NAICS 561722Canadian industry · 6-digitlocal market2 market records

Janitorial services (except window cleaning)

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in cleaning building interiors, and/or transportation equipment (aircraft, ships, rail cars) interiors. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Manual Cleaning operating manualson Part Owner Commercial, gym, vacation-rental and residential cleaning: methods, chemicals and SDS, routines, safety kitOpen ↗

Establishments · CanadaA: 10,768
Under 10 employeesA: 78%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–46,00956%

5–92,37422%

10–191,22911%

20–497387%

50–992182%

100–1991171%

200–499541%

500+290%

Of 10,768 Canadian establishments with employees, 78% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario3,44032%

Quebec2,25721%

British Columbia2,10120%

Alberta1,75816%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Administrative and Waste Services, US · opened 2020

79.4%

1 year

63.6%

3 years

51.5%

5 years

37%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 561, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 561 Administrative and support services

Janitorial, landscaping, security and staffing: low capital and easy to start, so margins are competed down to labour cost. Route density and contract retention decide the outcome.

Who sets the price: Tender and the client's procurement; labour is most of the cost.
The software it runs on: Workforce scheduling, route and work-order management, staffing front and back office.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Commercial Janitorial ServicesExecution decides

binding constraint: defensibility

The barrier that lets a founder in with a vacuum and a truck lets in everyone behind them. Contracts are re-tendered annually on price, the labour is scarce and increasingly expensive, and nothing accumulates except route density in one city — which is a real asset and takes a decade to build. The version that works is a disciplined roll-up of small routes, which is a capital-allocation business rather than an operating one.

NAICS 5617224 vendors named8 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Vertical softwareScreened

Cleaning Business SoftwareOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Split by segment: Jobber (horizontal home-service software, Edmonton) at the residential and small-crew end; TEAM Software / WinTeam (WorkWave, an IFS company) at the commercial-contractor end

Cleaning software is two markets that share a name, and both are taken. Residential and maid services go to the horizontal platforms. Jobber (Edmonton; $176M raised to February 2023, the last $100M led by General Atlantic [B]) and Housecall Pro (Denver; $125M in June 2022 from Permira and Vista Credit Partners [B]) sell to cleaners as one trade among 50+, with payments, quoting, CRM and marketing in one login. Jobber now claims 400,000+ service professionals and Housecall Pro 200,000+ [C, vendor]; the best-known cleaning-specific tool, ZenMaid, claims 3,000+ maid-service owners [C, vendor]. The cleaning-only booking tools (ZenMaid, Launch27, BookingKoala) have no disclosed venture funding and compete on price and ease of use against products funded two orders of magnitude more heavily. Commercial janitorial does not go horizontal — it goes to TEAM Software. Contract cleaning needs multi-site inspections, job costing against a fixed monthly contract, payroll for high-turnover crews, and client-facing quality reports, which Jobber and Housecall Pro do not centre. TEAM's WinTeam ERP says it runs 50% of the largest US cleaning companies [C, vendor] and has sat inside WorkWave (an IFS company, EQT-controlled) since September 2021 [B]. Below it the small-contractor tier is already crowded: Swept (Halifax; US$2M seed 2017, iNovia and Afore [B]), Otuvy (the former CleanTelligent, Provo; inspections and work orders, 105,000+ users claimed [C]) and Janitorial Manager (Toledo; owned by Double A Solutions). So the answer to whether horizontal beats specific is: yes at the residential end, no at the commercial end, and in neither is there an unoccupied seat. The vacation-rental turnover niche is a marketplace (Turno, formerly TurnoverBnB; $4.5M Series A 2021 led by RET Ventures [B]) more than software. The owner's own operating record (561722 Commercial Janitorial Services) found 6,009 of 10,768 Canadian janitorial firms have four employees or fewer — buyers who pay $50–$300 a month and churn when the business does. Incumbent vulnerability is what decides it: the incumbents are not weak at either end. The only angle worth keeping is an operator's one: a BC contractor who knows exactly what Swept and Otuvy miss can sell a narrow add-on to them, not against them.

NAICS 5617229 vendors namedOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 17

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
JobberPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	1/17
Service AutopilotPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	2/17
Bee-Clean Building MaintenancePrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	3/17
BookingKoalaPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	4/17
Clean SmartsPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	5/17
CoverallPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	6/17
Jan ProPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	7/17
Jani-KingPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	8/17
Janitorial ManagerPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	9/17
Launch27Private	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	10/17
MaidilyPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	11/17
OtuvyPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	12/17
ServiceM8Private	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	13/17
Stratus Building SolutionsPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	14/17
SweptPrivate	Janitorial services (except window cleaning)561722	—	15/17

And 2 more on the companies page.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Security guards and related security service occupations Mostly one sector 69.7%

Contractors and supervisors, agriculture, horticulture and related operations and services Mostly one sector 67.9%

Logging, forestry, landscaping and other related labourers Mostly one sector 56%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 16.8%

Service supervisors Mostly one sector 14.2%

Tourism and amusement services occupations Mostly one sector 12.9%

Educational and employment counsellors Mostly one sector 8.5%

Logging and forestry workers Mostly one sector 6.4%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 6.3%

Roofers, glaziers, painters, decorators and floor covering installers One industry 4.7%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 29.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 15%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 13.5%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 6.6%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 5.1%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 4.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 4.5%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 4%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 4%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 3.9%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 78% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Alongside this industry

This is the most specific level NAICS defines. The other industries under 56172 are its nearest neighbours.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
561721	Window cleaning services	798	screened at 56172