Working in cleaning in the Netherlands — rates, taxes, and why your own marketing does not pay off
SUMMARY. A cleaner in Amsterdam earns €22–28 per hour. Doing your own marketing (Google Ads + website + social media) costs €340–740 per month with no guarantee of results. Lead-generation models: pay-per-lead (€15–30 per enquiry, no guarantee of a booking) and monthly subscription (€30–50 per month plus commission). The alternative is a pay-per-response model: €2–10 for a specific response chosen by the worker, no subscription. On Avrora, the Founding Provider programme gives the first 30 responses free.
Author: V. Ionin, founder of Avrora.nl, Hengelo. Published 6 May 2026.
A cleaner in Amsterdam costs €22–28 per hour. To fill 25–30 hours of work per week, that cleaner has to find clients. The cheapest channel — Google Ads — runs at €300–700 per month before producing a steady flow of enquiries. The most expensive — your own website with an SEO agency — is €1,000+ per month for six months, with no guarantee of results. Two alternatives: subscribe to a lead-generation platform, or work through a marketplace that sells responses to specific jobs rather than subscriptions. How those options actually differ, and why a ZZP cleaner running their own marketing in 2026 is considered a mistake — that is what follows.
What it pays in 2026
Rates depend on the city, the type of client (private or commercial), and whether you are registered as a self-employed cleaner (ZZP) or working through an agency.
Private jobs (ZZP, with own materials):
- Amsterdam: €22–28 per hour
- Rotterdam: €18–24 per hour
- Utrecht: €20–26 per hour
- The Hague: €20–25 per hour
- Hengelo and Enschede (Twente): €17–22 per hour
- Eindhoven: €18–23 per hour
Through an agency (employment contract): the legal minimum is €14.06 per hour gross (€11–12 net). Mileage compensation of €0.23 per kilometre is often added.
Deep clean (fixed price):
- 30 m² studio: €100–150
- 60 m² two-room flat: €180–250
- 90 m² three-room flat: €250–350
- After a move (with fridge, oven, windows): + €50–100
Regular clients (weekly, three-hour minimum) typically pay 10–15% below the one-off hourly rate — the cleaner gets stability, the client gets a familiar face.
If you are starting out and have no reviews, a realistic position is the lower end of the range. After 2–3 months and 4–5 positive reviews, you can lift the rate to mid-range.
What you need to work legally
There are three options in the Netherlands: ZZP, an employment contract with a company, or work through a uitzendbureau (temp agency). Each has trade-offs.
ZZP (zelfstandige zonder personeel) — self-employed
The most common choice for experienced cleaners and for those who want to pick their own clients.
What you need:
- A BSN (citizen service number) — issued at the gemeente (municipality) when you register your address. Without a BSN nothing works: no KvK, no bank account, no tax filings.
- KvK registration — free, takes 30–60 minutes. Book via kvk.nl/zoeken; you must attend in person with passport and BSN. You receive a unique 8-digit number.
- A BTW number — issued automatically 1–4 weeks after KvK registration.
- A business bank account — formally optional, but useful for separating work from personal funds. Bunq, ABN AMRO and ING offer ZZP business accounts at €0–10 per month.
- Liability insurance (AVB, aansprakelijkheidsverzekering bedrijven) — €8–15 per month. Covers accidental damage to a client's expensive item.
Employment contract with a cleaning company
If you would rather not deal with KvK and tax filings, a job with Hago, Asito, CSU, Gom or a small local firm is the alternative. Pay is fixed, taxes and pension contributions are handled by the employer, but you are tied to a schedule and usually clean commercial sites (offices, hotels) rather than private homes.
Uitzendbureau
A middle ground: a contract with a temp agency that finds clients for you. You receive 60–70% of what the client pays. Useful at the start, before you have your own clients.
Taxes and deductions for ZZP in year one
Real tax in year one is well below the headline 36–49% rate, thanks to deductions for the self-employed and for new starters.
What is deducted from income before tax:
- Zelfstandigenaftrek — €3,750 in 2026. Available if you have logged at least 1,225 hours of work in the year.
- Startersaftrek — an additional €2,123, available three times in the first five years.
- MKB-winstvrijstelling — 12.7% of profit is exempt automatically.
Worked example. A cleaner earns €25,000 in year one.
- Less Zelfstandigenaftrek €3,750 → €21,250
- Less Startersaftrek €2,123 → €19,127
- Less MKB-winstvrijstelling 12.7% → €16,698 of taxable income
- Tax: roughly €6,100
- Without the deductions: €9,000–9,500
Saving: roughly €3,000 in year one.
BTW. The standard rate is 21%. If turnover is below €20,000 per year, you can opt into the Kleineondernemersregeling (KOR) — BTW is then waived. Useful when you are starting out.
