CLEANING BUSINESS SOFTWARE · UNITED STATES
A bi-weekly, a move-out and a same-day turnover are three different businesses.
Crayon is business management software for US cleaning companies. It runs online booking with live pricing, recurring and one-off work, short-term rental turnovers, crew scheduling, photo-backed checklists, invoicing and card payments. The booking page runs on your own domain, under your own brand.
Cleaning photography goes here
A real US cleaner mid-job, kitchen or bathroom, natural light, no stock-photo smiling.
THE WORK
Four kinds of job that share a crew and share nothing else.
Most cleaning companies run all of these at once. They price differently, they are scheduled differently, and they finish differently. Software that flattens them into one generic "job" is where the workarounds start.
Recurring residential
Weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, with the same cleaner wherever possible. Set the cadence once and every visit shows up carrying the home's own details: square footage, gate or lockbox code, the dog, where to park.
Deep cleans
One-time jobs that take two to three times as long as a recurring visit and reach what a recurring visit skips: inside the oven, behind appliances, window tracks, baseboards. Priced and scheduled as their own thing.
Move-out and move-in
Booked by a tenant, a landlord or a realtor against a security deposit somebody wants back in full. Long checklist, hard deadline, and the job most likely to come back at you a week later.
Short-term rental turnovers
Checkout at eleven, check-in at three, and everything in between. Linens stripped and remade, consumables restocked, damage reported before the next guest arrives. Volume work on the tightest window in the business.
BOOKING AND PRICING
A price on the booking page, not a callback with an estimate.
Cleaning is priced on the home, not the hour. Crayon prices from the rules you already use: a base rate by bedrooms and bathrooms or by square footage, add-ons like inside oven, inside windows or interior fridge, a first-clean surcharge, a discount for weekly over bi-weekly.
The customer answers a few questions and sees a real number before booking. Because it comes from the same rules the office uses, the price on the screen is the price on the invoice. Most job-management software will not do this: it books the job and leaves the estimating to you.
PHOTO-PROOF CHECKLISTS
The guest checks in at three. You want to know it was ready at two.
Turnover work runs on trust you cannot verify by standing there. A host messages at 4pm to say the guest found hair in the shower and the trash was not taken out. Your cleaner was in and out inside the window and remembers doing both. Nobody was watching, the next guest is already in the property, and there is nothing to look at.
The same gap opens on move-outs, a week later and with more money attached. A landlord holds a security deposit, decides the oven was not touched, and your customer is the one out of pocket.
In Crayon, a checklist item can require a photo before it can be checked off. The oven gets photographed the moment it is finished, and the photo is timestamped and attached to that job with the cleaner's name on it. When the message arrives, you send the photos instead of an apology.
The quieter effect is the one that changes the business: cleaners work to the list because the list gets checked, and the office stops refereeing between two people who both believe they are right.
A different list per job type
A turnover list is not a bi-weekly list, and neither is a move-out list. Each job type carries its own.
Required before complete
A job cannot be marked finished while photo items are outstanding.
CREW AND SCHEDULING
Who is where today, without four phone calls to find out.
Cleaners are assigned to jobs, and each one sees only their own route for the day on their phone: address, access, the checklist and any notes on the property. Regular customers keep their regular cleaner, and when that is not possible the fill-in gets the same property details instead of a text at 7am.
When somebody is running late or a job takes longer than booked, the office sees it on the schedule rather than hearing it from the next customer. Reassigning a visit is a drag on the schedule, and the cleaner's phone updates.
Employees and contractors on one schedule
Most crews are a mix of W-2 employees and 1099 contractors, and the two are not managed the same way. Both appear on the same schedule without pretending the difference does not exist.
Routes that make sense
A cleaner's day is shown in order with drive time between jobs visible, so nobody is sent across the metro and back for two hours of work.
