Basics:
Tidy connects housekeepers with cleaning jobs, but fines them for a variety of infractions
Expected pay: $16 – $27 an hour
Husl$core: $$
Commissions & fees: No commissions paid by workers, but copious housekeeper fines (see review)
Where: Select major cities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Requirements: Be over the age of 18; have a smart-phone with location-tracking; skills, and where necessary, licenses to clean as promised;
What is Tidy?
Tidy is a marketplace for homeowners and/or property managers to find housekeepers and maintenance workers.
How it works (for cleaners and maintenance workers):
Housekeepers and maintenance workers who want Tidy to help them find customers or manage their existing clients, download the app on either Google Play or Apple to sign up.
After filling in basic information about you and creating a password, the app will ask whether you’re there to find new clients or manage existing ones. It will also want to know if you are signing up solely for yourself or if you have an existing cleaning staff. You’ll then say what services you offer — cleaning, tree trimming, power washing, painting, grill maintenance, etc. — and the maximum distance you’re willing to travel and the days you’re available for work.
Theoretically, you also set your rates. However, Tidy tells you the base rates near you and, presumably, clients are more likely to choose you, if your rates are near these norms.
After that, you simply use the software to manage your clients — or wait to hear whether they’ve got clients for you.
Tidy Review:
Tidy says it can help home maintenance personnel — primarily housekeepers — manage their business and book additional clients with the use of the site’s software.
The software is generally free for housekeepers. However, if you’re not careful, the site’s agreement can subject you to a variety of fees that can be imposed if you are late or need to cancel a job. Unfortunately, the software can automatically book you for jobs that you can’t accommodate, so this is a misstep worth avoiding. (See “fines and penalties” below)
Several contractors also complain that Tidy’s app is buggy and can cause you to miss appointments because it can glitch and lock you out, leaving you unable to find your next appointment.
What you earn
The site doesn’t officially charge a commission on housekeeper’s earnings. It makes its money by marking up the service. So, for a one-hour cleaning that pays housekeepers $27, Tidy charges $45, pocketing the other $18. For a 2.5-hour cleaning, the housekeeper earns $54; Tidy charges $90, taking $36. For the 4-hour clean, the housekeeper gets $80, while Tidy charges $135.
Fines and penalties
Although that’s an implied 40% commission rate, that’s not what appears to bother housekeepers. They complain mainly about the litany of penalties levied on them when they’re struck in traffic or have to change a schedule. These fees are spelled out in Tidy’s “optional” terms of use for housekeepers, which are what governs the relationship unless you specifically set other terms. These terms say that
- if you fail to start on time, you pay $5
- leave early, you pay 50% of the booking amount
- call out with less than 24-hours notice, you pay $24
- no-show, you pay $40
- change the schedule with less than 72 hours notice, you pay $10.
The site says you can set other terms with your clients. But, if you fail to do that, these fees all apply. On the bright side, clients are also charged a fee if they cancel an appointment with less than 24-hours notice.
Pay
Housekeepers and maintenance workers are paid roughly 18 days after they complete a job. You have the option of being paid by direct deposit, check or credit card, if you’re paid through Tidy. However, Tidy says you can make arrangements with your clients to pay you in cash, too. That way you don’t have to go through the Tidy payment system.
Recommendations
It appears that you could avoid the biggest problem with this app — the penalty fees and charges — by setting up a separate contract with your clients. However, it’s so hard to find the “optional terms” that obligate you to all these fees and charges that we doubt most contractors would know that. If you want to sign up with Tidy, you can find the site here.
But we’d suggest you look for cleaning jobs with Turno, JiffyOnDemand — or simply advertise your availability through TaskRabbit or a neighborhood website like Nextdoor.
What their users say: (from Indeed)
I understand it’s no good to cancel but they charge OUTRAGEOUS prices if you need to. And you only get 3 waivers every 90 days. I do 4-5 cleanings a day sometimes. If I have a full day booked and wake up deathly ill, my car is broken, my kids are sick…I’m going to pay anywhere from $80-$160 for calling out of 4 cleanings.
They stack the jobs too close to one another. And it’s hard to cancel a job without them charging you for it. If the client lets you leave early. Tidy will dock your pay for it.
Can’t “call out” of bad booking
I look at my cleanings for today and they booked me 46mi from my location. I’m positive I signed up for a region that was no more than 30mi wide in either direction. What are they doing sending me 46mi in rush hr traffic? I try to “call out” they say they will charge me $20. — for a one-hour job. I NEVER would have chosen to go 46mi for an hour just to make $24. Thats not a profit. It’s a waste of almost 4hrs of my time. I emailed them and have yet to get a reply so we’ll wait and see if they will remove the job.
If the client has you leave early, they charge you. When your app (that is glitchy) freezes and kicks you out, they charge you as if you never showed up! You can have a full schedule booked, but have one cancellation or one mishap on your app and they will take away your booked appointments and charge you!
No breaks
Make sure you schedule a lunch because you will not be given any breaks. They say you get paid $20 an hour which is not true unless you only do 1 hour cleanings. The 2 1/2 hour cleanings you get paid only $17/hour, which is the most common cleaning, and the 4 hours is paid at $16/hour! Discount your cleaning materials and your gas, you’re looking at maybe $13/hour? And that’s obviously not including taxes, which would bring it down to approximately $11/hour or so?
Updated 2/3/2025
Leave a Reply