- What Residential Cleaning CRMs Must Do
- Planfix: Operational Control for Growing Cleaning Teams
- Jobber: All‑in‑One Home Services CRM
- HubSpot CRM: Sales‑Led Growth for Multi‑Service Companies
- Feature and Pricing Snapshot
- How to Choose the Right CRM for Your Cleaning Business
- FAQ: Top CRM Systems for Residential Cleaning
Residential cleaning companies outgrow spreadsheets quickly once they start managing recurring visits, multiple teams, and demanding homeowners. A fit‑for‑purpose CRM keeps jobs on schedule, crews accountable, and margins predictable instead of chaotic.
What Residential Cleaning CRMs Must Do
Residential cleaning is a high‑volume, low‑margin service, so CRM tools must protect time and trust rather than just “store contacts”. The key requirements are operational rather than purely sales‑driven.
Core capabilities cleaning companies typically need:
- Recurring job scheduling with route‑aware calendars.
- Mobile workflows: checklists, photos, and status updates from the field.
- SLA and quality control: before/after proof, rework tracking, response times.
- Billing and payments: quotes, invoices, and payment tracking.
- Reporting on route, team, and site profitability.
With these criteria, Planfix, Jobber, and HubSpot CRM cover different ends of the residential cleaning spectrum.
Planfix: Operational Control for Growing Cleaning Teams
Planfix is a flexible CRM and operations platform that has dedicated solutions for cleaning and janitorial businesses. It is best suited to companies that care about route discipline, SLA compliance, and photo‑based proof of work across many sites.
Key strengths for residential cleaning:
- Integrated workflow: intake, routing, mobile checklists, photos, and sign‑off live in one system of record.
- Quality and rework: missed quality automatically creates a rework task with SLA timers and recovery tracking.
- Gradual rollout: teams can start with email‑to‑ticket and basic checklists, then add routes and quality controls as they scale.
From a cost perspective, Planfix uses per‑user pricing and is closer to general business tools than “home‑services enterprise” systems, which keeps entry costs lower for small and mid‑sized cleaning teams.
Jobber: All‑in‑One Home Services CRM
Jobber is a home‑service CRM widely used by residential cleaning and similar field service businesses. It focuses on day‑to‑day operations: scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and client communication.
Relevant features for cleaning companies include:
- Visual scheduling with drag‑and‑drop calendars and route optimization.
- Client manager with service history, notes, and communication logs.
- Online quotes and invoices with integrated online payments.
Jobber’s current pricing starts at about $39/month for solo users, up to higher-tier plans for growing teams.
HubSpot CRM: Sales‑Led Growth for Multi‑Service Companies
HubSpot is a general‑purpose CRM that includes a free core tier and paid Sales, Marketing, and Service Hubs. Residential cleaning companies usually use it when they run more complex lead generation and upsell campaigns or operate multiple service lines.
For cleaning providers, HubSpot is mainly attractive because:
- The free CRM tier covers contact management, basic pipelines, and simple email tracking.
- Starter plans from roughly 50–75 USD per month unlock automation, email templates, and more advanced pipeline tools.
- Higher‑tier hubs (Professional and Enterprise) add sophisticated marketing automation and reporting but come with onboarding fees and annual commitments.
HubSpot is typically overkill if the primary challenge is dispatching crews and proving cleaning quality, but it fits cleaning businesses that behave like full marketing organizations.
