06/20/2026
Many employees see the amount charged to the customer and assume the business owner keeps most of it. What they often don’t see are all the expenses and responsibilities that come before the owner ever gets paid.
For a cleaning business, those costs can add up quickly:
* Vehicle payments
* Gas
* Oil changes
* Tires
* Repairs and maintenance
* Insurance
* Business licensing
* Taxes (self-employment taxes can be a shock)
* Cleaning products and equipment
* Vacuum repairs and replacement
* Laundry for towels and mop pads
* Advertising and marketing
* Bookkeeping
* Scheduling and customer service
* Unpaid estimates and walk-throughs
* Last-minute cancellations
* Employee call-outs
* Stress of keeping clients happy
And then there’s the part nobody can put a dollar amount on: the responsibility. When an employee calls in sick, the owner still has to make sure the job gets done. When a vacuum breaks, the owner replaces it. When a customer complains, the owner handles it.
That said, good employees don’t always understand these costs because they’ve never had to run a business. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care; often they’ve simply never seen the full picture.
In a business like Dustbusters, after 25+ years, you’ve probably learned that what looks like a $150 cleaning isn’t $150 in profit. By the time you factor in labor, supplies, vehicle costs, taxes, and overhead, the actual profit can be much smaller than people imagine.
A saying that comes to mind:
“Employees work for an hourly wage. Owners work for what’s left over after everyone else gets paid.”
That’s why business ownership can be rewarding—but it’s definitely not the easy money some people think it is.
