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Comparison

CleanFlo vs ServiceM8

ServiceM8 is a mature job management product for trades and service businesses, with a free plan that is genuinely free and a live sync to Xero. Cleaning is one of the trades it serves. This page is about what that costs you and what it saves you.

Checked against their own site on 6 September 2026 No competitor prices quoted. They change

Feature comparison

ServiceM8 is job management software for trades and service businesses: quoting, scheduling, forms, invoicing and card payments, with a free single-user plan and paid plans banded on how many jobs you create in a month.

Capability CleanFlo ServiceM8
Built specifically for cleaning Yes: cleaning is the only trade No: trades and service businesses generally
A free plan None: one plan, and a 14-day free trial with no card Yes, and it is a product rather than a trial: one user, with a cap on jobs a month
Pricing model Flat £19.99/mo, no cap on jobs, staff, clients or sites Banded on how many jobs you create a month; users unlimited on the paid bands
Accounting integrations One-click CSV export, no live sync Live sync with Xero, QuickBooks Online and MYOB
The cleaner’s phone One app on any phone, offline by default, 27 languages matched to the device Full app on iPhone and iPad; a lighter companion app for Android
Health & safety / RAMS A scored 5×5 hazard matrix with residual scoring, incidents, audits and a 0-100 compliance score Electronic forms and certificates you build yourself
UK VAT invoicing Native at 20%, or off entirely if you are not registered Yes; note their own subscription is invoiced to UK customers under the reverse charge
Client portal Yes, with clean requests Online booking and client-facing job links
Inventory, PPE and vehicles Chemicals, PPE and equipment, and a vehicle register that chases its own expiry dates Asset management; not stock or PPE for a cleaning round
Market UK only, by design Global, with UK pricing published in GBP

Checked 6 September 2026, against ServiceM8's own pages: ServiceM8 UK pricing.

Choose CleanFlo if…

  • Cleaning companies whose job count grows faster than their headcount, where a band on jobs a month is the ceiling you hit first
  • Anyone asked for RAMS, COSHH or a compliance position before a contract is signed
  • Cleaners on Android phones, in more than one language, working where the signal fails
  • Businesses that want the risk assessment scored rather than a blank form to design
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What you might have heard about ServiceM8

ServiceM8 has a free plan and CleanFlo does not.
It does, it is a real product rather than a trial, and a solo cleaner doing a handful of jobs a month should be on it. The two limits worth reading before you build a business on it are the single user and the monthly job cap: the first stops at your first employee, and the second is the one a growing round walks into without hiring anybody. CleanFlo caps neither, at one flat price.
ServiceM8 syncs live with Xero.
It does, and CleanFlo does not sync live with anything. It raises the invoice from the completed job with your BACS details on it, tracks the payment, and exports invoices, payments and revenue as CSV formatted for a bookkeeper to bring in. For most cleaning firms this size that is how the accountant already works, but if a two-way sync is what you want most, that is a real reason to buy theirs.
ServiceM8 is mature and has been doing this for years.
It has, and breadth is what it bought with the time: many trades, asset management, forms you build for any purpose. The cost of breadth is that cleaning arrives as a configuration project. Here the checklist is a cleaning checklist, the risk assessment is a scored 5×5 an inspector recognises, the COSHH records have a home, and the cleaner app assumes cleaning. Nothing to shape first.
Most of my cleaners are on Android.
Worth checking before you commit either way. Their own help says the full-featured app is optimised for iPhone and iPad, with a lighter companion app for Android technicians. CleanFlo’s cleaner app is one app on whatever phone the cleaner already owns, offline by default, in 27 languages matched to the device. The people holding the phone do not choose the software and rarely get asked about it.

Buy ServiceM8 instead if…

Three reasons, and the first one is free money.

