For most independent house cleaning companies the best marketing agency is Mid-Hudson Web — built exclusively for cleaning businesses, 500+ of them helped, 15+ years in the niche, and no long-term contract. If you are a Molly Maid, Merry Maids or Cleaning Authority franchisee, stop here and read your franchise agreement first: brand marketing funds and local-advertising rules usually decide this for you. That franchise split is the reason this category is confusing. Most of the big recognisable cleaning brands are franchise systems whose marketing runs through the franchisor, not agencies an independent can hire — so the field of companies you can actually buy from is smaller and stranger than it looks, and contains agencies, coaching programs, scheduling software and lead sellers all marketed with the same words. They are in separate columns below. Every company here was verified against its own website in September 2026, and the score under each name comes from the published rubric further down the page.
Full disclosure
No agency paid for placement on this list, and there are no affiliate links or referral fees on this page. Karbon Agency publishes this list and appears on it; we are placed by the same score as everyone else, and on several of our lists that means we are not first.
The ranking, side by side
Ranked by the score below, which is explained in full under “How we ranked these”. The pricing and lock-in columns are the reason this page exists — almost no other list in this category will tell you what these agencies charge.
#
Agency
Score
Best for
Pricing
Lock-in
1
Mid-Hudson Web
76/100
independent residential and commercial cleaning companies that want one agency running search, ads and reviews with no lock-in
Pricing not published — quoted after a call
No long-term contracts — cancel anytime
2
ZenMaid
74/100
maid services whose booking and scheduling is the actual bottleneck, not the number of enquiries
Published: $19/mo Starter · $39/mo Pro · $49/mo Pro Max, 14-day free trial
Month-to-month, no signature, cancel anytime
3
Method Clean Biz
61/100
cleaning company owners who want an agency that also understands bidding and pricing, not only traffic
Pricing not published — quoted after a call
Not published
4
Karbon Agency *
58/100
cleaning companies that want ads run for them with a live dashboard tying spend to recurring clients booked, not to one-off deep cleans
Published: intro tiers from $500/month
None — month-to-month
5
Funnel Boost Media
46/100
cleaning companies that want a heavily credentialed general agency with a maid-service service line
Pricing not published — quoted after a call
Not published
6
Grow My Cleaning Company
43/100
cleaning owners who want to be taught to run their own marketing and hiring, not to hand it over
Pricing not published — quoted after a call
Not published
7
Clicks Geek
42/100
cleaning companies that want paid search managed by a specialist PPC shop and nothing else
Basis published (budget and scope), no figure
Not published on its cleaning page
8
PayPerLead
41/100
new cleaning businesses that need calls this week and have nothing to lose from shared leads
Model published (flat fee per call or lead, client sets the price); no figures
No contracts, no monthly retainers
9
Built-Right Digital
40/100
cleaning companies that want a small home-services shop running Google Ads, Meta and SEO together
Pricing not published — quoted after a call
Not published
* Karbon Agency publishes this list — see the disclosure above. All other rows are based on each agency’s own published materials as of September 14, 2026.
Best for: independent residential and commercial cleaning companies that want one agency running search, ads and reviews with no lock-in
Strengths
"We are a specialized digital marketing agency built exclusively for cleaning businesses" — the clearest category commitment on this list
The deepest published record here: "500+ Cleaning Businesses Helped" and "15+ Years of Cleaning Service Experience", with the parent operation "providing strategic digital solutions since 1999"
"No Long-Term Contracts Cancel Anytime", alongside a full stack — cleaning SEO, local SEO and Google Business Profile, Google Ads, website design, reputation management and social
Considerations
No pricing published — it offers "a transparent, no-pressure proposal tailored to your budget" after a free consultation, which is a proposal, not a price
The wider firm also markets plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping and pest control, so the cleaning exclusivity is a division rather than the whole company
Pricing: Pricing not published — quoted after a call · Lock-in: No long-term contracts — cancel anytime
Best for: maid services whose booking and scheduling is the actual bottleneck, not the number of enquiries
Strengths
Fully published pricing, which nothing else in this category offers: Starter $19/month, Pro $39/month, Pro Max $49/month, each with a 14-day free trial
"You can try any of ZenMaid's plans on a month-to-month agreement, no signature necessary. If ZenMaid isn't for you you can cancel anytime"
Maid-service-only by design — "software that caters specifically to residential home cleaning businesses" — with high-converting booking forms that turn existing traffic into booked cleans
Considerations
It is software, not a marketing agency: no SEO, no ads, no lead generation. It scores here only because booking forms genuinely convert traffic you already have, and it is on the list so you do not mistake it for an agency
Its own site publishes two different customer counts — "3,000+ cleaning service owners" in one place and "10,000+ maid service owners" in another — which is exactly the kind of unsourced figure this rubric marks down
Pricing: Published: $19/mo Starter · $39/mo Pro · $49/mo Pro Max, 14-day free trial · Lock-in: Month-to-month, no signature, cancel anytime