Where to find clients — and why your own marketing does not pay off
This is where the most expensive part of the profession begins. The cleaner does the job in an hour or two. Finding the client who pays for that hour takes, on average, another 2–4 hours of unpaid work — calls, listings, messaging, waiting for replies.
Option 1. Run your own marketing
What a ZZP cleaner who wants to work "without intermediaries" actually does:
- Google Ads (schoonmaak amsterdam plus 5 keywords): €150–300 per month, 3–8 clicks per day, 5% conversion to enquiry.
- A landing-page site: €200–500 one-off plus €60 per year hosting, averaging €60 per month. A shopfront with no organic traffic.
- Freelance SEO content: €100–250 per month. First-page positions in 4–6 months.
- Social media (content plus boosts on FB/Instagram): €50–150 per month. Awareness in 1–2 districts.
- Print advertising (local flyers, business cards): €40 per month. Local reach with no tracking.
Realistic monthly minimum: €340–740, plus 10–15 hours per week of admin to keep it all running.
Annualised: €4,280–9,380 on marketing — roughly the monthly net income of an experienced Amsterdam cleaner. And there is no guarantee that money turns into a steady client flow: SEO takes six months to ramp, Google Ads takes 2–3 months to optimise, social media takes six months to build awareness in a single district.
Option 2. Lead-generation platforms
Werkspot and Zoofy are the two largest Dutch service-finder platforms. They use different monetisation models, and both require the cleaner to pay before any booking is made.
Werkspot — pay-per-lead. The platform charges €15–30 for each enquiry you want to respond to. The job may go to a different worker — the lead fee stays with the platform.
Werkspot's categories are broad: "Schoonmaak" includes flat cleaning, window cleaning, upholstery cleaning, office cleaning and waste removal. If you specialise in one of those, you will pay for every interesting lead among many that are not relevant.
The offline pattern is typical of pay-per-lead: the worker pays for a lead, agrees the job, drives to the address, and learns that the client is reviewing five quotes. That is a feature of the model, not a deviation from it.
Zoofy — monthly subscription. €30–50 per month for the listing, plus commission per booking. The subscription is debited automatically regardless of how many enquiries arrive.
Option 3. A marketplace with a pay-per-response model
You pay neither for the lead nor for the subscription, but for each specific response to a specific job — €2–10 depending on the task type. With 30 free responses in the first month (the Founding Provider programme on Avrora), the cost is zero.
How Avrora works:
Seven narrow cleaning sub-categories: flat cleaning, window cleaning, carpet and upholstery cleaning, post-renovation cleaning, office cleaning, deep cleaning, post-move cleaning. Subscribe only to what you actually do.
Acceptance before the visit. The client picks a worker on the basis of profile, prices, KvK badge and reviews. Confirmation runs through chat before any meeting — the worker does not waste a trip on a client who has not yet decided.
KvK check, automated. Via the KvK API. The "KvK Verified" badge in the profile draws roughly twice as many incoming enquiries.
Multilingual chat: NL, EN, RU, AR, TR, FR, PL. Agreements settled in the worker's own language.
Reputation is the marketplace's currency
On a pay-per-response platform, the cleaner has two levers: response volume, and profile weight in the matching algorithm. The second lever is invisible, but it determines how many notifications about new jobs you receive and where you appear in the client's list.
The specific weights in Avrora's matching:
Rating (15–20% weight). Bayesian average — both the average score and the number of reviews count. A cleaner with 4.8в… across 50 reviews ranks above one with 5.0в… across 3. That blunts the value of fake five-stars.
Profile completeness (10%). Photo, description, specialisations, portfolio, reviews — each block adds weight. An empty profile with just a name receives roughly half as many notifications as a full one.
Response time (5–10%). Replying to new enquiries within 30 minutes flags you as active and lifts you in the ranking. Silence for a day costs you points.
KvK badge. Not a points weight but a notification-speed threshold. A KvK-verified cleaner is alerted to a new enquiry instantly. Without KvK, the alert is delayed by 30 minutes or 2 hours — by which time others may already have taken the job.
Founding Provider boost. A 1.3–1.95 multiplier for the first 50 workers in Amsterdam and Twente. This compensates for the absence of a track record for early arrivals.
Avrora is not a labour exchange handing out jobs in turn. It is a tool for professionals, where the algorithm rewards those who fill in the profile, hold the rating and reply quickly. Low rating means fewer notifications means lower income. The same economics apply to Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts: reputation is the value of the account.
Escrow as the next layer of protection. As of 2026, escrow payment protection is temporarily disabled because of PSD2 (EU Payment Services Directive 2) requirements set by the Dutch regulator, but the integration is in progress: once Mollie grants us PSD2 agent status, escrow returns in full. For now the model runs differently — pay-for-response commission (€2–10 per response), chat-only acceptance (the client confirms the choice in chat before any meeting), and commission held until the work is confirmed.