Ask instead of hunting
"Which jobs tomorrow have nobody assigned?" is a question you can ask the built-in AI rather than a spreadsheet you scan. How the AI works →
GETTING PAID
The invoice goes out when the job is done, not on Sunday night.
Invoice on completion
When a cleaner marks the job finished, the invoice is raised from the agreed price. Nobody re-enters the week's work from a notebook.
Cards on file for regulars
Bi-weekly customers can be charged automatically after each visit, which is the single biggest change to cash flow most cleaning companies make.
Cancellation fees that apply themselves
Set the window, 24 or 48 hours, and a late cancellation is charged according to the policy the customer already agreed to at booking.
Tips that reach the cleaner
A customer can add a tip when they pay, and it is recorded against the job and the cleaner who did it rather than disappearing into the day's takings.
Your customers book with you, not with a platform.
The booking page, the customer portal and the crew app run on your domain with your logo and your colors. Nothing in the flow tells your customers which software you chose.
Your own branded platform →$99 a month for the first year, then $199.
Core covers up to five team members, your own environment and Crayon run mode. Growth adds change mode and reporting at $299 for the first year, then $399. Larger operations are quoted.
Full pricing →Set up to your words and your rates.
The same core software, configured to what your company calls things and how it prices work, then adjustable later as the business changes.
How it works →QUESTIONS
Cleaning software in the US, answered.
What software do cleaning companies in the US use?
A common setup is a booking or job-management tool, a spreadsheet for the schedule, a group text for the crew and an accounting package for invoicing. Purpose-built cleaning software replaces the first three by holding recurring cadences, room-based pricing, crew assignments and photo-backed checklists in one place. What matters most in cleaning specifically is recurring cycles, per-home pricing and photo evidence, because those three are where generic field-service software tends to fall short.
Does it handle Airbnb and short-term rental turnovers?
Yes, and turnovers are treated as their own kind of job rather than a short recurring visit. A turnover carries its own checklist covering linens, consumables and damage reporting, and it runs against a hard window between checkout and the next check-in. Photo items on the checklist give the host dated evidence the property was ready before the guest arrived, which is the thing that usually cannot be proved after the fact.
Can it handle both W-2 employees and 1099 contractors?
Both appear on the same schedule and both get their own route on their phone. The distinction between an employee and an independent contractor is a legal one about how work is controlled and directed, and it is not something software decides for you. Crayon does not blur the two or advise on classification. Talk to your own advisor about which arrangement your crew is under.
How much does cleaning business software cost?
It varies with crew size and what is included, and some tools charge per user, which gets expensive fast for a company with a large part-time crew. Crayon does not charge per user: Core is a flat monthly price covering up to five team members and Growth covers up to fifteen, so you change tier only when the crew outgrows the one you are on. Founding pricing is $99 a month for the first year, then $199.
Does it do move-out checklists?
Yes. A move-out clean uses a longer checklist than a recurring visit, covering the oven, range hood filter, window tracks, baseboards, closet interiors and inside all cabinets. Each item can require a photo before it is checked off, and every photo is timestamped and attached to that job. When a landlord disputes the condition of the property against a security deposit, the record is a set of dated photos rather than somebody's recollection.
Do you show prices with sales tax?
Prices are shown before sales tax. Whether cleaning services are taxable depends on the state, and in some states it also depends on whether the work is residential or commercial, so that is a question for your accountant rather than a setting we can answer on your behalf.
Can customers book online?
Yes. Crayon gives a cleaning company its own booking page on its own domain, where a customer picks a service, enters their home's details and sees a live price before confirming. Because the price comes from the same rules the office uses, the number a customer sees online is the number that gets invoiced. Existing customers can rebook, reschedule and pay through a portal without calling the office.
Does it work with QuickBooks?
Crayon issues invoices and takes card payments directly, so you do not need a separate tool to bill customers. Accounting exports are available so invoice and payment data can be brought into your bookkeeper's system. A direct connection is on the roadmap rather than live today. Ask on a demo for the current position, because the answer changes.