Every other trade performs in front of the customer. You don't. You let yourself into an empty house or a dark office, do the work alone, and leave before anyone sees it happen. Which means your client isn't really buying cleaning — they're buying confidence about a person they can't see, in a space they aren't in. Obravetta is built to supply that confidence on every single visit. From $27/month.
This is the structural fact that makes cleaning different from every other trade we work with. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that many cleaners work evenings because offices are often cleaned when empty. Residential runs the same pattern at the other end of the clock — you're there while the client is at work. Absence isn't a scheduling accident. It's the product working correctly.
So your client can never evaluate the thing they're paying for. They didn't watch the baseboards get done. They can't tell a thorough two hours from a rushed one. What they can evaluate is everything around the work: whether someone arrived when you said, whether it was the person they expected, whether anyone told them it was finished, and whether they can reach you when something's off.
That's not a marketing problem. It's the whole service. A cleaning company that communicates precisely will beat a better cleaner who communicates poorly, every time, because only one of those two things is visible to the buyer.
The second structural problem, and it compounds the first.
BLS reports about 2,432,600 janitors and building cleaners employed in 2025, with roughly 321,800 openings projected each year — most of them replacing people who move to other occupations or leave the workforce.
Set those two figures side by side and it works out to roughly one opening for every eight jobs, every year. Turnover isn't an occasional staffing headache in this trade. It's the baseline condition.
Because the trust your client has isn't in your company — it's in the particular person who has been coming to their house for eight months and knows not to move the things on the dresser. Replace that person without saying anything, and a loyal client becomes a nervous one overnight.
Property notes — the alarm code, the dog, the room nobody enters, the client who wants the blinds left exactly so — are the most valuable thing a cleaning business owns and the easiest thing to lose. When they live on the customer record instead of in someone's memory, a staffing change is an inconvenience rather than a cancellation.
Five proxies every client uses because the actual work is invisible to them — and what each one is really asking.
| What they judge | What they're really asking | The usual answer | What answers it better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrival | "Is anyone actually coming?" | They find out when they get home | On-my-way text with an ETA |
| Who walks in | "Do I know this person?" | Whoever was on the schedule | Named cleaner, sent ahead of the visit |
| The finished space | "Did they do everything?" | Take our word for it | Completed checklist, and photos where it helps |
| Reaching you | "What if I need to change something?" | A voicemail box | Two-way text that gets answered |
| When something's wrong | "Will they make this right?" | A difficult phone call | A documented visit and a fast reply |
Notice that none of the right-hand column is about cleaning. All five are communication, and all five can run without anyone remembering to do them — which matters, because the person best placed to send the arrival text is currently driving.
Every other page on this site walks through a job from the contractor's point of view. This one can't — the whole argument is that your client experiences something completely different from what you do. So here's their Thursday.
A reminder text arrives while they're making dinner, with a one-tap way to reschedule if the week has gone sideways. They tidy the counter. Nobody has phoned anybody.
Appointment reminders · Two-way SMS"Maria is on her way, arriving around 9:05." The client is in a meeting and doesn't reply, but they saw it, and the small anxiety about whether today is actually happening never starts.
On-my-way notificationsThis is the part that makes cleaning different. A person they've met twice lets themselves in with a code, and nobody is there. Everything you've sent up to this moment is what makes that feel normal rather than alarming.
Property notes on the customer recordThey hear nothing, which is right. The crew isn't texting from the job and the owner isn't checking in. The system is quiet because it's working.
Automation running unattendedA completion message with the checklist that was actually completed, and a photo of the kitchen because that's the room this client cares about. They haven't seen the work, but now they have evidence of it, which is the closest substitute there is.
Mobile app photos · Job completion triggersThe recurring invoice charges the card on file and the receipt lands. No envelope on the counter, no awkward reminder at the next visit, no thirty-day gap between the work and the money.
Recurring invoices · Card on file · Text-to-payA review request goes out a day later, not three weeks later. In a trade bought almost entirely on trust, the reviews are doing your selling for you — and Google's own documentation says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.
