Both are built for residential cleaning companies. PurVago quotes from photos, keeps the crew app working when the signal drops, and includes the customer texts ZenMaid holds for Pro Max, at one plan price however many cleaners you have. ZenMaid does the basics well and costs less for a company of one or two. This page says which fits which team, where PurVago is ahead, where ZenMaid still is, and how the move works. Still drawing up a shortlist? We keep a wider list of ZenMaid alternatives, including the ones we do not make.
| Your company | Our honest pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One or two people, quoting by hand | ZenMaid or PurVago Starter | ZenMaid Starter is $19 a month; PurVago Starter is $49. Pick PurVago only if you want estimates from photos, review requests and the customer portal from day one. |
| Three to ten cleaners | PurVago Team | $129 a month flat. ZenMaid adds a seat fee for each cleaner and keeps the on-my-way, review-request and win-back texts for Pro Max. The offline crew app and photo estimates are the day-to-day difference. |
| More than one crew, an office person, contractors for overflow | PurVago Team or Business | Unlimited cleaners and office staff, overflow offered to contractors by text, crew times per person, a payroll-ready hours export, and training with certificates on Business. |
| You run on revenue-share pay rules, Square, or the ZenMaid community | ZenMaid | ZenMaid calculates pay from appointments and takes Square. PurVago exports hours to any payroll provider and runs on Stripe. If those are the things you run on, stay. |
What matters most to you decides it: recurring scheduling is strong in both; quoting, texting and the crew app favor PurVago; built-in pay rules favor ZenMaid.
Your customer, or your crew on a walkthrough, snaps the rooms. PurVago counts bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and living spaces, sizes the job, and drafts the estimate with your prices. You adjust and send. ZenMaid estimates start from a blank form.
Checklists, before-and-after photos, GPS clock-in and add-on requests all work with no service and sync when the signal comes back. A dropped connection never costs a cleaner their checklist.
The PurVago Academy: short courses, knowledge checks and a final exam, with a certificate at the end. New hires learn your standards before their first job. ZenMaid does not advertise a training layer.
In ZenMaid, many of the automations an owner wants are locked behind the top plan. In PurVago they come with the plan that has texting.
| Feature | ZenMaid | PurVago |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring cleans (weekly, biweekly, every 4 weeks) | Included | Included |
| Drag-and-drop scheduling and dispatch | Included | Included |
| Customer reminders (email and text) | Included | Included |
| Review requests after each clean | Pro Max only | Included |
| "Your cleaner is on the way" text | Pro Max only | Included |
| "Cleaning complete" text | Pro Max only | Included |
| Cancellation notice to customer and crew | Pro Max only | Included |
| Win-back message to lapsed customers | Pro Max only | Included |
| Export your own data | Pro Max only | Any plan, any time |
| Video estimate link customers record on their phone | No | Included |
| Offer overflow visits to 1099 contractors by text, first to accept | Cleaners can be listed | Included |
| Contractor insurance and license expiry tracking | No | Included |
| Tips for the crew on online payments | Yes | Included |
| Estimates from photos | No | Included |
| Offline crew app with GPS clock-in | Online app | Included |
| Training academy with certificates | No | Add-on |
| Payroll | Pay calculated from appointments, hourly or revenue share | Crew times per person and a payroll-ready hours export for any payroll provider |
| Employee badge with a QR code the customer can scan | Not listed | Included |
| Customer portal with online payment | Yes | Yes |
| QuickBooks Online sync | Yes | Yes |
| Online booking / quote form | Yes | Yes |
| New hire onboarding link with handbook, policies and AI notice, e-signed | Not listed | Included |
| E-signed company documents (handbook, contractor agreement, safety, vehicle and phone policies) | Not listed | Add-on |
| Inventory by location, office and each crew, with transfers and reorder alerts | Not listed | Included |
ZenMaid feature availability as shown inside a ZenMaid trial account in September 2026. Plans change; check their pricing page for current gating.
ZenMaid's published plans are Starter $19, Pro $39 and Pro Max $49 a month, and its price calculator adds a seat for each cleaner and office manager on top, so every hire raises your software bill. Text messages are charged separately on every ZenMaid plan. PurVago charges by plan: Starter $49, Team $129, Business $299 a month. Starter is for a cleaning company of one or two people; from there Team covers unlimited cleaners, so your eleventh hire costs exactly what your second did, which is nothing extra.
| ZenMaid | PurVago | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Starter $19 / month base, plus a seat per cleaner; limited automated texts and emails | Starter $49 / month, up to 2 team members, up to 40 jobs a month |
| Growing team | Pro $39 / month base, plus a seat per cleaner; more automated texts and emails | Team $129 / month, unlimited cleaners and office staff, texting from your own number included |
| Larger company | Pro Max $49 / month base, plus a seat per cleaner; all automated texts and emails, service ratings. Shown as coming soon on November 5, 2026 | Business $299 / month, Academy, white-label and the hiring and payroll tools included |
| Texting | SMS charges not included on any plan | 200 texts a month on Team, 500 on Business, then 4¢ each |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days, card required, nothing charged, cancel any time before |
Cheaper by the seat, not once you add what you use. Pro Max is the ZenMaid plan with the automations Team includes, and text messages are billed on top of every ZenMaid plan.
