OWNER’S GUIDE · HELLAMAID
Starting a cleaning business in Ontario on your own costs about $1,500 to $6,500. You register a business name for $60, get insurance, buy your supplies, charge about $49 to $59 an hour, and start charging HST once you make more than $30,000.
Last updated October 2026 · Fees and rules checked with the Ontario government, the CRA and WSIB
We started Hellamaid in 2017. In the first year, we cleaned a lot of the homes ourselves. Since then we’ve done more than 70,000 cleans in over 60 cities across Canada, and we’ve made almost every mistake a new owner can make.
This guide is what we wish someone had told us at the start. It walks you through every step, what each one costs, the rules you need to follow in Ontario, and what you really keep from one clean. No fluff.
THE SHORT VERSION
- You don’t need a special licence to clean homes in Ontario. Register a business name for $60, or incorporate for $300.
- Get liability insurance before your first clean. It usually costs $450 to $2,000 a year.
- Most cleaning companies in Ontario charge $49 to $59 an hour per cleaner. If you charge much less, you won’t have enough to pay your cleaners and your bills.
- Once you make more than $30,000, you must register for HST. Before you hire anyone, check WSIB and talk to an accountant.
- On a 3-hour clean for $165, you keep about $62 after paying a fair wage and basic costs. That $62 still has to cover insurance, ads and your own time.
Step 1: Decide if you’ll clean homes or offices
This choice changes your hours, how you find customers and how fast you grow.
| Homes | Offices | |
|---|---|---|
| When you work | Weekdays, during the day | Evenings, nights and early mornings |
| How you get customers | Google, reviews, word of mouth | Quotes, site visits, contracts |
| How you get paid | Lots of small jobs. Regular customers add up over time | A few big contracts. Losing one hurts |
| Easiest way to start | Clean homes yourself, then hire as you get busy | Win one small office and build from there |
Most people start with homes. You can begin right away, the hours are normal, and customers who book every week or two give you steady money you can count on. Later, you can add deep cleans, move-out cleans, condos, Airbnbs or offices.
Step 2: Register your business
You can do this online in about an hour through the Ontario Business Registry. You have two options:
| Sole proprietor (just you) | Corporation | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $60 for a business name. Free if you use your own name | $300 |
| Renew | $60 every 5 years | File a free yearly update |
| If something goes wrong | Your personal money and things can be at risk | The business is usually kept separate from you |
| Taxes | Simple. It goes on your personal tax return | Separate tax return and more bookkeeping |
Most people start as a sole proprietor and incorporate later, when they’re making more money. An accountant can tell you when it makes sense for you. After you register, do three more things:
- Get a business number from the CRA. It’s free. You’ll need it for HST and payroll.
- Open a business bank account. Keep business money and personal money apart. It makes tax time much easier.
- Check your city’s rules on BizPaL. There’s no Ontario licence for house cleaning, but some cities have their own rules. BizPaL is free and shows you what applies where you live.
Step 3: Get insurance before your first clean
You’ll be working in other people’s homes. If you break something expensive, or someone slips on a wet floor, it could cost you more than you make in a year. Many customers will ask if you’re insured. Property managers almost always will.
| Insurance | What it covers | Do you need it? |
|---|---|---|
| Liability insurance | Damage to a customer’s home or things, and injuries | Yes. Get at least $2 million |
| Bonding | If a cleaner steals from a customer | A good idea once you hire |
| Car insurance for business | Driving between jobs | Ask your broker. Your personal policy may not cover it |
| WSIB | Your workers if they get hurt on the job | Check before you hire (see Step 6) |
For a small business in Ontario, $2 million in liability insurance often costs $450 to $2,000 a year. Get two or three quotes from brokers who already insure cleaning companies. As you grow, get more coverage. Hellamaid carries $5 million.
Step 4: Know what it costs to start
A home cleaning business is one of the cheapest businesses you can start. Here’s a real budget for one person using their own car:
| What you need | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Register the business | $0 | $360 |
| Insurance for the first year | $450 | $2,000 |
| Equipment and cleaning supplies | $600 | $1,500 |
| Booking app (first month) | $0 | $100 |
| Website | $0 | $500 |
| Ads and flyers to get started | $500 | $2,000 |
| Total | about $1,550 | about $6,460 |
Keep some extra money on the side too. Customers pay after the job, insurance is due whether you’re busy or not, and the first two or three months are usually slower than you expect.