Automated review requests · AI review repliesThey text "can we do Friday instead?" at 10pm and it's handled. Plenty of recurring clients lapse not because they're unhappy but because changing an appointment felt harder than stopping. Making it twenty seconds of texting keeps accounts that would otherwise quietly end.
Two-way SMS · Calendars · ReschedulingBefore anyone hands over a key, they're checking. Here's what they're checking and where software helps — and where it genuinely doesn't.
We do not run background checks, verify identity documents, or screen your hires. That is your responsibility and it's the most important control in a business built on household access — use a proper screening provider and follow the rules that apply in your state.
We also don't provide your insurance or bonding. If you clean occupied homes you need both, and clients increasingly ask for proof before the first visit.
And if your staff use hazardous cleaning chemicals at work, OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard requires employers to have labels and safety data sheets for exposed workers and to train them to handle those chemicals appropriately. That's a compliance obligation, not a software feature.
On Contractor Growth and Contractor Pro, a professional cleaning website is built for you as part of the plan — not quoted separately by an agency at a few thousand dollars.
Make a stranger comfortable enough to give you a door code. That means your insurance and process stated plainly, reviews visible on the page rather than buried, a clear explanation of what a visit includes, and a booking flow that gives a price or a firm next step instead of "we'll get back to you."
On Contractor Starter at $27 you get the builder and build it yourself. On Growth and Pro we build it for you.
Obravetta isn't a scheduling app with marketing bolted on. It's the whole stack — and for a cleaning business it breaks into six jobs.
Published figures, sourced below.
A note on these figures: BLS publishes a current outlook for janitors and building cleaners, which covers commercial and institutional work and explicitly excludes private homes. Its current handbook does not carry a separate outlook for residential housekeeping, so we haven't invented one. Employment is projected to grow 2% from 2025 to 2035, and the openings figure above is driven by replacement rather than growth — which is precisely the turnover point made further up this page.
Every plan includes a 14-day free trial, month-to-month with no contract. Annual billing charges for ten months instead of twelve.
1 team member
Solo cleaner. Website builder, missed-call text back, reminders, unlimited workflows, recurring invoices and review automation.
Up to 3 team members
Adds AI voice answering, a professional website built for you, and 5,000 contacts.
Unlimited team members
Unlimited contacts, done-for-you setup, custom automations and booking campaigns.
Honest note on seats: Starter is one user and Growth covers up to three. Cleaning companies add staff earlier than most trades, so if you're running more than three cleaners in the system you're looking at Pro at $297, where seats are unlimited. We'd rather say that here than let you find it at checkout.
It depends what's breaking. If you need deep maid-service operations — cleaner scheduling by skill and zone, piece-rate or commission pay, supply tracking, detailed job costing — then a vertical platform like ZenMaid or BookingKoala is purpose-built for that, and Housecall Pro and Jobber both go further than we do on field operations. If the thing costing you money is clients quietly lapsing and inquiries that never get answered, that's what Obravetta is built around.
No, and given what this page argues, that deserves a direct answer rather than a soft one. We don't screen hires, verify identity documents or run criminal record checks. That's your responsibility and it's the most important control in a business where staff enter homes unaccompanied — use a proper screening provider and follow the rules that apply in your state, including the ones governing how you may use what a check turns up. What we do is everything that happens after you've hired someone you trust.
With a reliable pattern rather than reassurance on request. A reminder the day before, an on-my-way message with an ETA, and a completion note with the checklist and a photo or two. That sequence replaces the thing they can't do, which is watch. It costs nothing to run once it's set up and it is the difference between a client who feels looked after and one who starts wondering whether anyone came at all.
Tell the client in advance, with a name. Trust in this trade attaches to a person, not a logo, and BLS data shows roughly one opening a year for every eight jobs in the occupation — so handovers are normal and pretending otherwise doesn't help. A new cleaner introduced beforehand is a change; the same cleaner discovered at the door unannounced is an alarm. Keeping the client's property notes on their record rather than in a departing cleaner's head is what makes the handover survivable.
