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A recurring commercial cleaning operator acquired for $1.6M, with nearly $2M in revenue and diligence lessons.
Recurring facility contracts make the revenue legible; verify the people and renewals behind them before you sign.
Fewer bars = easier, cheaper, or faster for an AI-assisted solo builder. Editorial judgments based on the case details.
Evan bought Quality Cleaning Service of Northwest Ohio, a commercial cleaning company, for $1.6 million in 2024. The purchase used 90% SBA financing, 5% buyer equity, and a 5% seller note. Evan said the business’s three-year average was almost exactly $500,000 in seller’s discretionary earnings, and he described a business doing a little under $2 million in revenue. The company serves commercial properties rather than homes, including offices, banks, manufacturers, packaging sites, and warehouses. Around 90% of revenue came from recurring nightly cleaning contracts, with the remainder from one-off work such as post-construction cleaning and floor care. During the delayed closing, two customers representing about $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue were lost without being disclosed to the buyer. After closing he found that the GM, a relative of the seller, was letting four family-member cleaners clock in from home for extra hours and was hiding complaints about their work; about four months in he let the GM go, promoted the lead operations manager, and moved timekeeping to Swept with geofenced clock-ins. The acquisition is useful as an operating and diligence case, not a clean growth play: recurring contracts support predictable billing, while people management and undisclosed churn can quickly damage the economics.
For a commercial cleaning operator in Northwest Ohio, the first customers are usually won account by account through facility managers, property managers, banks, manufacturers, and warehouse operators.
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Data credibility: Interview with Evan, the buyer and current owner (surname captioned as "Donardi"), on the Bootstrapping to Billions podcast. Revenue (a little under $2M), three-year average SDE (about $500K), the $1.6M price and 90/5/5 financing, and the roughly $10K/month of lost accounts are owner-reported and were not independently audited. The $2,800/month contract is an illustrative bid, not a specific customer.
For this company, the first dollar from a new account arrives after a facility manager accepts a monthly bid and the operator schedules a crew to clean the site.
A cleaning route becomes self-reinforcing when reliable delivery protects recurring contracts and gives the sales process credible references. For this Northwest Ohio operator, the repeatable unit is a facility with a defined schedule, monthly price, assigned cleaners, supply plan, and inspection checklist.
Commercial cleaning can feel stuck when staff turnover, weak supervision, or a seller’s incomplete handoff erodes service before new systems are in place.
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