Cleaning Service Contract Template for Cleaning Businesses [Free Download!]

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If you’re going to be in business, you should behave like a business! Asking clients to sign contracts regarding your guidelines, cleaning practices, service details, and other important aspects of how you do business is essential to protecting your time, employees, and pricing. 

A good contract for a cleaning service should not only protect your business legally, but also inform your clients of your business practices and set their expectations for their first clean. But you might feel intimidated by the idea of putting together your first client contract — and that’s ok. 

In this article, we’ll suggest what should be included in your contract and explain why each section matters. None of our recommendations should be considered legal advice, and we recommend having appropriate legal representation review any contracts before you send them to clients.

Download Our Free Cleaning Service Contract Template

Before we dive in, if you’re just looking for a customizable cleaning business contract template, look no further! We’ve put together a free cleaning service contract template you can customize, download, and start sending to clients right away.

For more context on what to include in your cleaning service contract, keep reading to understand what each section should include and why it matters.

What Should I Include in My Cleaning Service Contract?

A cleaning service contract should always reiterate the information you’ve given clients prior to booking, but personalize it to the specific client. This should include:

Services & Pricing

1. Scope of Work: You likely had a client fill out a questionnaire about their clean — include it here, along with the location you’ll park and enter/exit the home. You can simply paste in their completed questionnaire, unless you’ve made adjustments to it post-submission. If a client requested recurring appointments, include that schedule in your contract
2. Work & Pricing Estimates: Providing a time estimate for job completion helps customers also anticipate the cost of your visit. Include a clear outline of how you calculate pricing, whether that’s through labor hours, square footage, or by the service. Not sure how to proceed? Check out our pricing calculator here

Terms & Conditions

3. Cancellation Policy: Stuff happens! Let your clients know when it’s appropriate to cancel. Most cleaning companies require 48 hours’ notice for any changes to appointments or cancellations. Within the 48 hours leading up to your appointment window, clients typically incur a fee. Name the fee and be clear about how this will be charged
4. Liabilities: Aside from your Scope of Work, this section will likely be the longest and most detailed. You should include policies regarding the following, at a minimum:
   1. Pets and related biohazards
   2. Smoking and related biohazards
   3. Non-solicitation and employee protection
   4. Breakage or damage in or around the home
   5. OSHA compliance and related safety protocols
   6. Service scheduling 
   7. Parking and access/entry options
   8. Your satisfaction guarantee
   9. Price increases and quality control
5. Payment Methods & Terms: Outline your entire payment structure for the client, including details about how you accept payment (cash, credit, check, ACH), when you require deposits, and when you’ll charge customers. For example, you may require a 50% deposit ahead of the appointment to secure it. Notify the customers in your contract that this will be charged at the time of signing, and the remaining 50% will be charged after the cleaning is completed
6. Consent to Updated Terms: You may elect to include a section allowing customers to continue agreeing to updated terms, so long as they continue service with your business. This allows you flexibility to make small contract updates without asking customers to re-sign new contracts

Optional Add-ons

1. Company Mission Statement: Particularly for commercial cleaning services, including a company mission statement in your contract, helps clients get a sense for the quality of work that you guarantee
2. Policy Addendums for Specialized Work: If you offer optional cleaning services, such as laundry, outdoor, or pet-related cleaning, you should include an additional document outlining what you agree to do and how payment is calculated in your contract when clients select these services
3. Photography and Video Use Policies: Photos of your work are an essential part of doing business online! Include a clause notifying clients that you will take photos of their home for certain reasons, such as employee training or marketing and promotional purposes, while also keeping sensitive personal information out of photos

Each of these contract sections provides cover for your business in the event mistakes or mishaps occur. You and your client can equally refer back to the contract as a source of truth about expectations, and adjust accordingly.

Client Contracts vs. Client Guidelines

We’ve previously written about sharing client guidelines and questionnaires with new clients at the time of their booking. These are equally important documents to have clients review and fill out, but they are separate from client contracts.

Though contracts explicitly inform customers of your guidelines and policies, they offer you an additional layer of protection by asking customers to sign an agreement with them. If a customer later violates your contract, intentionally or unknowingly, you have your contract to refer back to when enforcing your policy. 

Client guidelines, meanwhile, only inform the client of your practices and how you expect them to prepare for or behave during your appointment. They are not bound by these guidelines until they sign your contract. Questionnaires, similarly, inform you about how to behave when arriving — where to find keys, where to park, how to enter/exit the home — but signing your contract is what binds your business to the quality of service you promise. 

When to Send Client Contracts During Onboarding

Contracts are typically signed at the time payment is due, or credit cards are put on file for future appointments. Let’s say you have a new client book a first-time cleaning online. That client may complete the client questionnaire, read your guidelines, and offer some time windows that work for a first cleaning. 

You have yet to approve or schedule the cleaning, but once you review and assign the job, your new client may be prompted to input payment details to secure their spot. This is the ideal time to send over the contract. 

Asking for payment is the best time to present your contract. It positions your business seriously and assures the client you will follow and be held to the same rules, policies, and guidelines you’ve shared with them, as well as any additional terms and conditions that may involve payment processing or cancellations.

When to send updated contracts 

As your business changes, your contracts will need updating. Each time you learn something new about running a cleaning business, consider whether your contract needs an update. Some common changes that require contract updates include:

• New services offered
• Services removed from offering
• Your payment processor changes their policies
• The name of your business changes
• Your cancellation fee changes

Often, many changes can be anticipated through carefully crafted legal language so that updates do not need to be made so frequently. This is why we recommend including a Consent to Updated Terms section or having appropriate legal counsel review your contracts to improve language where necessary. 

Sign and Manage Contracts Digitally

Stop handling paper contracts! The overhead of managing papers, from storage to organization and maintenance, is simply not worth it anymore. Electronic signature platforms like SignRequest or DocuSign exist to replace paper contracts and get them signed easily. 

Paperless contracting has real benefits for you and your customers. Digitally organized contracts are easier to manage, and with the right setup in ZenMaid, you can store signed contracts directly in each customer’s profile. You can also connect your electronic signature platform to ZenMaid via Zapier to help streamline the handoff. Either way, when you need to pull up a specific agreement, like when a client is trying to pull a fast one on you, it’s right there in their profile instead of buried in your inbox.

Even though paper contracts would also be dated, storing PDF copies digitally makes it really quick to determine when a client has signed a contract most recently, helping you keep contracts updated and clients aware of any policy changes.