Feature and Pricing Snapshot
The table below summarizes how Planfix, Jobber, and HubSpot compare on the functions that matter most to residential cleaning companies.
| Criterion | Planfix | Jobber | HubSpot CRM |
| Primary focus | Operational CRM and workflow automation for service businesses, with dedicated cleaning and janitorial scenarios. | End‑to‑end home‑service operations: scheduling, dispatch, quotes, and invoicing. | General‑purpose sales and marketing CRM with optional service tools. |
| Best for | Residential and multi‑site cleaning teams needing strict routes, SLA tracking, and photo proof across many locations. | Small to mid‑sized cleaning providers wanting an out‑of‑the‑box home‑services toolkit. | Cleaning firms prioritizing lead management, email campaigns, and multi‑channel marketing. |
| Scheduling & routing | Route boards, smart assignment, and mobile check‑in/out tailored for recurring cleaning routes. | Drag‑and‑drop scheduling, route optimization, and team assignment. | Basic task and meeting scheduling; no native home‑services routing. |
| Field mobile app | Simple flow: check in, follow checklist, upload before/after photos, complete tasks offline if needed. | Full mobile access to schedules, job info, forms, and payments. | Mobile CRM for sales and support; not optimized for on‑site cleaning workflows. |
| Quality control | SLA timers, mandatory photos, audits, and auto‑created rework tasks with MTTR tracking. | Job notes and attachments; less structured quality and rework logic than Planfix. | Ticketing and service automation in Service Hub, oriented more to support than field quality checks. |
| Automation | No‑code workflows spanning intake, routing, approvals, and reporting. | Limited to job status, notifications, and basic follow‑ups. | Advanced marketing and sales automation in higher‑tier hubs. |
| Pricing logic | Per user (scalable, multiple plans) | Per user with tiered plans by team size | Free core CRM + tiered paid bundles |
| Scalability | Designed to add routes, sites, and workflows without rebuilding the system. | Scales well for small and mid‑sized teams, but enterprise‑level complexity can be limiting. | Highly scalable for sales and marketing operations; field‑service workflows need heavy customization. |
| Typical ROI driver | Higher route productivity, fewer missed visits, and structured quality recovery. | Faster scheduling and billing, less admin per job. | Higher lead conversion and contract value through marketing and sales automation. |
How to Choose the Right CRM for Your Cleaning Business
The fastest way to narrow options is to start from the business constraint rather than the brand name.
For residential cleaning companies, a practical selection approach is:
- Choose Planfix if daily pain points are missed jobs, poor route visibility, and inconsistent quality or photo proof across many sites.
- Choose Jobber if the priority is a ready‑made home‑service stack with minimal configuration focused on quoting, scheduling, and quick payment collection.
- Choose HubSpot if the core gap is structured sales pipelines, multi‑channel marketing, and long‑term customer lifecycle management beyond operations.
Budget should be evaluated against how quickly each tool addresses the most expensive problems—crew idle time, rework, or missed sales—rather than just subscription price per month.
FAQ: Top CRM Systems for Residential Cleaning
What is the main CRM use case for residential cleaning companies?
The primary use case is coordinating high volumes of recurring jobs while keeping crews on schedule and providing proof of service to homeowners.
Why put Planfix first in a residential cleaning CRM list?
Planfix combines CRM, routing, SLA management, and quality control in one configurable platform, which directly addresses the operational bottlenecks of growing cleaning teams.
Is Jobber enough for a mid‑sized residential cleaning business?
For companies focused on straightforward scheduling, quoting, and invoicing with small field teams, Jobber’s feature set and pricing tiers are typically sufficient.
When does HubSpot make sense for a cleaning service?
HubSpot is most valuable when the cleaning business runs serious marketing campaigns, manages complex sales funnels, or offers multiple services that require structured nurturing.
Can these CRMs handle photo‑based proof of cleaning?
Planfix is built around checklists and mandatory before/after photos, while Jobber supports job notes and attachments; HubSpot typically needs integrations or customization for similar workflows.
How fast can a residential cleaning team see ROI from a CRM?
Most teams see time savings in scheduling and communication within the first month, with clearer route productivity and quality metrics emerging over several billing cycles.
Do small cleaning businesses really need a CRM, or are spreadsheets enough?
Spreadsheets work for solo cleaners or very small teams, but once multiple crews, routes, and recurring jobs are involved, a CRM prevents missed visits, billing errors, and frustrated customers.
