How to Start a Window Cleaning Business: Heights, Insurance, and Repeat Work

Window cleaning has the lowest startup cost of any trade on this list and the highest injury risk.

That trade off shapes everything: what you can charge, what insurance costs, and which jobs you should refuse in your first year.

For formation and general setup, use the main guide. This is what is specific to windows.

Height is what makes this business different

Ground floor and second storey residential work is straightforward. Above that, the risk changes completely, and so does everything around it.

Insurance costs more here than in other cleaning trades, and carriers will ask specifically how high you work and whether you use ladders, ropes, or lifts. Some will not cover rope access at all. Be honest on the application, because a claim from work you did not disclose is a claim that does not get paid.

Anything requiring rope descent or suspended access is a specialist trade with its own training, equipment standards, and regulation. It is not somewhere to learn on the job. Check the rules that apply where you work before you take height work, and start below them.

The sensible first year: residential up to two storeys, plus ground-floor commercial storefronts. That is most of the money and almost none of the risk.

Water-fed poles changed the trade

A water-fed pole with purified water lets you clean upper-storey windows from the ground. No ladder, no ropes, and the water dries spot-free without squeegeeing.

Why it matters commercially: it removes the ladder from most two and three storey jobs, which lowers your risk profile, speeds you up, and often lowers your insurance conversation.

It is a real capital cost up front, and it does not replace traditional squeegee work on interiors or on ground level, where hand cleaning is faster and better. Most operators run both.

Traditional kit to start: squeegees in several widths, applicators, buckets, a quality soap, scrapers, microfibre, ladders you actually trust, and drop cloths for interiors.

Residential and commercial pay differently

Residential. Usually one or two visits a year per home, sometimes quarterly. Higher price per visit, but you are constantly resupplying the customer list. Weather dependent, and the work is seasonal in most climates.

Commercial storefront. Small panes of glass on a shop front, cleaned weekly or fortnightly. Small ticket each, ten to fifteen minutes, but it is recurring, dense, and you can do many in a morning. A storefront route on one commercial street is the most stable revenue in this trade.

Build the storefront route first. It gives you predictable weekly income while residential jobs come and go, and the shops are all next to each other, which solves drive time.

Pricing

Residential: price per pane, or per job after a count. Count exterior and interior separately, note screens, tracks and sills, and note anything requiring a ladder. Screens and tracks are where residential jobs run long, so price them as extras rather than absorbing them.

Commercial storefront: price per visit, monthly billing. A ten minute storefront at a fair weekly rate is excellent money once you have twenty of them on the same street.

Charge more for: first cleans on neglected glass, hard water stains, construction cleanup, high or awkward access, and interior work requiring furniture moved.

Do not quote hard water removal at your normal rate. It is a restoration job, it can take hours per pane, and sometimes the glass is permanently etched. Inspect before you promise it.

Getting work

Immediately:

Walk a commercial street. Storefronts are the easiest sale in cleaning. The glass is visibly dirty, the owner sees it every day, and the price is small enough to decide on the spot

Work a neighborhood. Your ladder and van on a driveway is an advert. Knock either side

Realtors and property managers, who need pre-listing and turnover cleans on a schedule

Compounding:

Google Business Profile and reviews, same as every local trade

Before and after photos. This is the most visually satisfying trade in cleaning, and the results photograph better than anything else on this list. Use that

The weather

You cannot clean windows in rain or hard freeze, and residential customers cancel when it looks like rain even when it will not.

Build it into the business: a written weather policy on rescheduling, a backlog of interior work for bad days, and pricing that assumes a realistic number of working days rather than every day on the calendar.

Start here

How to start a cleaning business, the formation path

The Cleaning Business Starter Pack, the systems for this trade

Launch Package if you want it built with you

General information, not legal, tax, or safety advice. Work-at-height regulations, licensing, and insurance requirements vary by state. Check yours before taking on height work.