Starting with the biggest one, we have Toronto city. Analyzing the market there, we find that this city is diverse, not only culturally speaking but also monetary speaking. Reports suggest that household incomes are lower than other places in GTA. I believe that the job pay is the same but aggressive prices on rent make their income way lower than in other areas.
From their sources, the average household income is $60k, which is the lowest in all the GTA region. Analyzing why we find that this city has lots of immigrants. It’s the favorite city for anyone looking to go to Canada. In my opinion, aggressive prices and immigration is the recipe for the result for the lowest income. Even if they have great companies there and a lot of cultures.
Economically speaking, Toronto seems the worse place. Even if they have the wealthiest people in GTA, the less affluent people outnumber them by a good margin. Making things even worse, analyzing the competitors we find this:
Great Toronto Area (GTA) market analysis
Canada is a great place: it’s multicultural, has lot’s of industries and a booming economy if you know where to look. Toronto is divided into 5 regions, which are Toronto, Durham Region, Halton Region, Peel Region and York Region. They are all geographically close between them, but they have some key factors that differentiates them. The next table shows every province/division’s population, population growth, projection, household income, and the minutes it takes to get to the airport from there.
The population data was retrieved from the Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Population, including the population’s growth between 2011 and 2016; the household income data was obtained from pages of every region; the time to the airport was calculated by using Google Maps.
| Population | Household Income | Minutes to Airport | ||||
| Province/division | Population (2016) |
%Growth (2011-2016) | Projection (2021) | |||
| GTA | Ontario | 5,928,040 | 6.18% | 6,294,393 | - | 10-30 |
| Toronto | Toronto | 2,731,571 | 4.50% | 2,854,492 | 98174$- 60000$ | 40 |
| Durham Region | City of Oshawa | 159,458 | 6.20% | 169,344 | $56,000 | >60 |
| Town of Whitby | 128,377 | 6.20% | 136,336 | $80,000 | 40 | |
| Town of Ajax | 119,677 | 6.20% | 127,097 | $75,700 | <40 | |
| Municipality of Clarington | 92,013 | 6.20% | 97,718 | $71,500 | <40 | |
| City of Pickering | 91,771 | 6.20% | 97,461 | $77,000 | >40 | |
| Township of Scugog | 21,617 | 6.20% | 22,957 | $74,800 | >40 | |
| Township of Uxbridge | 21,176 | 6.20% | 22,489 | $77,500 | >40 | |
| Township of Brock | 11,642 | 6.20% | 12,364 | $60,600 | >40 | |
| Halton Region | Burlington | 183,314 | 4.30% | 191,197 | $93,588 | 32 |
| Halton Hills | 61,161 | 3.60% | 63,363 | $100,564 | 29 | |
| Milton | 110,128 | 10% | 121,141 | $84,143 | 27 | |
| Oakville | 193,832 | 6.20% | 205,850 | $118, 671 | 28 | |
| Peel Region | Brampton | 593,638 | 13% | 670,811 | $84,188 | 20 |
| Caledon | 66,502 | 10% | 73,152 | $96,428 | - | |
| Mississauga | 721,599 | 1% | 728,815 | $105,462 | 20 | |
| York Region | Aurora | 55,445 | 7.50% | 59,603 | $106,708 | > |
| East Gwillimbury | 23,991 | 7.50% | 25,790 | $104,716 | > | |
| Georgina | 45,418 | 7.50% | 48,824 | $81,695 | > | |
| King | 24,512 | 7.50% | 26,350 | $118,309 | > | |
| Markham | 328,966 | 7.50% | 353,638 | $89,028 | 30 | |
| Newmarket | 84,224 | 7.50% | 90,541 | $95,589 | > | |
| Richmond Hill | 195,022 | 7.50% | 209,649 | $88,353 | 36 | |
| Vaughan | 306,233 | 7.50% | 329,200 | $105,351 | 33 | |
| Whitchurch-Stouffville | 45,837 | 7.50% | 49,275 | $102,997 | - | |
- The regions in italic font are the ones I don’t like because of lack of people and/or low household income. The green colored regions are the ones I prefer, I will discuss why in the present analysis.
In my opinion, Canada has better numbers than the projection I calculated, but the Covid-19 pandemic may have affected this data. For that reason, I recommend taking everything from here with a grain of salt. I’m confident of what I’m saying, but the free market is sometimes a beast that few people know how it works. When asking for pricing, I selected 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Your average price for that service at Dallas Maids is $100 US ($126 CAD). Every price below this will be presented in CAD.
Every city report will be divided by: 1) average household income; 2) analysis; and 3) competition.
Competition will be studied by the first top 3 results of searching the name of the city and the words ‘cleaning service’. For example, Toronto would be ‘Toronto Cleaning Service’. I will look at the top websites and arrange the information with what I know of SEO in mind. We can start by looking at the city of Toronto.
Starting with the biggest one, we have Toronto city. Analyzing the market there, we find that this city is diverse, not only culturally speaking but also monetary speaking. Reports suggest that household incomes are lower than other places in GTA. I believe that the job pay is the same but aggressive prices on rent make their income way lower than in other areas.
