At what size should a manager hire a cleaning company?

There is no fixed number, but the pattern is consistent: around ten properties the coordination starts costing more than the cleaning, and past twenty-five it needs a system. If you have moved a check-in because a property was not ready, you are already there.

Can a cleaning company work with my existing PMS?

It should. FluffyOS reads calendars from Airbnb and Vrbo directly and from Guesty, Hostaway, OwnerRez, Streamline, Escapia, Track, Hostfully, Lodgify, Hospitable and Barefoot, so turnovers schedule themselves.

Do I lose control when I outsource cleaning?

You should gain it. The test is visibility: who cleaned, when, against what checklist, with what photos. Fluffy's clients see all of that in their own portal as it happens, which is more than most managers can say about an in-house crew.

In-House Cleaner or Cleaning Company?

In this guide

The stages True cost When to switch What to ask Keep in-house

What breaks at 10, 25 and 75 properties

One to ten properties. One good cleaner, paid per turn, coordinated by text. It works until the cleaner is sick on a changeover Saturday, and then the owner cleans.

Ten to twenty-five. Two or three cleaners, a spreadsheet, and a manager whose real job has become dispatch. Linens start living in someone's garage. The first missed check-in happens here.

Twenty-five and up. Cleaning is now an operations problem: staffing, supervision, laundry logistics, quality tracking and reporting. It needs a system, and a system needs someone to run it. This is the size at which a company stops being an expense and becomes the thing that lets the manager grow.

What in-house really costs

The per-turn wage is the visible number. The rest is paid in the manager's time and in the reviews.

Recruiting, vetting and replacing cleaners, on a market where the good ones are always employed

Backup coverage: the second person who can take a turn when the first cannot

Supervision: who checks the clean, and what happens when nobody does

Linens: buying, storing, washing, replacing and hauling them between properties

Supplies and restocking, tracked against par levels or not tracked at all

Scheduling: reading the calendar, catching back-to-backs, chasing confirmations

Records: photos, damage reports and proof when a guest disputes a fee

When a company makes sense

You have cancelled a booking, or moved a check-in, because the property was not ready

A single person's availability decides whether Saturday works

You cannot say, for last Tuesday, who cleaned which unit and whether anyone checked

Linen counts are a guess and the washer runs during the turn

You are adding properties faster than you are adding cleaners

You want to sell managers on your service and cannot show them a cleaning standard

What Fluffy replaces

Staffing, scheduling, supervision, linens and reporting, as one accountable team. Bookings flow in from your PMS, every clean is supervisor-inspected with photo proof, linens come from our North Charleston facility, and you watch it in your own FluffyOS portal.

Questions to ask any cleaning company

Who inspects the clean, and can I see the inspection?

How do you get the schedule: from my PMS, or from me?

What happens when a turn misses the standard, and who pays for the re-clean?

Where do the linens come from, who owns them, and what happens when one is stained?

How much same-day capacity do you actually have on a Saturday in July?

What does the report look like, and how fast do I hear about damage?

Is there a contract, and what does it take to leave?

Fluffy's answers

A supervisor, visible in the portal. From your PMS, automatically. Re-cleaned free. From our own facility, owned and replaced by us on the Linen Subscription. Same-day turns on as little as 3 hours' notice. Photos, the same day. No long-term contract; start with one property.

When to keep it in-house

If you have one or two properties near your home, a cleaner you trust and the time to check the work, keep it. A company earns its rate at the point where coordination, not cleaning, is what you are paying for. Below that point you are paying for capacity you do not use.