costs owners forget
Wages are obvious. These quieter costs are where margin disappears, and most owners leave half of them out.
- Payroll taxes and workers comp, often 10 to 15 percent on top of wages.
- Drive time and fuel between jobs, which is unpaid but very real.
- Supplies and equipment wear: cloths, chemicals, vacuum repairs.
- Insurance, bonding, and licensing spread across every job.
- Software, phone, and the hours you spend quoting and scheduling.
- No-shows, redos, and the occasional refund.
The margin formula
Margin is simple once you have honest numbers. Use this per job and across the month.
- Take the revenue for the job, the price the client pays.
- Subtract all direct costs: loaded labor, supplies, and fuel for that job.
- That leaves your gross profit. Divide it by revenue and multiply by 100 for gross margin percent.
- Then subtract overhead, insurance, software, marketing, your admin time, to find net profit.
- Aim for a net margin you can live on, commonly 10 to 25 percent in residential cleaning.
The profit margin calculator runs this for you, and the house cleaning price calculator helps you reprice any job that comes up short.
Where the margin leaks
If your margin is thin, the cause is usually one of a short list. Find your leak before you blame your prices.
- Underpricing first cleans, so you eat the longest visit at the recurring rate.
- Too much unpaid drive time from a scattered route.
- Overstaffing a job that two people could finish.
- Discounts and freebies handed out to keep clients who never leave anyway.
- Unpaid invoices that quietly write off whole jobs.
Let Eva protect your margin
Margin leaks live in the gaps between the work and getting paid, exactly where Eva operates. She invoices every job automatically, chases unpaid balances so they never become write-offs, and reports what each job actually earns. When she quotes a new lead she builds in your real costs from the start. Next, see how recurring billing builds predictable income.