What cleaning companies say hurts.
801 cleaning companies have joined the taskforse waitlist. Every one of them is asked how many cleaners they run and what makes the job hard, and they can pick as many problems as they like. This is what the 770 who answered said, counted on 14 September 2026.
What they said hurts
Multiple answers allowed, so these overlap. Of the 770 who answered.
How big they are
Crew size as reported at signup.
Half the list runs between 11 and 25 cleaners, and four in five run somewhere between 11 and 50. That is the shape of the list: not solo operators, and not national contractors, but the companies big enough that the owner can no longer see every building themselves.
What changed in a fortnight
The list went from 202 companies at the end of August to 623 on Wednesday and 801 by 14 September 2026. Quoting and coverage have settled into a dead heat at roughly 65% each, close enough that neither can be called the bigger problem. Proof of work has climbed to third on 38%, overtaking timesheets.
Both of the top two sit above 60% in every crew-size band with real numbers behind it. Proof of work is the one that tracks size: 13% among the smallest companies, and roughly half of the larger operators. The bigger you get, the more of the job is showing your client what happened.
How to read this
- Companies could pick more than one problem, so the percentages add to more than 100.
- Crew size is self-reported at signup and nobody checks it.
- The bands above 100 cleaners hold a handful of companies between them. Treat anything broken out that far as anecdote, not a finding.
- These are companies who chose to join a waitlist for janitorial software, which is not the same as the trade as a whole.
- The percentages come from the 770 companies who had answered by 14 September 2026, not from everyone who has ever joined. The list is still growing, so the shares will move.