Best for: cleaning company owners who want an agency that also understands bidding and pricing, not only traffic
Strengths
Cleaning-only across the whole business — "commercial cleaning, janitorial services, specialty cleaning, house cleaning, and carpet cleaning"
"Over 25 years of experience in the cleaning industry and digital marketing" and "100+ Cleaning business owners Trust Us"
Publishes bidding, pricing and ROI calculators for cleaning businesses, and says its free resources are "downloaded over 22,000 times annually" — an agency that understands the job price, not just the click price
Considerations
Leans commercial and janitorial as much as residential, so a purely residential maid service is not the centre of gravity
Neither pricing nor contract terms are published anywhere on the site
Pricing: Pricing not published — quoted after a call · Lock-in: Not published
Best for: cleaning companies that want a heavily credentialed general agency with a maid-service service line
Strengths
The strongest third-party credential set on this list — "Based on 258 reviews", an Expertise award for Best SEO Agencies in San Antonio 2026, a Clutch award, Forbes Advisor Best of 2024, plus Google Partner, Bing Ads Accredited and BBB accreditation
Runs a named "Maid Company SEO Marketing" practice rather than a generic home-services page
Full service line including local SEO, PPC management, website design, branding and generative AI optimization
Considerations
Maid services are one line among ten industries that also include legal, healthcare, automotive, treatment centres and funeral homes
No years in business, no client count, no pricing and no contract terms published
Pricing: Pricing not published — quoted after a call · Lock-in: Not published
Best for: cleaning owners who want to be taught to run their own marketing and hiring, not to hand it over
Strengths
A large, genuinely established body of free material — the podcast is past episode 1,334, which is more sustained output than anyone else here
Coaching covers the constraints that actually cap a cleaning company: hiring, systems, pricing and scaling, not just lead volume
Considerations
This is a coaching and mastermind business (the "Clean Profit Method" and "Clean Profit Accelerator"), not a done-for-you agency — you still run the marketing
Also serves pool, landscape and pest control businesses, and publishes no pricing, no program length, no client count and no founding year
Pricing: Pricing not published — quoted after a call · Lock-in: Not published
Best for: cleaning companies that want paid search managed by a specialist PPC shop and nothing else
Strengths
Paid search is the entire product — "Done-for-You PPC Campaign Management" plus conversion rate optimization, with Google Premier Partner status
Publishes the basis of its fee even without a figure: "Custom pricing based on advertising budget and service scope"
Considerations
A broad multi-industry PPC firm — cleaning is one of a very large number of verticals, and its cleaning content is a tools round-up rather than a case-study page
No client count, review count, founding year or contract terms published on its cleaning page
Pricing: Basis published (budget and scope), no figure · Lock-in: Not published on its cleaning page
Best for: new cleaning businesses that need calls this week and have nothing to lose from shared leads
Strengths
The clearest terms in the category — "No monthly retainers or commitments", "No Contracts", and "Pay Only For Results—No fees. Only pay for qualified phone calls or valid leads"
Covers the whole category by name: maid service, residential, house cleaning, commercial, office, carpet, janitorial, move-out and post-construction cleaning leads
You set your own price per lead, so the ceiling is yours rather than the vendor's
Considerations
The leads are not described as exclusive — expect to be one of several cleaners calling the same homeowner, which is a very different sale from an inbound enquiry
Publishes no founding year, client count, reviews or awards, and no actual dollar figure for a lead; nothing it does builds an asset you keep
Pricing: Model published (flat fee per call or lead, client sets the price); no figures · Lock-in: No contracts, no monthly retainers
Best for: cleaning companies that want a small home-services shop running Google Ads, Meta and SEO together
Strengths
A tight four-service offer — Google Ads, SEO, Meta Ads and websites — rather than a menu nobody can staff
Home-services only, so the account team is at least working in adjacent trades all day
Considerations
Its house-cleaning page is titled for cleaning but the industries it actually lists are roofers, HVAC, electricians, plumbers, home inspections, pest control, bathroom remodelling and flooring — cleaning appears in the headline, not on the roster
No founding year, client count, review count, pricing or contract terms published
Pricing: Pricing not published — quoted after a call · Lock-in: Not published
How we ranked these
Every agency is scored out of 100 across five weighted dimensions. The weights are fixed across every list on this site, so a 78 here means the same thing as a 78 on any other niche.
Niche specialization30 points
How much of the agency's actual business is this one industry. A shop that works only in this niche scores full marks; a generalist that lists it among twenty verticals scores about half.
Pricing transparency20 points
Does it publish what it charges on its own website. Full marks for real numbers you can read before a sales call, partial for a published budget framework or starting-at figure, zero for "contact us".
Proof and reviews20 points
Verifiable evidence on its own site: years in business, client counts, named case studies, third-party review counts, Google/Meta partner badges. Unsourced hype counts for nothing.