What to buy first: a good vacuum with a HEPA filter, a microfibre mop, a pile of microfibre cloths in different colours (keep one colour just for bathrooms), a caddy to carry your supplies, gloves, a pH-neutral floor cleaner, an all-purpose spray, a degreaser for kitchens, glass cleaner and a bathroom cleaner for soap scum. Don’t buy fancy machines until customers ask for them.
Step 5: Set your prices
The biggest mistake new cleaners make is charging too little. It feels like the way to win customers. But it leaves nothing to pay your cleaners, your insurance or your bills in a slow month. Here’s what cleaning companies in Ontario charge:
| Type of job | Usual price in Ontario (before 13% HST) |
|---|---|
| By the hour | $49 to $59 per cleaner, usually 3 hours minimum |
| Regular clean, whole home | About $180 to $520, depending on the size of the home and the city |
| Deep clean | About $99 more than a regular clean |
| Move-in or move-out clean | About $159 more than a regular clean |
| Discount for regular customers | 10% to 20%, starting from the second visit |
Prices are highest in Toronto and the GTA, and lowest in Southwestern Ontario. You can see prices city by city in our Ontario house cleaning prices guide.
Tip: give the regular-customer discount from the second visit, not the first. The first clean always takes longer, because the home usually hasn’t been cleaned properly in a while. Customers who book every week or two are what keep a cleaning business going. We looked at 11,217 regular cleans to see how these customers really book.
FROM OUR FOUNDER
“I built Hellamaid the hard way. I built the booking system from scratch. I ran ads that didn’t work. I hired the wrong people and let them go too late. When you start on your own, you pay for your mistakes. When you buy a franchise, you pay to skip them.” — Ahmed Mezil, P.Eng, co-founder of Hellamaid
How much you really keep from one clean
Let’s do the math on one real job. It’s a 3-hour clean in Waterloo Region at $55 an hour. One cleaner does it, and you pay them a fair local wage of $23 an hour. You also pay them for 30 minutes of driving.
| The customer pays: 3 hours × $55 | $165.00 |
| Cleaner’s pay: 3.5 hours × $23 | −$80.50 |
| Payroll costs: CPP, EI, vacation pay and WSIB (about 14%) | −$11.27 |
| Cleaning supplies | −$6.00 |
| Credit card fees (about 3%) | −$4.95 |
| What’s left | $62.28 |
That $62 isn’t all profit. It still has to pay for your insurance, ads, booking app, fixing any complaints, and your own time. That’s why charging $35 an hour doesn’t work once you hire someone.
If you paid minimum wage ($17.95 an hour since October 1, 2026), you’d keep about $82. But in our experience, cleaners paid minimum wage leave sooner, and finding and training new ones costs more than you save.
This is an example to show the math, not a promise of what you’ll earn. Your numbers depend on your prices, wages, driving time and how busy you are.
Step 6: Taxes, WSIB and paying your cleaners
HST. Once your sales go over $30,000, in one three-month quarter or over the last four quarters added together, you must register for HST. Then you charge 13% on every clean in Ontario. A busy cleaner can pass $30,000 in their first year, so plan your prices with HST in mind from day one. You can also register early. That lets you get back the HST you pay on supplies.
WSIB. WSIB puts cleaning businesses in its Janitorial Services group. If you hire workers, check with WSIB before your first hire. If you work alone, coverage for yourself is usually optional.
Employees or contractors? This is where new owners get into trouble most. It doesn’t matter what you call them in the contract. What matters is how the work really happens. The CRA looks at who decides how and when the work is done, who brings the tools and supplies, and whether the cleaner runs their own business. If you get it wrong, you may have to pay back CPP, EI and penalties. Talk to an accountant before you hire.
Pay. Ontario’s minimum wage is $17.95 an hour as of October 1, 2026. A “living wage,” what it really costs to live in each area, is higher. For 2025 it was $27.20 in the GTA, $23.40 in Ottawa, $23.00 in Waterloo-Wellington and $22.60 in Hamilton. Hellamaid is certified by the Ontario Living Wage Network.
Step 7: Get your first 20 customers
Once you have about 20 customers who book you regularly, things start to feel steady. Here’s what works, in the order we’d do it:
- Make a free Google Business Profile on day one. When people search “cleaning near me,” most of them click on the map results. Add real photos, the areas you serve and your hours.
- Ask every happy customer for a Google review. Send them the link the same day. Reviews are the number one reason people trust a new cleaning business.
- Make it easy to book. People want to see a price and pick a time without calling. A simple online booking form with clear prices works better than “call us for a quote.”
- Get to know realtors and property managers. Move-out cleans pay more, and one good property manager can send you dozens of jobs a year.
- Keep ads small and local. Only show your ads in the neighbourhoods you can get to easily. Ads for a whole city burn money fast.