All four options in one table
| Channel | Cost per month | Time per week | Sub-categories | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Own marketing | €340–740 | 10–15 hrs | your choice | ad spend |
| Werkspot | €60–300 in lead fees | 2–3 hrs | broad categories | pay-per-lead |
| Zoofy | €30–50 subscription + commission | 1 hr | broad categories | subscription |
| Avrora | €0–60 (Founding: free) | <1 hr | 7 sub-categories | pay-per-response |
Common beginner mistakes
Working off the books. The temptation in month one — ZZP not yet registered, "the tax office will not notice" — is real. In practice the Belastingdienst tracks repeated Tikkie transfers, bank inflows and gemeente registrations. The fine for zwartwerken (undeclared work) runs up to €8,750 for an individual, plus repayment of all unpaid tax with interest.
Working without AVB. A single broken item, and a year of work goes on covering the compensation. €10 per month for insurance is the most rational money you will spend in this profession.
A starting price that is too low. Many start at €12–14 per hour to "attract clients". After three months it is almost impossible to lift the price for an existing client — they have anchored on the low rate. Better to start at €18–20 and adjust through discounts.
No written agreement. Minimum: a WhatsApp thread that records address, date, time, price and scope. Without it, if the client does not pay, there is nothing to point to.
Skipping a tax adviser. In year one, get a consultation with a belastingadviseur — €100–200 one-off — and you will get a properly set-up annual return that pays back the deduction five to ten times over.
First-month checklist
What should be in place by the end of month one:
- BSN obtained at the gemeente
- KvK registration submitted (booked on kvk.nl)
- Bank account opened (personal or business)
- AVB insurance arranged (€10–15 per month)
- Invoice template ready: name, KvK, BTW, payment details, service, amount, date
- Marketplace profile created with photo and description
- Founding Provider package activated (30 free responses)
- Working schedule logged for the month (at least 60 hours in month one for an active start)
Why Avrora is the entry point for cleaners in 2026
Avrora's model rests on a single proposition: marketing is the platform's job, not each individual worker's.
In practice that means:
Instead of €300 a month on Google Ads, the cleaner's profile receives an inbound flow of enquiries from seven channels: city-level SEO pages, a multilingual blog, direct partnerships with diaspora communities, and inbound advertising in NL Telegram channels. The platform takes on the work that a self-employed worker has neither the time nor the marketing skills to do.
Avrora has no subscription — no €30 a month "for being registered". You pay only for a response you have chosen to send to a specific job. No responses, no charge.
The Founding Provider programme for the first 50 workers in Amsterdam and Twente: 30 free responses, a 50% lifetime commission discount, a gold profile badge, and a direct line to the founder in a closed Telegram group.
Sub-categories work as a worker expects: subscribe specifically to "upholstery and carpet cleaning" and you will not receive notifications about construction-waste removal. If you specialise, you do not burn credits on irrelevant enquiries.
Sign-up is on the Founding Provider page. The marketplace mechanics are explained on How it works (avrora.nl/how-it-works). Open jobs in the category sit on Schoonmaak (Schoonmaak — Avrora). Seven-language support is available in the Telegram bot @AvroraSupportBot.
FAQ
Can you work as a cleaner in the Netherlands without Dutch? Yes. Most private clients in the major cities are English-speaking expats. On platforms with multilingual chat, agreements can be made in Russian, English, Polish or Turkish, and that is normal practice.
How many hours a week is realistic in month one? Realistically 15–25 hours, if you work 2–3 channels in parallel. By month three, with good reviews, 30–35 hours per week is comfortable.
ZZP or agency — which pays more? For 25+ hours per week and a willingness to handle taxes, ZZP delivers 30–40% more after tax. For a guaranteed schedule with no bookkeeping, the agency route — but with a lower ceiling.
What does it cost to acquire clients via lead-generation platforms? Werkspot — €15–30 per enquiry (pay-per-lead). Zoofy — €30–50 per month subscription plus per-job commission. Avrora — €2–10 per response (pay-per-response), no subscription. Founding Providers get the first 30 responses free.
What if the client does not pay after the clean? Start with a written reminder; after 14 days, a formal aanmaning; after 30 days, the kort geding small-claims procedure (up to €25,000). Working through Avrora helps here: price and scope agreements are recorded in writing in the chat — ready evidence for a reminder and a formal aanmaning.
Which districts in Amsterdam and Rotterdam are best for starting out? In Amsterdam — Zuid (affluent), Oost (young families and expats), De Pijp (students and freelancers). In Rotterdam — Kralingen (affluent), Centrum (business), Hillegersberg (families). In Twente — central Hengelo and the student district of Enschede near the university.
Marketing is work the cleaner does not pay for in cash but in unbilled hours. A platform that takes that work off their hands at €2–10 per response leaves the cleaner with what made self-employment worth choosing in the first place: working, not selling themselves.