While a number of startups have emerged to offer on-demand cleaning services to consumers, most of them just hire subcontractors and pay them a flat hourly fee for their work. But they do little to help them build their businesses outside of the platforms.
Cleanify offers something different: It wants to provide independent cleaners and small businesses with the tools to find new customers, manage schedules, offer different types of cleaning services, and set their own prices.
The goal is not to connect consumers with just any cleaner at a flat hourly rate, but to find the right cleaner at the right price, depending on what their needs are. In that way, it serves more as a comparison shopping site like Expedia as opposed to a book-right-now option for a commodity service.
On the consumer side, users can get real-time pricing and availability from different independent, small-business, or franchise cleaners. But on the service-provider side, Cleanify is offering a suite of tools that allow them to run their own online story front, manage crews, and fulfill work orders.
For cleaners, part of the battle is just in getting their businesses online. Most don’t have their own websites, and even if they do, those sites are not easily discoverable by consumers. Cleanify acts as an engine for those businesses to find new customers.
“We let people choose what they get paid, when they work, and how they work,” Cleanify CEO and co-founder Justin Potter said. And the service isn’t afraid to partner with franchises in addition to independent cleaners. For franchise customers, Cleanify’s platform for managing workers comes in handy, since there aren’t great tools available today.
Potter founded Cleanify after working at a janitorial service owned by his best friend’s father, where he would sell contracts, manage subcontractors and occasionally clean. Co-founders include his sister Amanda Potter and CTO Luis Sanchez, who founded the company back in 2011.
Founded in Vancouver, the company has expanded to offer services in Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Chicago, with plans to add more cities.
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