Cleaning business software is not a general field-service tool with a mop icon on it. The work it has to hold is repeating rather than one-off, the crew is paid by the hour whether or not the customer is billed by the hour, and the margin on a house survives or dies on figures the software has to keep: how many people were in the house, how long they were there, what the wage actually costs once the employer's share of payroll tax is on it, and what was used up. A tool that models a job as a call-out with a parts list will make you retype a fortnightly house twenty-six times a year and still not tell you which visits lost money.
The four things it has to hold, and why each one
A customer with the address you clean, because the price belongs to the house rather than to the person who booked it. A recurring visit that repeats on its own schedule, because a fortnightly house entered once should not be entered again. The crew's hours against that visit, because paid hours are the whole cost base and a cleaner paid for travel between two houses is a cost of the second one. And the quote and invoice produced from those figures, so that when a customer asks in six months why the price moved you can point at the hours rather than at a memory.
Why the wage is not the cost, and what that does to the software
The IRS puts the employer's share of Social Security at 6.2% and Medicare at 1.45%, so 7.65% of every wage dollar is a cost the payslip does not show, before state unemployment or workers' compensation. Software that prices a clean from the wage alone is quietly understating the cost of every visit by at least that much. The practical consequence for what you buy is small but decisive: the tool has to let you enter a loaded labour cost, or compute one, rather than assuming the hourly rate you pay is the number to price against.
What you can safely leave out
Cleaning businesses are sold a great deal of software they do not need. Route optimisation matters when you run twelve vans and not when you run two. Inventory modules matter when you hold stock and not when the supplies live in the back of the car. Dispatch boards designed for emergency call-outs solve a problem a fortnightly house does not have. The honest test is whether the feature changes a decision you make every week; if it does not, it is a reason the price is higher and not a reason to buy.
Where Sudslane sits
Sudslane is deliberately narrow: a cleaning service platform for cleaning businesses and nothing else, at one price for the whole business rather than per user. The two sheets on this site cost a clean and price it, free and without an account, and the paid plan keeps the customer, the recurring visit, the hours, the quote and the invoice on one record. If you also fit boilers or mow lawns, a general trades suite will serve you better and we say so on the pricing page.
Questions people ask about cleaning business software
Is cleaning business software different from field service software?
In one way that matters: the unit of work. Field service software is built around a job or a call-out, and recurrence is bolted on. Cleaning is repeat work, so the visit that repeats is the thing the record should be built around.
Do I need it if I only clean ten houses?
Probably not for the schedule, which fits on a page. You may still need it for the pricing, because ten houses priced from memory two years ago is exactly where the margin quietly goes.
What should it cost?
Cleaning-specific products sit at the low end: ZenMaid lists Starter at $19 a month, Pro at $39 and Pro Max at $49. Sudslane Pro is $39 a month for the whole business. General trades suites are priced per user and start higher.