How to start a window cleaning business
Window cleaning is cheap to start, and the whole business is built one street at a time. For the financials, see the window cleaning business plan.
Week 1: register, insure, buy tools
Register and insure. $500 to $1,500 a year.
Traditional kit — squeegees, channels, rubber, applicators, scrims, a bucket and a belt. Under $400 and it will clean any ground-floor window well.
A water-fed pole system — pole, filter, tank, pump — is $1,000 to $4,000 and is the purchase that changes the business. It lets you clean upper floors from the ground: faster, dramatically safer, and it means you stop declining two-storey houses.
Start traditional if capital is tight, but plan for the pole within the first year.
Week 2: pick the area and price the ladder
Choose one or two areas. This is a route business and drive time is unbillable.
Set the frequency ladder, because the round is the asset:
| Frequency | Per visit |
|---|---|
| One-off | $180 |
| Quarterly | $145 |
| Bi-monthly | $130 |
| Monthly | $115 |
Quote all four on every job. A one-off customer is worth one clean; a quarterly customer is worth four a year with no further selling, and each visit is faster because the glass is never very dirty.
Decide on frames and sills — included or not — and say so on every quote. It changes the time per pane materially and customers assume it is included.
Weeks 3–6: knock the street you are on
The most effective acquisition in this trade costs nothing but nerve.
You are already at number 14 with your van outside. Knock next door: “I’m doing number 14 today — I could do yours while I’m here, or add you to the round.”
That converts better than any advertising, and it builds exactly the density that makes a round profitable. Ten houses on one street is a morning; ten across a town is a day.
Door hangers on the same streets, put out the day before you will be there.
Weeks 7–12: walk the high street
Commercial storefront is the most stable revenue in window cleaning and it is acquired by walking in and asking.
Shops, cafés, salons, estate agents, small offices. Ask who cleans their windows and whether they are happy. Quote on the spot. Start next week.
Twenty storefronts on one street, cleaned fortnightly at $30 each, is $600 a fortnight from a morning’s work with almost no driving — and an afternoon of asking can produce a dozen accounts.
They stay for years, provided you turn up when you said you would.
The habit that keeps the round
Tell people the week, not the day, and hold it. Window cleaning customers rarely leave over price; they leave when they stop knowing when you are coming.
A text the evening before does more for retention than any discount, and it solves the access problem for interior work at the same time.
What to run it on
Recurring rounds at mixed intervals and monthly billing are the needs.
Jobber at $49/mo handles recurring visits at any interval with monthly recurring invoicing and bulk rescheduling for weather. QuoteIQ at $29.99/mo is the cheapest start. Housecall Pro adds route optimisation on Max for a dense storefront round.
Questions operators actually ask
How do I start a window cleaning business?
Register and insure, buy traditional tools and ideally a water-fed pole, pick one or two areas, then build a recurring round street by street. Walk the local high street for storefront accounts in the first month — they are the most stable revenue in this trade.
How much does it cost to start?
$1,500 to $8,000. Traditional squeegees and applicators cost a few hundred dollars; a water-fed pole system with filtration is $1,000 to $4,000 and lets you reach upper floors safely from the ground.
Do I need a water-fed pole?
Not to start, but it changes the business. It lets you clean upper floors from the ground — faster, far safer, and it opens houses you would otherwise decline. Most operators add one within the first year.
How do I get my first customers?
Door knock the street you are already working on and walk the local high street asking shops who cleans their windows. Both are free, immediate and produce the geographic density this trade runs on.
Should I do residential or commercial?
Both. Residential pays more per visit; commercial storefront is more frequent, more predictable and tightly clustered. A round with both is far more stable than either alone.