The numbers
As stated by the listing on September 15, 2026.
- Asking price
- $362,900
- SDE
- $337,800
- Gross revenue
- $1,714,800
- Multiple
- 1.07x
- Established
- 2013
- Employees
- 4
Why we like it
A tenant does not clean their own office at 9pm because they want to, they do it because the lease says the space has to be maintained, and a facilities manager who lets a floor slide starts fielding complaints from their own tenants by the end of the week. That obligation is what turns a mop and a vacuum into a contract business: the work repeats on a schedule nobody has to sell twice, and revenue shows up whether or not the owner is on site that night. This one has run in Worcester since 2013, servicing commercial accounts with a crew of four, which for revenue this size likely means the cleaning is done by a mix of scheduled part time staff and possibly subcontracted labor rather than a large in house team, worth nailing down before anything else. Commercial contracts of this kind are rarely locked in for good: they typically run a fixed term with a short cancellation window and get rebid periodically, so the account is really a relationship a facilities manager can walk away from with two months notice. The first thing to check is how much of the $1.7 million in claimed revenue sits in the top handful of contracts, because with only four employees running the routes, losing one large building would hit harder than the same loss would at a bigger competitor. Growth here tends to come from adding one more stop to a crew already out on a night route, not from chasing entirely new territory.
No personal licence needed
Massachusetts does not require a personal occupational license to own or run a commercial cleaning company. What clients do typically require is proof of general liability insurance and sometimes a fidelity/surety bond before they will sign or transfer a contract, and some accounts such as medical or school facilities may require background checks on staff. Confirm what the current insurance and bonding arrangement is and whether it can be reissued in the buyer's name without a lapse, since a gap could put contract renewals at risk.
What worries us
- Contract concentration on a small crewThe listing gives only 4 employees against $1.7 million in stated revenue, which is a thin crew for that volume of contracted work. If several of the accounts sit with a small number of clients, losing even one or two would cut deeply into revenue with little cushion to absorb it.
- Owner's day to day role is unclearCommercial cleaning is a service the owner can either run hands off through supervisors or work personally most nights. If this owner is doing hands on cleaning or quality control visits themselves, the buyer needs to plan on stepping into those same night hours, not just collecting a check.
- Labor model and staffing riskCleaning crews turn over often and staffing four employees to cover a $1.7 million book leaves little slack if someone quits mid contract. Whether staff are W-2 employees or 1099 subcontractors also affects both the true labor cost and the company's exposure to a misclassification claim, which is a known issue in this trade.
The callSuits a buyer willing to work nights and manage a small crew personally, not someone seeking a passive, hands off ownership from day one.
Our calculations
Our standard SBA 7(a) acquisition structure applied to the asking price. Assumptions below.
Sources
| SBA 7(a) loan | $343,362 |
| Seller standby note | $19,075 |
| Buyer cash at close | $19,076 |
| Total sources | $381,513 |
Uses
| Purchase price | $362,900 |
| Closing costs (est.) | $10,887 |
| SBA guaranty fee | $7,726 |
| Total project | $381,513 |
- Monthly payment
- $4,396
- Annual debt service
- $52,754
- DSCR
- 3.86xSTRONG
- Injection check
- Meets 10% ($38,151 against $38,151 required)
- Closing costs estimated at 3% of asking price
- Owner salary of $120,000, loaded
- Rate of Prime + 2.25% = 9.25%
- 10-year term, fully amortizing
- Injection split half cash, half seller standby note
How we would go about buying it
The order matters. Every step below is free until the last one, and each is a chance to walk away before it costs you anything.
- 1
Call the broker, not the bank
The listing is brokered, so the broker is the gate. Ask for the CIM and the last three years of tax returns, and expect to sign an NDA first. Do this before you talk to a lender: no lender will size a loan without the numbers, and the broker will not release them to a lender you have not engaged.
Open the listing - 2
Ask these before you spend anything
Specific to this business, from our read of the listing. The answers decide whether the numbers above survive contact.
- For the top five contracts by revenue, what is the length and renewal date of each, and what is the client's notice-to-cancel period?
- Are the cleaners on payroll as W-2 employees, or are any paid as 1099 subcontractors, and how does that reconcile with only 4 employees producing $1.7 million in revenue?
- What does the seller's $337,800 SDE add back for owner labor, given the owner appears to be doing supervisory or hands-on cleaning work themselves?
- What certificates of insurance, bonding, or background-check requirements do the client contracts carry, and do those transfer to a new owner or need to be rewritten?
- What cleaning equipment and vehicles are included in the sale, and what is their age and condition?
- 3
Take it to lenders who do this size
Talk to more than one. Rate is the least of it: the lender who has done fifty of these in Massachusetts will close, and the one who has done two will waste your quarter. Below are the lenders whose typical deal size actually fits this one.
- 4
Structure the offer around the coverage
Our structure clears the floor at 3.86x, and a lender will run its own version with its own add-backs. If the earnings come back lower than stated, the price has to come down or the seller note has to grow. Model both before you make an offer.
Model it yourself
Who we would call
Active Massachusetts acquisition lenders whose typical deal size fits this one.
- Rockland Trust Company
46 loans in MAmedian $260,000median rate 7.00%~15 days to first disbursement
- Live Oak Banking Company
26 loans in MAmedian $957,500median rate 9.00%~20 days to first disbursement
- Webster Bank National Association
21 loans in MAmedian $335,000median rate 9.25%~36 days to first disbursement
Loan counts and medians are that lender’s change-of-ownership loans in Massachusetts, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3. Funding speed is the lender’s national median from approval to first disbursement. Names link to our data profile for each lender.
The fine print
The statements this write-up makes about the trade and its rules, as opposed to the figures, were checked against public sources on September 14, 2026. 3 claims were checked.
Worth verifying yourself
These are industry statements we could not confirm against an authoritative public source. They are not contradicted by anything we found, but treat them as leads to check rather than settled facts.
- Commercial cleaning contracts typically run for a fixed term with a short cancellation notice period, commonly 30 to 60 days, and are periodically rebid rather than automatically perpetual.
- Janitorial companies typically grow by adding stops to an existing night route, since a crew already on site after hours can service one more building at low marginal cost.
Run your own numbers
The deal analyzer models price, seller note, equity injection, and DSCR under current SBA terms, with every assumption adjustable.
Open the deal analyzerListing facts as stated by the listing on September 15, 2026, not independently verified. Structure, payment, DSCR, and injection figures are our own computation under the assumptions above, using the Prime rate as of September 28, 2026. Lender shortlist from the SBA 7(a) FOIA file, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3, as of June 30, 2026. Methodology. See an error? Email us and we will correct it.