Industries / House and maid cleaning
One scheduler for house and maid cleaning.
Works today
Book weekly and biweekly homes, route the crew, send the day before, get paid.
Residential cleaning (maid service)
Apex sizes a clean from beds, baths and square feet, holds new customers as pending until you approve them, and keeps the calendar honest around skips, keys and sick calls.
Who it is for: Maid services and house-cleaning teams from a solo cleaner to a dozen crews, working recurring homes plus deep cleans and move-outs.
What generic schedulers get wrong for house cleaning
A plan is not a repeated job
Weekly, every-other-week and every-four-weeks homes keep the same day, the same time and, ideally, the same cleaner. Generic tools recur a job; they do not hold continuity.
Size drives price and hours
Beds, baths, square feet, pets and add-ons set both the price and how long the team is in the home. A flat-duration job breaks the day.
Keys and alarm codes are a liability
Access notes need a custody trail, not a free-text field every cleaner can read forever.
Cancellations and sick calls are daily events
Late-cancel fees, lockouts and re-spreading a day when a cleaner is out are routine, and each needs a clear owner decision.
Recurring appointments must not vanish
Reviewers of a popular maid tool report recurring visits disappearing or being marked complete wrongly, so reliability of the series is the product.
Drawn in code for house cleaning
A day in a house cleaning business
- Weekly home
- Every other week
- Deep clean
- Move-out
- Rental turnover
Oak Street comes back every Monday with the same team.
Morning window
Late morning
Afternoon windowphotos
Three homes within one neighborhood.
A custody trail, not a text field.
A house-cleaning week: recurring homes hold their day while a deep clean and a move-out fit around them. Illustration of planned screens: entries are examples, not customer data, and not every screen shown is built yet.
How house cleaning runs in Apex: the key settings
Starter settings for this trade. You change any of them. Nothing here is a promise about your numbers.
How jobs get booked
Morning and afternoon arrival windows, Monday to Friday, with a per-team daily cap.
Stops in a day
Around 4 homes a day per team, fewer on deep-clean days.
Routing
Dynamic cluster: homes on the same side of town cluster by day.
Who says yes
Owner confirms new customers. Repeat visits for an approved home can follow the plan.
How you price
Size tiers by square feet and rooms, plus add-ons, a first-clean price, a recurring price and a minimum.
Repeat customers
Weekly, every other week, every four weeks, monthly. Skip and holiday rules per home.
Follow-up calls
Owner call-back the next business day after a first clean; day-3 satisfaction check.
Review requests
Review request a day after a clean, once, held back if the home had an issue.
What we ask the customer
- Beds, baths and square feet
- Pets and allergies
- Frequency wanted
- Add-ons: oven, fridge, windows, laundry
- Entry method and alarm
- Supplies: yours or theirs
- Last deep clean
Photos and papers to collect
- Optional condition photos
- Before and after photos for move-out and post-construction cleans
Rules to watch
- Key and alarm-code custody log
- Background-check note on each cleaner
- Insured and bonded certificate on request
- Lone-worker check-in
What you get as a house cleaning business
8 of 17 work today. The other 9 are coming soon.
Morning and afternoon windows
A team holds a window, and a second team does not collide with it.
Daily cap per team
Four homes is the starting value, and you change it per team.
Home-size tiers from square footage
Square feet and room counts map to a price tier and a team time.
Route density between homes
Offers days when a team is already working your neighborhood.
24-hour reminder and on-my-way text
With opt-out handling and quiet hours enforced.
Missed-call text-back
One text asking for beds, baths and frequency.
Win-back at six and twelve months
A lapsed customer gets a nudge that stops if they reply.
Call-back task after a missed call
A dated task to return a missed call or voicemail from a new customer, with one-tap outcomes.
Recurring plan that spawns visits
Weekly, every other week and every four weeks, with skip and holiday rules.
Same-cleaner continuity
The plan prefers the same team and flags when a swap is needed.
Key and alarm custody log
Who held which key, when it was returned, with codes visible only on the visit day.
Late-cancel fee proposed, you decide
The fee is proposed with a one-tap waive, and every waiver is logged.
Sick-call day re-spread
One action moves a cleaner's homes to others nearby and texts the customers.
Waitlist backfill on cancel
A cancelled slot is offered to waiting customers in the same area.
Move-out and post-construction photo checklist
Before and after photos by room, kept with the invoice.