From their sources, the average household income is $60k, which is the lowest in all the GTA region. Analyzing why we find that this city has lots of immigrants. It’s the favorite city for anyone looking to go to Canada. In my opinion, aggressive prices and immigration is the recipe for the result for the lowest income. Even if they have great companies there and a lot of cultures.
Economically speaking, Toronto seems the worse place. Even if they have the wealthiest people in GTA, the less affluent people outnumber them by a good margin. Making things even worse, analyzing the competitors we find this:
The 4th result is the one that impressed me the most, you have talked about her channel and it’s probably the biggest cleaning related channel on YouTube. Clean my space is 4th place in Toronto even if they have the biggest cleaning channel. This could suggest an aggressive and difficult SEO market.
1st result: Aspen Clean. Their website is really solid. One of my favorites. Their pricing:
2nd result: Squeaky Cleaning:
3rd result: Clean My Space: One solid webpage.
Custom Maids: Really bad dessigned webpage. No information of quotes available.
No more Chores: solid website
· Initial Cleaning Total Price: $203.4
· Next Visit Price (if applicable): $142.38
This city is the one closest to the airport. Every trip here would be the shortest one. The result of being closest to the airport is that it has a lot of industries here. According to Wikipedia, over 60 of the Fortune 500 companies base their global or Canadian head offices in Mississauga. It’s the 6th largest city in Canada. It has the most affluent people there, and if we analyze their map, we can conclude it has a good distribution between residential and industrial areas.
One of the problems that I find in Mississauga is that paradoxically it’s a really good city. It has more married folks than singles, a strong economy, but maybe it lacks the less affluent people that a cleaning company needs, we can’t be sure if you can find people there. The commute time to Toronto is not that long, 30 minutes seems to be the time. Maybe outsourcing staff would be the answer.
Google top 3 Search Results:
1st result: Arelli:
Commercial cleaning. Not competitors
2nd result: Sunrise Cleaning:
Very detailed webpage.
Cost:
3rd result: New Century Maids:
Seems like a solid webpage.
Cost:
Merry Maids is a franchise. That refuses to give quotes.
Happy Home House cleaning doesn’t have a Website.
And finally Mississauga Cleaning. They didn’t provide a quote.
This is like a smaller version of Mississauga. The one big issue here is that a majority of their residents may be more cost concious, thus not open to purchasing premium house cleaning serices. Mississauga is curtrually diverse. My opinion on this subject is scarce, I would recommend running a market analysis if you want Brampton.
Franchises seem to be the top results for Brampton.
Top 3 search result:
1st: Molly Maids
The hourly rate is $110+HST/hr for a team of two.
2nd: Merry Maid again.
3rd:
https://www.kijiji.ca/b-cleaners-cleaning-service/mississauga-peel-region/cleaning-lady-brampton/k0c160l1700276
This is an IT service, not a cleaning company. It posts cleaning girls and you hire them by the hour. $20 the hour.
Superior Maids: Bad Website. Doesn’t provide a quote and they use google forms for their company. It will cost $113 to clean your apartment at a bi-weekly rate.
Eh Maids: Solid Webpage
Happy Maids have reviews but it doesn’t have a web page.
Brampton seems to not have a solid SEO background for their cleaning services.
YORK
York, Halton, and Durham are the farthest places from the airport. Google maps report an average and Apple maps reports a longer one. You can never know until you take the trip. I strongly recommend checking the truly average trip time. The internet is a great place to look but you can never be 100% sure.
The good thing about York is that Toronto is very close. It seems like people from here hire up from Toronto. The commuting from Toronto is the shortest one compared with Halton or Durham regions. Another pro of picking York is that you can reach a lot of residences. The commuting is short and you could pick up workers in Toronto, but I don’t know your MO.
Richmond Hill seems like it has a strong economy. They reported that more than half of their residents are affluent with an average income of over $100k. A small unemployment rate, 3% compared with a 7% regional. This could mean a lot of clients but a lack of talent.
Merry Maid and Molly Maids for 1st and 3rd. VP Cleaning Service comes in 2nd.
It’s the third-largest besides Toronto and Mississauga. It has a lot of small businesses. It seems like a solid place. It has a lot of work but also a lot of people working. I love Vaughan because it’s in the center of a lot of cities, if you supply the demand in Vaughan it could mean reaching your arms to other cities and you would be in the center of 4 major cities in GTA.
SEO Results:
Molly’s Maids and Merrys Maids again.
Target cleaning: Very bad website design.
It has a close-ratio between married couples and singles. It seems to be a Tech city, lots of tech companies are here. This city could mean lots of single workers living here. It also has a lot of Asians, half the population is Asian. It has a strong economy.
Google 3 Pack:
Markham Cleaning: Lackluster website
Mona Cleaning: Bad website, unpolished.
SEO Result:
Aspen Clean repeats and Molly Maids.
HALTON & DURHAM
They are pretty similar looking. The same principles apply to both regions. They are less dense than York and Peel.