| Team size, cleaners and office | ZenMaid Starter | ZenMaid Pro | ZenMaid Pro Max the plan with the automations Team includes | PurVago |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | $19 | $39 | $49 | Starter $49 |
| 3 | $23 | $53 | $73 | Team $129 |
| 5 | $23 | $53 | $73 | Team $129 |
| 10 | $27 | $67 | $97 | Team $129 |
| 15 | $31 | $81 | $121 | Team $129 |
| 20 | $35 | $95 | $145 | Team $129 |
| 30 | $43 | $123 | $193 | Team $129 |
| 50 | $59 | $179 | $289 | Team $129 |
| What each price buys | ||||
| Appointments a month | Up to 40 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Up to 40 on Starter, unlimited on Team |
| Digital checklists and cleaner GPS | Not included | Included | Included | Included, and they work offline |
| Review requests, on-the-way and cleaning-complete texts, win-backs | Not included | Not included | Included | Included on Team |
| Export of your data | Not included | Not included | Included | Any plan, any time |
| Text messages | Charged extra | Charged extra | Charged extra | 200 a month on Team, 500 on Business, then 4¢ each |
ZenMaid monthly totals are what its price calculator showed for each team size on November 6, 2026. The calculator counts cleaners and office managers together and does not print the per-seat amount, so we read the total it displayed. Pro Max was marked as coming soon. "SMS charges not included" appears on every ZenMaid plan and the per-message rate is not published. Plan contents are from the same page: Starter is limited to 40 appointments a month with limited automated templates and no checklists or GPS; Pro adds checklists, GPS, reports and payroll; Pro Max adds all automated texts and emails, service ratings and export of your data. PurVago figures are our monthly list prices: Starter covers up to 2 team members and 40 jobs a month, Team covers unlimited team members with no per-cleaner fees, and Business is $299 with Academy, white-label and the hiring and payroll tools.
The reason owners stay on software they've outgrown is the move. So we made it the easy part.
Published prices reviewed November 5, 2026 from ZenMaid's public pricing page (get.zenmaid.com/pricing), which lists base prices per plan and a calculator for the number of cleaners and office managers without publishing the per-seat amount; the team-size totals above were read from that calculator on November 6, 2026; advertised features reviewed September 30, 2026 from ZenMaid's product pages and a PurVago trial account. PurVago figures are the monthly prices on our pricing page. Monthly figures exclude texting above the included allowance, payment processing fees and optional add-ons. "Not listed" means the capability is not advertised on the reviewed pages, not necessarily that it is unavailable. ZenMaid is a trademark of its owner. PurVago is not affiliated with ZenMaid. Tell us at sales@purvago.com if something here is out of date and we will fix it.
For a company of one or two people who quote by hand, ZenMaid is cheaper and does the job. From three cleaners up, PurVago is usually the better fit: one plan price for unlimited cleaners instead of a seat per cleaner, estimates from photos, a crew app that works offline, and the on-my-way, review-request and win-back texts included on Team instead of held for Pro Max. ZenMaid is still ahead on pay calculated from appointments, Square as a card processor, and the size of its owner community. If those are the things you run on, stay.
For one or two people, ZenMaid: its Starter plan is $19 a month plus a seat per cleaner, and PurVago Starter is $49. For a team, PurVago: Team is $129 a month for unlimited cleaners and office staff with texting included, while ZenMaid charges a base price plus a seat for each cleaner and bills text messages separately on every plan. Price the plan you would really be on, with the number of cleaners you really have.
Yes. From Estimates, text or email them a video estimate link. They open it on their phone, tap each room, record a slow look around it, and send. PurVago's AI reads the rooms and files a request in your Estimates queue with the photos attached, ready for you to price and send.
Mark them as contractors under Team, then on any visit tap Offer to a contractor. PurVago shows who is actually free that day and lets you offer to all of them at once with the pay. They get a text, first to accept gets the job, and the address is only shared after they accept. Insurance and license expiries are tracked, and anyone lapsed is held back.
In ZenMaid, export Contacts and Appointments (Appointments → Actions → Export data, with the end date set well ahead). In PurVago go to Clients → Import and upload each file. Customers, homes, gate codes, recurring cleans and upcoming visits come across. Or send the files to us and we load them within a business day, free.
Yes. Repeating appointments in the ZenMaid export become recurring plans in PurVago, and the dated visits already in the file go straight onto the schedule, assigned to the matching crew where the names line up.
No. Starter is for a cleaning company of one or two people, at $49 a month for up to 40 jobs. The moment you have a team you move to Team at $129, and from there unlimited team members are included, employees and contractors alike. Business is $299. ZenMaid adds a seat for each cleaner and office manager on top of its $19, $39 or $49 base price; PurVago has no per-cleaner fees; the one price step tied to team size is Starter to Team.
There is a 14-day free trial. A card is required to start it, nothing is charged during the trial, and you can cancel before it ends at no cost. ZenMaid's trial works the same way.
Estimates from photos and a video estimate link customers record themselves, an offline crew app with GPS clock-in and checklists, one-tap offers to 1099 contractors with insurance tracking, a training academy with certificates, and automations such as review requests and win-back messages included rather than gated to a top plan.
Payroll worked out from assigned appointments, Square as a second card processor, and a larger coaching community and annual summit. If you run on those, we say so plainly on this page.