Short-term rental turnovers
Calendar sync with checkout windows for rental hosts.
Team pay splits
Per-job, percent or hourly pay by cleaner for payroll export.
The tools in house cleaning, and where we can honestly do better
Tools our research found in use for house cleaning: ZenMaid, BookingKoala, Launch27, Jobber, ConvertLabs. Listing a tool is not a claim about it.
ZenMaid
A Capterra feature summary reports some recurring appointments disappearing or being marked complete incorrectly. Frequency is not quantified.
Review-site summary: Capterra, ZenMaidWhat Apex does about it: Plans spawn visits that the owner sees and approves; a series is not hidden behind a single recurring job.
ZenMaid
Capterra reviewers mention delays sending invoices, bookkeeping integration trouble and extra SMS charges.
Review-site summary: Capterra, ZenMaid reviewsWhat Apex does about it: Texts run on your own provider account or a prepaid wallet, with the cost shown before sending, so there is no surprise SMS bill.
BookingKoala
One reviewer spent a weekend on setup and went back to ZenMaid, and another reports unresponsive support. Individual accounts.
Individual user report (anecdote): Capterra, BookingKoala reviewsWhat Apex does about it: Trade packs start from cleaning defaults you confirm, so setup is a short review rather than a weekend.
Launch27
Capterra reviewers report no refund for unused prepaid months, downtime and promised features that did not work.
Review-site summary: Capterra, Launch27 reviewsWhat Apex does about it: Plans are monthly and cancel anytime, and your data exports in full.
When another tool may be the better choice: ZenMaid is built only for cleaning and is widely used by maid owners. If you want its cleaner app and payroll today, it is the more complete cleaning tool. Apex is newer and the cleaner app is in build.
What it costs for house cleaning
Apex lists three public plans, priced by users: Solo $59 per month for 1 user, Crew $99 for 2 to 5 users, Business $129 for 6 users plus $10 for each extra user. No plan includes any texts, AI phone minutes or AI usage. For this trade we would start you on Crew. A maid service with two to five people on the schedule fits Crew; the plan follows headcount, not features.
Jobber lists Core at $29 to $49, Connect at $99 to $139 and Grow at $149 to $199 or more per month. Markate lists a base plan at $49.95 per month with online booking, customer portal, reviews and Zapier at $10 each. These are public figures as read on 2026-10-06, verify before buying. Seat counts and included features differ between vendors, and we have not verified every one, so compare your own crew size on the pricing page before you decide. Texts and AI run on your own provider account or a prepaid wallet, and card processing is at the processor's own rate.
Residential cleaning (maid service): questions, answered first
Does Apex handle recurring homes?
Can I keep the same cleaner at the same home?
How does it price a clean?
What about late cancellations?
Does a new customer get a confirmed time instantly?
Can I run deep cleans and move-outs too?
Commercial janitorial
Apex captures a commercial request as a walk-through, never a priced job, then keeps nightly frequency patterns, relief crews and inspections tied to each building.
Who it is for: Janitorial contractors who clean offices, clinics, schools and retail after hours on a contract.
Works with a few tweaksJanitorial research is thinner than residential. The inspection and time-clock items are drawn from competitor feature lists and need operator confirmation.
What generic schedulers get wrong for janitorial contracts
The unit is a building, not an appointment
A contract is a scope of areas and frequencies, three nights a week for restrooms, quarterly for carpet. A generic calendar has a job, not a scope.
Work happens at night
Shift windows run into the small hours, with building access hours and a floating relief crew. Standard 8 to 5 windows do not fit.
Quality is inspected, not assumed
Inspection scores that trigger a corrective visit are central. One reviewer-reported complaint about generic tools is that the schedule feels client- and invoice-centric for commercial crews that need task sheets.
Signal is poor where the work is
Basements and back-of-house have none, so a crew tool that needs a connection to open a task sheet fails exactly there.
Drawn in code for janitorial contracts
A day in a janitorial contracts business
- Nightly office
- Clinic
- Periodic floor care
- Inspection
- Relief shift
Pattern repeats; a building holiday blocks only that night.
- Request
- Walk-through
- Scope written
- Proposal
- Signed
- Start night
The walk-through is scheduled first. No price exists until the scope does.
A low score creates its own visit.
A night-crew contract: repeating buildings, periodic work and an inspection that creates a corrective visit. Illustration of planned screens: entries are examples, not customer data, and not every screen shown is built yet.