Durham has a lot of suburban areas. It also has the longest trip time. Even longer than Halton. OSHAWA is a place where you need to keep an eye. I investigated a bit for Oshawa and it seems promising for startups, it has expanded a lot in the past few years. The problem is that the reported income is one of the worst in the region as per official data from 2016. It may be reforming right in front of our eyes. Also is the farthest place from the airport, period. Many film producers are using this city for their movies and TV shows. I can’t know if it’s a soufflé. It may break down, or it may be a city that moves in cycles. Maybe in one period of the year, it has a boom of residents due to local work and another part of the year is quieter. The housing prices seem low, it has ranked as the number 1 city for looking for jobs. The Market for cleaning service is VIRGIN. This also goes for the majority of Durham.
Oshawa Search Results:
The first 2 were already discussed earlier.
Cleaning Ladies: Good website. Waiting for quotes.
Google 3 Pack:
1st) Affordable Cleaning again.
2) Hire a Maid
3) Squeaky Clean Again
SEO Results:
The Maids of Durham and Molly Maids again.
They don’t have a cleaning service so specialized as other places. Affordable cleaning, Squeaky clean, the maids of Durham and Molly Maids seem to be the ones on the #1 spot for the Durham region.
HALTON
Halton also has the longest trip times from the airport. They are small cities where affluent people live. This seems like the other kinda rural part of GTA. Lots of blue workers live here, but they are small cities. It reports the lowest crime rate in GTA. Their economy seems based on education, farms, and manufacturing. It looks like Durham. I can see a cleaning service working here but the size of the cities and the longer trip don’t make it as valuable. It is composed of farms and manufacturing industries. It’s one of the least dense parts of GTA.
The case against Halton is strong. Rural, somehow not that dense, but it still got a strong punch. Seems like a technological center. Lots of people live in the Halton Area.
They are smaller than the other places presented before and people seem affluent.
Google 3 Pack:
Molly Maid again for the 1st spot.
Maid Pro
No quote.
Maid of All Work: lackluster website
SEO Results:
Fresh Cleaning: Not Available.
Google 3-Pack:
Happy Maids: Not available
Merry Maids again.
Oakville Cleaning Service: No Website.
SEO Results:
Sunrise Cleaning: again.
Conclusion
All the data from competitors demonstrate that the cleaning services are mostly regional, sometimes they even cover all the GTA. I believe this is because the commute time between regions is not that much, so companies can have the luxury of serving lots of regions with workforce from other places. For example, Maids Pro is a franchise that gives service to all of the GTA area and it’s run just by one guy. Similarly, most of the top results from multiple areas are Merry Maids, Molly Maids, which are franchises. Sometimes they don’t give quotes that easily. Researching their reviews is complicated. People care when the service is bad and that is when they leave a bad review. Usually, it’s because the service was lackluster. Almost all of their websites were bad, besides a couple of exceptions. Toronto city was the only place where getting a quote was simple and straightforward. This could mean that people simply don’t have the time to wait for a call there. Also implies the competition demands transparency in their prices.
Speaking of prices, the usual rate is something like $120 CAD for 1000 square feet and 2 bedrooms. I bet you could sustain the same prices you use in your company. The minimum wage in Ontario is $14 CAD and the usual hours for this service are 3 hours. That could mean a bare minimum of $42 CAD in salary for the cleaning service.
Marketing wise you can say that they don’t use social media much. Facebook and Instagram seem to be their biggest marketing strategy. Twitter seems like a double-edged sword. Every company avoids it. They could run local ads and some other marketing strategies outside of the internet.
Top Picks
All in all, my top pick is:
1) Mississauga and Brampton: you have a lot of people here, it’s nicely dense, you can grab workers from Toronto and you can even offer office cleaning. The SEO is the same as Dallas cleaning service.
So in a nutshell, Mississauga seems top notch. It has all the advantages of Toronto without the reduced household income. From what I gathered from Reddit, it also has some lower-income areas, so the potential is there. In my mind, the bigger the market, the bigger bite you can have. Mississauga or Brampton has more people living there than most other cities combined.
2) York Area: Imagine this. York Maids. Catchy, lovely and it could mean more than york in the long run. York seems another great place, less dense and with a lot of students. This area seems to have the highest number of single professionals in the area. I like it less than Mississauga because it’s not as dense as Mississauga. Less of a potential market. From these 2 cities, I like Vaughan best, and Markham a close second.
3) Durham and Halton: they are somewhat rural areas. They are the farthest places from the airport and even though they have a great economy, they are attached to education and other public services. After the pandemic, we don’t know. The biggest pro in these areas is their lack of SEO power. Franchisees manage everything, and you would tap this SEO market super easily.
Wild Card: Oshawa. As I explained before, Oshawa seems to be in Hyper-development. Cheap housing and film companies getting into town could mean a great place for a startup. The problem is, again, the pandemic, and it’s so far away from the airport that it could mean a dislike from you. But, it also could mean that you could make a minimum investment with great results.