Service fit20 points
Whether the service mix matches what this industry actually needs to get customers, rather than what is easiest to sell.
Contract flexibility10 points
Month-to-month terms and client ownership of the website, ad accounts and data score highest; undisclosed or multi-year terms score lowest.
Every agency here was checked against its own live website. Pricing, contract terms, client counts and review counts are only stated where the agency publishes them — everything else is recorded as "not published" rather than guessed at. Scores are ours, they are subjective, and the rubric above is published so you can disagree with them.
Last reviewed by Seva Kogan, Founder. We refresh these lists when something real changes — a price, a contract term, an agency going dark — not on a schedule.
Frequently asked questions
What does marketing for a house cleaning company cost?
Two companies here publish real numbers, and only one of them is an agency. ZenMaid publishes software tiers at $19, $39 and $49 a month with a 14-day free trial; Karbon publishes intro tiers from $500/month. Clicks Geek publishes the basis of its fee — "custom pricing based on advertising budget and service scope" — without a figure, and PayPerLead publishes its model (flat fee per qualified call, you set the price) without one either. Everyone else quotes after a call. What house cleaning marketing actually costs →
Should a cleaning franchisee hire one of these agencies?
Usually not without checking first. The best-known names in residential cleaning — Molly Maid, Merry Maids, The Cleaning Authority and the rest — are franchise systems, and their marketing is run by the franchisor's internal team, not by an agency you can hire. Franchise agreements commonly include a brand marketing fund, approved-vendor lists and rules about what a local operator may advertise. None of that makes local marketing impossible, but it does mean the right first step is your franchise agreement and your franchisor's marketing contact, not a proposal call. Everything on this list is written for independents.
What is a cleaning client actually worth?
Do this arithmetic before you judge any cost per lead, because it is the number that decides whether a $60 lead is cheap or ruinous. Take your average recurring clean, multiply by visits per year, then by how many years an average client stays. A bi-weekly client at $150 a clean is roughly $3,900 a year, and at an eighteen-month average tenure that is close to $5,800 in revenue. Those inputs are yours, not published benchmarks — but once you have them, a $60 acquisition cost on a recurring client and a $60 acquisition cost on a one-off move-out clean stop looking like the same number.
What is the difference between a cleaning marketing agency, a coach and a lead seller?
Three different products sold with the same vocabulary, which is why this list separates them. Agencies (Mid-Hudson Web, Method Clean Biz, Funnel Boost Media, Built-Right, Karbon) run the marketing for you and build assets you keep. Coaching programs (Grow My Cleaning Company) teach you and your staff to do it — cheaper over time, but you execute. Lead sellers (PayPerLead) simply sell you calls, often non-exclusive, and stop the day you stop paying. Software (ZenMaid) converts and schedules traffic you already have. Most cleaning companies need two of the four, and buy one of them by accident.
Which channels work best for a residential cleaning company?
Google Business Profile first, because the map pack is where "house cleaning near me" is decided and it costs nothing but attention. Then reviews, because cleaning is a trust purchase made by someone about to let a stranger into their home. Then Local Services Ads and paid search for immediate volume, and only then social. The one thing to avoid is spending on top-of-funnel awareness before your profile, review count and booking form are in order — you would be paying to send strangers to a page that does not close.
How do I get recurring clients instead of one-off cleans?
Mostly by asking, and secondarily by targeting. Move-out, post-construction and one-off deep cleans convert fastest and churn instantly; recurring bi-weekly clients cost more to acquire and are worth multiples more. Two practical levers: write ad copy and landing pages for the recurring plan rather than the cheap first clean, and make the recurring offer at the end of the first visit while the house looks its best. Ask any agency on this list what share of the clients it sourced were on a recurring plan at day 90 — most report leads instead, which is how a campaign can look successful and lose money.
Do cleaning marketing companies require a contract?
This category is unusually good on terms. Mid-Hudson Web states "No Long-Term Contracts Cancel Anytime", ZenMaid is month-to-month with "no signature necessary", PayPerLead has "No monthly retainers or commitments", and Karbon is month-to-month. Method Clean Biz, Funnel Boost Media, Built-Right Digital, Grow My Cleaning Company and Clicks Geek publish nothing about terms. Wherever you land, ask who owns the website, the domain, the Google Business Profile and the review history if you leave — the profile in particular is very hard to rebuild.
Should a cleaning company hire an agency or market in-house?
Cleaning is one of the few local trades where in-house can win early, because the highest-yield channels — Google Business Profile, reviews, referrals and asking existing clients for recurring plans — need consistency more than expertise. An agency earns its fee once you are buying paid traffic at volume or opening a second service area. In-house becomes clearly correct past roughly $500k a year in ad spend. We wrote out the full math. Agency vs. hiring in-house →
Want the honest version for your business?
Talk to us and we’ll tell you plainly whether we’re the right fit — and if one of the agencies above suits you better, we’ll say so.