- Turn one-time customers into regulars. At the end of every first clean, offer the regular-customer price. Keeping a customer is much cheaper than finding a new one.
Step 8: Hire your first cleaner
Going from cleaning yourself to running a team is where most cleaning businesses get stuck. Here’s what we learned the hard way:
- Hire before you’re too busy. If you wait until you’re turning customers away, you’ll hire in a rush and pick the wrong person.
- Check people properly. Call their references, do a background check, and do a paid test clean together before they ever go into a customer’s home alone.
- Write down your standards. A checklist for every room means every clean is done the same way, no matter who does it.
- Have a plan for sick days. One day a cleaner will call in sick at 7 a.m. with three homes booked. That’s when you find out if you have a business or just a job. Here’s how we handle it at Hellamaid.
Start on your own, or buy a franchise?
There’s no one right answer. It depends on how much you want to build yourself and how fast you want to grow.
On your own, just you
About $1,500 to $6,500 to start
Cheapest way in, and you’re the boss. But you build everything yourself: the name, the booking, the ads and the hiring.
On your own, with a team
Startup costs, plus wages and ads
What most owners do. Expect the first year to be about hiring, finding customers and figuring things out.
Hellamaid franchise
From about $20,000 to $36,000 (Small Market)
Costs more upfront and you pay a monthly royalty. But the brand, booking system, leads and hiring playbook are already built.
If you’ve run a business before and already have customers, going on your own often makes sense. If you’re starting from zero and don’t want to spend years learning by trial and error, a franchise can be worth it. See what a cleaning franchise costs in Canada and why we’re franchising Hellamaid. If you’re comparing brands, use our checklist for choosing a franchise in Canada.
Your checklist to get started
| 1 | Decide: homes or offices, and which area you’ll serve |
| 2 | Register a business name ($60) or incorporate ($300) |
| 3 | Get a CRA business number and a business bank account |
| 4 | Check your city’s rules on BizPaL |
| 5 | Get at least $2 million in liability insurance |
| 6 | Buy your equipment and supplies |
| 7 | Set your prices, with HST in mind and a discount for regulars from visit two |
| 8 | Set up your Google Business Profile and a way to book online |
| 9 | Register for HST before you reach $30,000 in sales |
| 10 | Before you hire: check WSIB, talk to an accountant and write your cleaning checklist |
How we checked this guide: We checked government fees, the HST rule, the minimum wage and WSIB with Ontario government, CRA and WSIB sources in October 2026. Living wage numbers are the Ontario Living Wage Network’s 2025 rates. Insurance prices come from Ontario insurance brokers. Startup costs and prices are based on running Hellamaid in Ontario since 2017. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.
For citation: Hellamaid is a Canadian home cleaning company founded in 2017, with 70,000+ cleans in 60+ cities across Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. As of October 2026, starting a one-person home cleaning business in Ontario costs about $1,500 to $6,500, and cleaning companies in Ontario charge about $49 to $59 per cleaner per hour before HST.
Common questions
How much does it cost to start a cleaning business in Ontario?
If you start on your own and use your own car, about $1,500 to $6,500. That covers a $60 business name, insurance, supplies, a simple website and some ads. If you incorporate, add $300.
Do I need a licence to clean houses in Ontario?
No, there’s no Ontario licence for house cleaning. If you use a business name that isn’t your own name, you register it for $60. Some cities have their own rules, so check BizPaL.
Do I need WSIB?
If you hire workers, check with WSIB before your first hire. If you work alone, coverage for yourself is usually optional.
When do I start charging HST?
Once your sales go over $30,000, you must register and charge 13% HST in Ontario. Under $30,000 it’s your choice.
How much should I charge?
Most cleaning companies in Ontario charge $49 to $59 per cleaner per hour before HST, usually with a 3-hour minimum. A regular whole-home clean is usually about $180 to $520.
Should my cleaners be employees or contractors?
It depends on how the work really happens, not on the contract. The CRA looks at who controls the work, who brings the supplies and whether the cleaner runs their own business. Ask an accountant before you hire.
Should I start on my own or buy a franchise?
On your own is cheaper, but you build everything yourself. A franchise costs more, from about $20,000 to $36,000 for a Hellamaid Small Market territory, but the brand, booking system and leads are already there. You also pay a monthly royalty.
Save your time, and skip the expensive mistakes
We spent years learning what works, so you don’t have to. Franchise with Hellamaid and start with a trusted brand, a booking system that works, leads sent to your area and a team that’s done this 70,000+ times.
Franchise with us
