Review requests for house cleaners: ask once your client is home again
Your clients are often out when you finish, and what they remember is often a person, not a company. Here is when to send the request, which sites matter, a sample email and the rules on asking.
For your trade › House cleaners · Facts checked October 16, 2026
When to send the request
Cleaning is sold as a cadence. Jobber's cleaning page (read on 16 October 2026) talks about setting “a cadence for recurring cleans” [1], and you may also do one-time deep cleans and move-out cleans. Either way, the client sees the result, not you, so we suggest asking after the client has come home to it. Our suggestions, not rules:
- A one-time clean, such as a deep clean or a move-out: that evening or the next morning.
- A client on a schedule, weekly or monthly: after the second or third clean, once they have seen how you work, then at most every 6 months. Jobber's help center (read on 16 October 2026) says it sends a given client one review request every 6 months at most [2]. A client who stops earlier is added when they stop.
- We would not ask after every clean: a weekly client would get the same email every week.
Add the client when you want the email to go. It leaves within about 10 minutes, only inside your sending hours (8am to 8pm by default), so a client added at 9pm is emailed the next morning. One polite reminder follows after 72 hours.
These timings are our advice, and we found no neutral study of when to ask. The one anchor we found is Housecall Pro's blog (read on 16 October 2026): send review requests within 24 hours of the job, while the customer still remembers [3]. That evening or the next morning fits.
If other software you use already sends review requests, check its settings. Jobber's cleaning page says its software “automatically sends review requests after each job based on your settings” [1]. A weekly client should not get two.
Which review sites matter to a cleaning business
Google comes first. It lists house cleaning services among the businesses that can run Local Services Ads [4], and says star ratings and the number of reviews affect ranking there [5]. We found no survey of which sites people check before letting a cleaner in. Beyond Google, as read on 16 October 2026:
| Site | What to know as a cleaner | Do we ask there? |
|---|---|---|
| Google says customers are more likely to review if the request comes from you directly [5]. | Yes. The main ask. | |
| Meta's Community Feedback policy covers ratings and reviews on Marketplace and Shops, and bars incentives for them unless disclosed under its branded content policies. It does not mention Page recommendations [6]. | Yes. | |
| BBB | BBB does not accept incentivized reviews, even when the incentive is disclosed [7]. | Yes, if you have a BBB profile. |
| Yelp | Yelp says it is against its policy for businesses to ask for reviews [8]. | Never. If you add your Yelp page, your review page shows a “Find us on Yelp” link instead. |
GossipGarden does not ask on Thumbtack, Angi or Nextdoor. You choose which sites are on, and nothing about the client changes which one they are sent to.
A sample email for a client's home
Clients let you into their homes, and the email should sound like it: thank them, name the work, ask.
Subject: Thank you for having us in your home
Hi [First name],
Thank you for having [Your business] clean your home. Letting someone in takes trust, and we don't take it lightly.
If you have a minute, a short Google review helps other families decide who to let in:
Leave a review on Google
Thank you,[Your business]
Square brackets mark what GossipGarden fills in for each customer. You can write wording like this in Settings › Templates; the link is the button GossipGarden adds under your words.
What Google and the FTC say about asking
Asking is not the problem. As read on 16 October 2026, Google's policy lets a merchant “solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review” [9]. The limits:
- Nothing in return. No credit toward the next clean, no add-on thrown in. Google calls incentives for reviews “strictly prohibited” [10]. The FTC rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR 465.4, as read in the eCFR on 16 October 2026) makes it an unfair or deceptive practice to give compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, reviews expressing a particular sentiment [11].
- The same ask for every client. Google lists “selectively solicit positive reviews from customers” as prohibited [9]. In the FTC's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR 255.2(e), Example 11), inviting only the purchasers who give very positive feedback to post reviews may be an unfair or deceptive practice if it makes the posted reviews substantially more positive than they would have been. Inviting all recent purchasers “would not have been unfair or deceptive” [12]. Timing can follow the kind of clean, never how a client seemed.
- No quotas, no names. Google lists “Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews” and staff soliciting reviews “that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member” as prohibited [9]. So no target for your cleaners, and no asking a client to name one.
- No pressure on the premises. Merchants “should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises” [9]. Clients are often out when you finish, so the email arrives after you have gone.
Nothing in GossipGarden scores, screens or routes a client. Your schedule decides when you add someone, and everyone you add gets the same email. The template editor rejects common incentive words, but it is a word list, so the rule is still yours to keep.
Questions cleaners ask
- A client gave me a key or a lockbox code. Can it be in the email?
- No. Keep entry codes, addresses and schedules out of every message. The email needs your business name, the client's first name and the link.
- Can I ask clients to mention their cleaner by name?
- No. Google lists staff soliciting reviews “that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member” as prohibited [9]. A client can name anyone they like. The request just cannot ask for it.
- I work from home. What address goes in the email footer?
- As read on 16 October 2026, the CAN-SPAM Act requires commercial email to carry a valid physical postal address of the sender [13]. The CAN-SPAM Rule defines that as the sender's current street address, a Post Office box the sender has accurately registered with the US Postal Service, or a private mailbox accurately registered with a commercial mail receiving agency [14]. So under that definition you do not have to print a home address. GossipGarden prints the postal address you enter in every footer. It does not check the kind, so a PO box works; registering it with the Postal Service is up to you.
- A client told me I missed a spot. Do I still add them?
- Yes. Fix the spot, and add them at the same point in the schedule as every other client. Leaving someone out because of how they seemed is the selective solicitation Google's policy lists as prohibited [9].
Sources
Each number in the text points to the source it came from, as read on the date shown. Rules and prices change; check the source before you rely on one.
- Jobber: cleaning business software (read October 16, 2026)
- Jobber Help Center: reviews and marketing tools (read October 16, 2026)
- Housecall Pro: how to automate customer follow-ups for home services (read October 16, 2026)
- Google Local Services Ads Help: business types available in the US (read October 16, 2026)
- Google Ads Help: reviews in Local Services Ads (read October 16, 2026)
- Meta: Community Feedback policy (read October 16, 2026)
- BBB: paid and incentivized customer reviews (read October 16, 2026)
- Yelp for Business: how to get Yelp reviews without asking (7 March 2025) (read October 16, 2026)
- Google Maps User Generated Content Policy: prohibited and restricted content (read October 16, 2026)
- Google Business Profile Help: reviews (asking, incentives, replies) (read October 16, 2026)
- eCFR: 16 CFR Part 465, the FTC rule on consumer reviews (current text; last amended 21 October 2024) (read October 16, 2026)
- eCFR: 16 CFR Part 255, the FTC Endorsement Guides (current text; last amended 26 July 2023) (read October 16, 2026)
- Cornell Law School: 15 U.S.C. 7704, the CAN-SPAM Act's requirements for commercial email (read October 16, 2026)
- eCFR: 16 CFR Part 316, the CAN-SPAM Rule (section 316.2(p), current text) (read October 16, 2026)
Every customer gets the same ask. GossipGarden never filters, screens or routes anyone by rating or sentiment. Why that matters.
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If your customers already live in one of these, the step-by-step guides show how to send them to GossipGarden: Housecall Pro, Google Calendar.