SmallCrew HQ

Free tool

SmallCrew Growth Calculator

Enter your recurring clients, price, and hours, and see how the business compounds over 12 months: the month you fill your own week, and the point where a second person pays for themselves. Built for solo cleaners and crews of two or three. It runs in your browser, saves nothing, and needs no account.

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Your 12-month projection

Change any number and the projection updates. Copy the link to share these exact inputs with a partner or accountant.

The numbers shown are example values to start from. Replace them with your own; the projection updates as you type.

Your business today

Clients on a standing schedule, not one-time jobs.

What a typical recurring visit is charged.

The schedule most of your clients are on.

Half a client a week means one new client every two weeks.

Share of your recurring clients who stop in a typical month.

Door to door: the clean plus the drive to it.

Time in homes and on the road, not admin.

If you bring on a second person

What you would pay per hour worked.

Employer costs, supplies, and mileage as a share of pay.

The helper only works the hours demand requires, up to this.

    Enter your numbers to see the projection.

    How this calculates

    The calculator runs two versions of the next 12 months from the numbers you enter. In the first, you stay solo: each month it adds the new clients you said you can win, subtracts the share you lose to churn, and stops growing once the hours those clients need would exceed the hours you can clean. In the second, you bring on a helper when you are full: growth continues until your hours plus the helper's are used up.

    Months are converted at 4.33 weeks per month, so a weekly client is 4.33 visits a month, every two weeks is 2.17, and monthly is 1. Helper hours follow demand rather than a fixed schedule: the helper works only the hours your clients need beyond your own, up to the maximum you set, and their cost is those hours times pay plus the overhead percentage. The helper breaks even in the first month they work and the extra revenue they make possible covers their cost.

    The result is a projection from the numbers entered, not advice. It keeps price, churn, and the pace of new clients constant for the whole year, which real businesses do not, so treat it as a way to see the shape of the next year and test what changes it.

    How to use the result

    If you are full sooner than expected, the constraint is hours, not demand, and the two levers are price and time per visit. Raising the price for new clients first, as the price increase guide describes, lifts revenue without adding hours. Tightening routes and buffers, covered in how to schedule a cleaning crew, gives back hours you are currently spending on the road.

    If a helper never breaks even at your current price, the model is telling you the margin per visit is too thin to pay someone else to do it. Re-enter a higher price, a shorter visit, or a different helper cost and watch the break-even month move. Most of the time the honest answer is a price change, and how to price house cleaning services shows how to build the number from your own costs.

    Recurring clients matter more than one-time jobs because they compound. One new recurring client a week is not one job; it is a client who returns every visit until they churn, which is why the line keeps rising after a slow start. A one-time deep clean is revenue once. The onboarding guide covers turning a first clean into a client who stays, and the Client Value Calculator shows what each of those clients is worth over the time they stay.

    Frequently asked questions

    How many recurring clients can one cleaner handle?

    It depends on visit length, frequency, and how many hours you can clean each week, which is why the calculator asks for all three. Divide your weekly cleaning hours by the hours one client needs per week (visit length times visits per month, divided by 4.33). A cleaner with 35 hours a week and three-hour biweekly visits reaches about 23 clients; longer drives or weekly visits lower that number.

    When should a cleaning business hire a second person?

    When two things are true at once: demand is about to exceed the hours you can clean yourself, and the extra revenue a helper makes possible covers their pay plus overhead with something left over. The calculator shows both moments separately, because they often arrive months apart. Hiring at the first without the second means paying for hours the business cannot yet fill.

    How do I estimate hours per visit?

    Use your own records: the time from leaving the previous stop to leaving this one, averaged over several visits of the same type. If you have no records yet, time your next ten visits door to door and use the average. Include the drive, because it takes the same hours from your week as the cleaning does, and revisit the number whenever your typical home size or route changes.

    What churn rate should I enter if I do not know it?

    Count the recurring clients who stopped in the last three months, divide by the clients you had at the start of that period, and divide by three for a monthly rate. If you are too new to have that history, start with a few percent, then compare the projection against what actually happens over the next quarter. The calculator caps churn at 50 percent a month because higher values rarely describe a real recurring business.

    Can this be used for other service businesses?

    Yes, for any service sold on a recurring schedule with a fairly consistent visit length: lawn care, pool service, pet care, window cleaning, and similar trades. The model only needs clients, price, frequency, hours per visit, and your own capacity. It fits less well for businesses built on one-time jobs, where client count does not compound the same way.