Taking the Shine Off Homeaglow’s ‘$19 Cleaning Service’

Homeaglow advertises in TV ads and on social media (see below) that it will clean your entire house for just $19, a fraction of what it reportedly costs to hire a house cleaner.

Sounds like an amazing deal, right? Unfortunately, after receiving a tip from a consumer, TINA.org found that $19 isn’t the whole story. But before we get into the financial details, we first need to answer the question, what is Homeaglow?

Homeaglow Doesn’t Actually Clean Your House

It may seem from some of the company’s ads, including the TV commercial above, that Homeaglow is a house cleaning service. It’s not. Rather, Homeaglow is a “communications platform,” according to the company’s terms and conditions.

The Service is a communications platform for enabling the connection between individuals seeking to obtain cleaning services and/or individuals seeking to provide cleaning services and for facilitating a contractual relationship between such parties.

In other words, Homeaglow does not directly employ any cleaners. It helps cleaners find work and consumers find cleaners.

To alleviate any concerns consumers may have about allowing a stranger into their home, Homeaglow claims that all the cleaners on its platform must pass a “rigorous certification process” and maintain a “4.8 star average platform rating.”

“Your cleaner will arrive at the scheduled time and give your home a clean you’ll love,” the company says.

Consumer complaints filed with the BBB tell a different story.

In addition to reports of cleaners arriving late or not at all, consumers have complained about cleaners showing up “under the influence,” cleaners that only worked for half of the scheduled cleaning time or less, and cleaners that left before completing requested tasks.

Of note, while Homeaglow boasts about the cleaners on its platform in its marketing, its terms and conditions sing a different tune:

…the Company does not guarantee or warrant, and makes no representations regarding, the reliability, quality or suitability of such cleaning service providers.

Now, let’s talk about this seemingly incredible deal.

The dirt on the “$19 cleaning service”

Depending on which Homeaglow ad draws you in, you may not realize that $19 is just the price for the first cleaning. On its website, the company provides the following disclosure:

And there are more surprises in store.

Contrary to Homeaglow’s claims that you can get your “entire” house cleaned for $19, if your house has more than one bedroom and one bathroom, there may be some areas of the house that the cleaner won’t get to. Homeaglow reveals on its website that the $19 cleaning gets you three hours of cleaning – “Ideal for 1 bed/1 bath homes.”

But wait, there’s more. If you choose one of the cleaning options above, you won’t be paying just the advertised discounted price (e.g., $19). This is because when you book a cleaning through the Homeaglow website using a discount voucher, you are also entering into a six-month commitment to be charged $49 a month as a member of the company’s Forever Clean membership plan.

Go deeper

None of the Homeaglow ads TINA.org reviewed mentioned that a monthly membership is required in order to receive the touted $19 cleaning. And it’s possible consumers may miss a complete and accurate explanation of what the membership entails before signing up.

For example, when consumers first visit the Homeaglow website, they are immediately put on the clock with a countdown timer that starts at 10 minutes, apparently indicating how long they have before the “limited time offer” for a $19 cleaning expires. Next to the timer is a message warning consumers that only a limited number of discount vouchers remain.

But when the timer hits zero, it just resets to 10 minutes and the offer is still available, TINA.org found.

Tricked into thinking they only have a few minutes to finish their purchase in order to take advantage of the advertised deal, consumers may not notice a paragraph with “The Fine Print” that is buried at the bottom of the page.

Here, Homeaglow discloses the full terms of its Forever Clean membership:

Valid only for new clients. Online appointment required. 24 hour cancellation policy applies. Expires after 1 year. Discount voucher requires a Forever Clean membership which grants future cleanings at more than 50% off. Membership is charged at $49/month (taxes may apply). Membership can be cancelled any time. However, cancelling before 6 paid months will result in first cleaning being charged at full price.

Some of these terms are also disclosed later during checkout after consumers have provided their name and email address but at this point the countdown timer may be seconds from expiring, meaning consumers may hit “continue” without reading the terms closely, if at all. (Of note, these deceptive design features and tactics – creating a false sense of urgency and scarcity of product – are known as dark patterns.)

This is also the first time in the checkout process that Homeaglow notes an hourly rate on top of its monthly membership fee (“Get unlimited cleanings at your discounted rate of $18/hr,” which apparently is the cleaner’s hourly rate for future cleanings, though Homeaglow told TINA.org it doesn’t set cleaners’ rates).

Moreover, you might notice here that while Homeaglow declares in bold letters that you can “cancel at any time,” it states below that in regular text that “Cancelling before 6 months results in your first cleaning being charged at full price.”

In fact, several consumers have complained to the BBB about finding it difficult to cancel their Forever Clean membership, as well as being signed up for the plan without their consent.

It’s worth noting that this type of subscription model is similar to those used by companies like AdoreMe and Savage X Fenty, both of which were the subject of separate TINA.org investigations and complaints prior to facing regulatory enforcement actions.

Company responds

In response to a request for comment about TINA.org’s findings, Homeaglow said it respectfully disagrees that its TV ads suggest the cleaners are its employees and that the countdown timer “has any impact on any individual user’s choice to read the terms in as much detail as they choose.” The company said it limits how many vouchers it sells in each state and to ensure it has “adequate supply to match demand,” it uses a countdown timer while noting the limited supply.

“The countdown timer is not there to create a false sense of urgency,” Homeaglow said.

The company said that while some ads focus on the price of the first cleaning, others talk about membership costs, pointing to a May 2024 Instagram post as “an example of an ad that discusses the membership model and its savings in detail.”

But, Homeaglow added:

Regardless of what shows in the ad, all users must first go to our landing page (where all the terms and conditions are clearly laid out), and then approve membership terms, the cancellation policy, and the entire terms of service before they redeem a voucher and purchase a membership.

“We disclose all terms before customers purchase a voucher,” the company said.

Homeaglow stressed that cleaners set their own rates, which is why, the company said, it is unable to show the “exact price” of the early cancelation fee.

The fee is based on the actual cost of the first cleaning without our membership discount or voucher. Since cleaners set their own rates and customers choose their cleaners, we are not able to determine the actual cost until after the cleaning happens.

But there are also fees for those who chose to continue with their membership beyond the first cleaning, the company acknowledged.

For a ForeverClean member, Homeaglow charges two fees per cleaning session after the first hyper-discounted cleaning: the payment to the cleaner and a transaction fee. The transaction fee offsets the costs of maintaining our marketplace – things like vetting our service providers. We split these charges in a customer’s account to provide transparency to our customers so they know exactly how much the cleaner is earning versus Homeaglow.

But where’s the transparency in the marketing and when consumers are checking out? TINA.org did not find this “transaction fee” disclosed in any of the ads it reviewed or anywhere in the checkout process.

Finally, Homeaglow said it takes consumer complaints about the cleaners on its platform seriously and investigates as needed. The company said consumers are not charged if the cleaner doesn’t show up and, if a cleaner leaves early, the customer can get a refund. Homeaglow said customers can cancel memberships through their user profile or by emailing customer support and that it regrets if “anyone who wanted to cancel found it difficult.”

The bottom line

While Homeaglow claims – in ads like the one at the top of this post – that it will clean your entire home, including the interior and exterior of refrigerators and ovens, windows and laundry, for just $19, there is much more information consumers need to be aware of before signing up.

And if you want to learn more about this type of subscription plan, you can read about negative-option offers here.