Mostly by making rescheduling trivial. A lot of recurring cleaning clients don't leave because they're unhappy — they leave because a week went wrong, changing the appointment felt like a phone call they didn't want to make, and the gap turned into a habit. Letting them move a visit by text in twenty seconds keeps accounts that would otherwise end without anyone ever complaining. After that, reactivation campaigns to paused clients pick up the ones who already slipped.
Yes. Recurring invoices charge a card on file and send a receipt, so there's no envelope on the counter and no awkward reminder at the next visit. You can also take deposits on deep cleans and move-outs at the point of booking, which matters for the jobs most likely to be cancelled at short notice. Unpaid invoices chase themselves rather than becoming a conversation.
Yes, though they behave differently. Residential is high-volume, recurring and sold on trust, so the reminder and review automation carries most of the weight. Commercial is fewer accounts, larger contracts and a longer sales cycle, so the quote follow-up and pipeline matter more, and the buyer is an office or property manager rather than a homeowner. The platform runs both; most companies set up separate pipelines and separate campaigns for each.
Not in the way a dedicated maid-service platform does. We have calendars and recurring visits, but we don't do crew time clocks, piece-rate or commission pay calculation, supply inventory, or route sequencing between jobs. If your main problem is paying fifteen cleaners correctly, that's not us and we'd rather you knew now. Plenty of companies run a vertical tool for operations and Obravetta for everything client-facing.
By asking automatically, the day after the visit, every time. Cleaning is bought almost entirely on reputation because nobody can inspect the work before buying, so review volume does more selling here than in trades where the customer can see the result. Google's own documentation says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and replying to them shows customers you value their feedback. Video reviews are worth capturing where clients are willing, because they're harder to doubt.
Handle it properly and separately from your software. If your employees use hazardous chemicals at work, OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard requires employers to have labels and safety data sheets for exposed workers and to train them to handle those chemicals appropriately. We don't manage SDS binders or training records, and you shouldn't rely on a CRM for compliance. It's worth getting right — and worth mentioning on your website, because commercial buyers often ask.
Importing your client list from a CSV is an afternoon, and reminders, on-my-way messages and review requests can be live the same day. The part with a real wait is 10DLC registration — the carrier approval required to send business texts in the US — which takes a few business days and applies to any platform that texts your customers. Since nearly everything on this page runs over text, do that first. A built-for-you website takes longer because we need your insurance details, service area and photos.
Fourteen days is enough to import your client list, get texting approved, and have reminders, arrival messages and review requests running on every recurring visit you already have booked.
14-day free trial · No long-term contract · Cancel anytime
Employment, median pay, projected growth, annual openings, the industry breakdown, the note that many cleaners work evenings because offices are often cleaned when empty, and the statement that the occupation excludes workers who maintain private homes: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Janitors and Building Cleaners, 2025 data. The ratio of roughly one annual opening per eight jobs is our own arithmetic on the two published BLS figures, shown above so you can check it. Employer obligations for labels, safety data sheets and worker training where hazardous chemicals are used: US OSHA, Hazard Communication (29 CFR 1910.1200). Local ranking factors and the statement that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking: Google Business Profile Help. All verified October 2026. Obravetta pricing from our own pricing page.
Nothing on this page is legal, employment, insurance or safety-compliance advice. Background screening, employment classification, bonding, insurance and chemical-safety obligations vary by state and change — confirm current requirements with a qualified professional before relying on anything here, and note that how you may use the results of a background check is itself regulated. Obravetta does not perform background checks, identity verification or employee screening of any kind. The client expectations, visit sequences and timings described above are illustrative of how cleaning work commonly runs, not survey findings or guarantees of results. Google does not disclose how heavily any individual ranking factor is weighted, and no platform can promise a ranking outcome. Google, Jobber, Housecall Pro, ZenMaid, BookingKoala and any other platforms named are trademarks of their respective owners; Obravetta is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. Figures and third-party policies change — verify current details at the sources above.