How janitorial contracts runs in Apex: the key settings
Starter settings for this trade. You change any of them. Nothing here is a promise about your numbers.
How jobs get booked
Walk-through request, then a night-shift contract window. No self-serve exact times.
Stops in a day
Around 8 sites per supervisor route; a site team stays put on its shift.
Routing
Zone days for supervisors and relief crews; the cleaning crew itself is site-based.
Who says yes
Owner approves every contract and every change of scope.
How you price
Walk-through quote only, then a monthly fixed price by scope or per square foot, with periodic extras.
Repeat customers
Day-of-week patterns per area, periodic tasks quarterly, seasonal extras.
Follow-up calls
Owner call-back within one business day of the walk-through request; a day-30 check after start.
Review requests
No automated review ask for contracts; satisfaction check-ins go to the building contact instead.
What we ask the customer
- Building type and square feet by floor type
- Frequency per area (restrooms nightly, floors weekly)
- Hours the building is open
- Supplies: yours or theirs
- Security and badge requirements
- Contract term
Photos and papers to collect
- Walk-through photos
- Inspection photos on any failed item
Rules to watch
- Certificate of insurance for the building owner
- Background checks on crew
- Safety data sheets on site
- Union or prevailing-wage flag where it applies
- Key and alarm custody
What you get as a janitorial contracts business
6 of 15 work today. The other 9 are coming soon.
Walk-through quote, no price shown
A commercial request says walk-through required and cannot be priced from a form.
Weekday patterns and blackouts
Building holidays and closures block visits without breaking the pattern.
Supervisor route by zone day
Inspections and relief visits cluster by area.
Call-back task for building managers
A dated task to return a missed call or voicemail, with one-tap outcomes.
Win-back for lost bids
Six and twelve months after a lost bid, one nudge that stops on reply.
Square-foot scope takeoff
Floor area by type feeds a monthly price and a labor-hours figure.
Scope by area and frequency
Restrooms nightly, floors weekly, carpet quarterly, in one contract record.
Night shift windows and access hours
Windows that run past midnight and respect building access.
Geofenced clock-in and room QR check-ins
Proof the crew was in each area, offline-safe.
Inspection scoring with corrective visits
A low score on an area creates a visit and a note to the supervisor.
Relief crew pool
Cover a missed shift from a floating team near the building.
Supply and inventory tracking by site
Par levels and a reorder note per building.
Client scorecard and request portal
The building manager sees scores and raises a request without calling.
Certificate of insurance on file
Expiry reminders for each building's certificate.
Offline task sheets
Task lists load from the phone with no signal.
The tools in janitorial contracts, and where we can honestly do better
Tools our research found in use for janitorial contracts: Swept, Janitorial Manager, ServiceMonster, Jobber, Connecteam. Listing a tool is not a claim about it.
Swept
Capterra reviewers report crashes and slowness, a notes-length limit, lost visibility of client and supervisor feedback after an update, and paying for features that did not work.
Review-site summary: Capterra, Swept reviewsWhat Apex does about it: Task lists and inspections are built for offline and low-signal work, and visits come from the contract scope. The crew app is in build.
Jobber
One owner says the schedule feels client- and invoice-centric for commercial crews that need task sheets, material use and crew messaging.
Individual user report (anecdote): Reddit r/smallbusinessWhat Apex does about it: A contract holds its scope, frequencies and task sheet, not just an invoice schedule.
When another tool may be the better choice: Swept is built around inspections, time clock and checklists and has a substantial track record. If your priority is quality inspection today, evaluate it. Apex covers the front end, the scope and the schedule, and its field screens are in build.
What it costs for janitorial contracts
Apex lists three public plans, priced by users: Solo $59 per month for 1 user, Crew $99 for 2 to 5 users, Business $129 for 6 users plus $10 for each extra user. No plan includes any texts, AI phone minutes or AI usage. For this trade we would start you on Business. Contract cleaning with a roster of six or more people fits Business, where each added person is a flat rate.
Jobber lists Core at $29 to $49, Connect at $99 to $139 and Grow at $149 to $199 or more per month. Markate lists a base plan at $49.95 per month with online booking, customer portal, reviews and Zapier at $10 each. These are public figures as read on 2026-10-06, verify before buying. Seat counts and included features differ between vendors, and we have not verified every one, so compare your own crew size on the pricing page before you decide. Texts and AI run on your own provider account or a prepaid wallet, and card processing is at the processor's own rate.