  • You are one person doing a small number of jobs a month. Their free plan is one user with a monthly job cap and it costs nothing, permanently. If that describes your round, take it, and come back when it does not. Nothing on this site is worth paying for before you have staff to tell where to go.
  • Your books are in Xero and you want a live sync. Theirs syncs clients, items, invoices and payments both ways. CleanFlo exports a CSV formatted for a bookkeeper and has no live sync to anything, which is better known now than in week three.
  • Cleaning is not the whole business. If half your week is jet washing, gutter clearance or handyman work, a product built for trades generally covers all of it, and this one is built for one trade on purpose.
Switching

You do not have to retype your book

A spreadsheet, a CSV, an export from whatever you use now: send it over and we put your clients, sites, services and staff into your account during the 14-day trial, at no charge. What we cannot do for you is the half that is actually yours: the keys, the alarm codes and the access notes against each site. Budget an evening for those. Most businesses run CleanFlo alongside their old system for a fortnight rather than switching in one go.

Ask us to import it or start the 14-day trial first →

The axis is jobs, not seats

The usual sentence about software for cleaning companies is that it charges per seat. ServiceM8 does not: its paid bands carry unlimited users and are priced on how many jobs you create in a month, and the free plan is one user with a job cap on top.

That matters because the two axes fail in opposite directions. A per-seat product punishes hiring. A per-job product punishes winning work, which is the other thing a growing cleaning company does constantly. A round that doubles its visits pays more without a single new cleaner, and a contract that turns one weekly visit into five daily ones can move you a band on its own.

CleanFlo counts neither. £19.99 a month for the company, unlimited staff, clients, locations and jobs. That is the whole pricing argument and it is the reason the individual comparisons on this site keep the rows where the other product is cheaper.

What "built for trades" costs a cleaning company

ServiceM8 gives you electronic forms and certificates and lets you build whatever the job needs. That is the right answer for a product serving twenty trades, and it means the cleaning-specific parts are yours to design: what a COSHH record should hold, what a site-specific risk assessment looks like, how a hazard is scored, what a compliance position even is.

CleanFlo assumes all of it because there is no other trade it serves. Every hazard carries a likelihood and a severity on a 5×5 and a second pair for the residual risk once the controls are in; those feed a score out of 100 with each deduction named and dated. Incidents log by severity, audits schedule, waste transfer notes carry a carrier registration checked against the regulator, and the cleaner app has checklists, photographs and readings built into the job.

If nobody has ever asked you for a risk assessment, that is a paragraph about weight you are not carrying. The first facilities manager who asks changes which paragraph it is.

Where this lands

Take their free plan if you are on your own and under their job cap. It is the best free thing in this comparison set and no page that hides it deserves to be believed about anything else.

Come to CleanFlo when the job count or the headcount stops fitting: when the band you are on has become a decision, when somebody wants a compliance file rather than a certificate, or when the people holding the phones need it in a language nobody in the office speaks. One flat price, nothing counted, and a trial you can put a real week into.

Frequently asked questions

01 Is CleanFlo a good ServiceM8 alternative for a cleaning company?
For a UK cleaning business with staff and commercial clients, yes: cleaning is the only trade it serves, the risk assessment is a scored 5×5 feeding a compliance score rather than a form you design, and the price is flat with no cap on jobs. If you are one person under their job cap, their free plan is the better answer today.
02 Does ServiceM8 have a free plan?
Yes, and it is a product rather than a trial: one user, with a cap on how many jobs you can create in a month. Check the current limits on their own pricing page. The two things to know before building on it are that the single user stops at your first employee, and the job cap is one a growing round reaches without hiring anybody.
03 Can CleanFlo sync with Xero the way ServiceM8 does?
No. ServiceM8 syncs clients, items, invoices and payments with Xero, QuickBooks Online and MYOB. CleanFlo has no live sync to any accounting package and exports invoices, payments and revenue as CSV for a bookkeeper. If a two-way sync is a requirement, ServiceM8 is the better fit and it is better to know that now.
04 Does ServiceM8 work on Android?
Their own site says the full-featured app is optimised for iPhone and iPad and that there is a lighter companion app for Android technicians. Check the current position on their site. CleanFlo runs one cleaner app on whatever phone the cleaner already has, offline by default, in 27 languages matched to the device.