Compare the top window cleaning franchises for 2026 — Window Genie, Fish Window Cleaning, Shine, Window Gang, Shack Shine — on FDD investment, fees, royalty, and Item 19.
Quick answer Window cleaning franchises run $92,050 to $305,683 in total investment with franchise fees of $40,000 to $65,000 and royalties of 5 to 8 percent. Window Genie reports a $386,484 median revenue across 94 units per the 2026 FDD; Shack Shine reports $359,378. Most brands need 3 to 5 trucks to clear six-figure owner income.
Window cleaning is one of the few home services categories where the capital requirement stayed reasonable while the recurring-revenue mechanics stayed intact. Below is every window cleaning franchise in our FDD database with more than 40 franchised units, compared on the figures that decide whether the deal works.
| Brand | Total Investment (Item 7) | Franchise Fee | Royalty | Item 19 Revenue | Franchised Units | FDD Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Window Genie | $136,064–$305,683 | $40,000 | 7% + 2% ad fund | $386,484 median (94 units) | 103 | 2026 |
| Fish Window Cleaning | $111,900–$179,900 | $59,900 | 5–8% + 1% ad fund | Discloses FPR, 252 outlets, no median published | 275 | 2026 |
| Shine | $141,570–$203,095 | $49,900 | 7% + 2% ad fund | Discloses FPR, 69 units, no median published | 75 | 2026 |
| Window Gang | $138,600–$246,500 | $65,000 | 6% + 2% ad fund | $161,779 median (45 units) | 52 | 2026 |
| Shack Shine | $92,050–$182,200 | $60,000 | 6% | $359,378 median, $481,369 average (40 units) | 44 | 2025 |
Every figure above comes from the brand’s most recent FDD. Note what changed against older comparison articles in this category: franchise fees have moved up sharply. Window Gang now charges $65,000, Shack Shine $60,000, and Fish Window Cleaning $59,900. Window Genie, at $40,000, is now the cheapest fee in the category while carrying the highest investment ceiling.
Total investment runs $92,050 to $305,683 depending on brand and territory size. The spread inside a single brand matters as much as the spread between brands. Window Genie’s Item 7 range is $169,619 wide, which reflects territory population, vehicle count, and whether the franchisee buys or leases the fleet.
A realistic cost stack for a single-truck launch:
The equipment line is the reason this category exists as a value proposition. A complete window cleaning truck costs roughly half what a plumbing or restoration truck costs, and there is no master-license holder to hire. Compare that against the best home services franchises under 100k and the best painting franchises, where average tickets run higher but equipment and licensing carry more weight.
Window Genie is the Neighborly-owned brand and the category’s most-searched name. Per the 2026 FDD, total investment is $136,064–$305,683 with a $40,000 franchise fee, a 7% royalty, and a 2% ad fund contribution. The system has 103 franchised units and no company-owned locations.
The Item 19 is the most informative in the category. Across 94 franchised units in operation 12 months or more with a full 52 weeks of reported gross sales during calendar year 2025, Window Genie reports a $386,484 median, a $130,448 25th percentile, and a $976,943 75th percentile. That 7.5x spread between bottom and top quartile is the single most important number in this article. It says brand selection explains far less about outcomes than territory, truck count, and operator quality.
The service mix explains the upside. Window Genie franchisees sell window cleaning alongside pressure washing, gutter cleaning, window tinting, and holiday lighting. Cross-sell into pressure washing from an existing window customer exceeds 35% in most markets, which raises revenue per customer without raising customer acquisition cost. If your plan is a single truck doing windows only, model against the bottom quartile, not the median.
Fish Window Cleaning is the largest window cleaning system in our database at 275 franchised units, and it has franchised since 1998. Per the 2026 FDD, total investment is $111,900–$179,900 with a $59,900 franchise fee. The royalty is structured as 5% to 8% of the greater of gross sales or an applicable minimum performance standard, plus a 1% ad fund contribution on the same basis.
That minimum performance standard is the clause to read twice. It means royalty is owed on a floor whether or not you hit it, which changes the risk profile of a slow first year materially versus a straight percentage-of-sales royalty.
Fish discloses a financial performance representation covering 252 franchised outlets, but no median figure is published in the disclosure our extraction captured. Given the system size, 252 reporting outlets is a large validation pool. Use it: call 8 to 10 franchisees and build your own distribution rather than relying on the franchisor’s summary.
Fish is the strongest commercial-focused brand in the category. Residential is secondary. Successful operators build account books through systematic B2B sales to property managers, facility managers, and multi-site retail operations.
Shine (Shine Development LLC) carries a $141,570–$203,095 investment range with a $49,900 franchise fee, a 7% royalty, and a 2% ad fund per the 2026 FDD. The system has 75 franchised units and no company-owned locations, up from a 2010 founding.
Shine discloses a financial performance representation covering 69 franchised units open for the full twelve-month measurement period in fiscal 2025, though no median was captured in the published summary. A 69-of-75 reporting rate is high, which is a good sign: brands that exclude most of their system from the Item 19 usually do so because the excluded units look worse.
Shine’s positioning sits between Window Genie’s broad multi-service model and a pure window-cleaning operation. The investment range is narrower than Window Genie’s, which usually signals more standardized territory sizing and less variance in what you actually sign up for.
Window Gang reports $138,600–$246,500 total investment, a $65,000 franchise fee, a 6% royalty, and a 2% ad fund per the 2026 FDD, across 52 franchised units.
The Item 19 is where buyers should slow down. Window Gang reports a $161,779 median across 45 franchised units open the entire fiscal year 2025. That is the lowest disclosed median in the category, paired with the highest franchise fee. A $65,000 fee against a $161,779 median revenue is a materially different return-on-fee profile than Window Genie’s $40,000 fee against a $386,484 median.
There may be a good explanation. Window Gang units may skew newer, territories may be smaller, or the reporting cohort may include recent openings. Those are exactly the questions to put to the franchise development team and to existing franchisees. Do not accept a brand’s growth story as a substitute for the disclosed number.
Shack Shine is the O2E Brands entry (same parent as 1-800-GOT-JUNK) and has the lowest floor in the category at $92,050, running to $182,200, with a $60,000 franchise fee and a 6% royalty per the 2025 FDD. The system has 44 franchised units.
Shack Shine’s Item 19 covers all 40 franchised units for calendar year 2024 and reports $359,378 median with a $481,369 average. The gap between median and average tells you a handful of high performers pull the mean up, which is normal in route businesses and consistent with what Window Genie’s quartiles show.
The trade-off at Shack Shine is fee-to-investment ratio. A $60,000 franchise fee inside a $92,050 minimum investment means roughly two-thirds of the entry-level deal is the fee itself, leaving comparatively little for truck, marketing, and working capital. Buyers taking the low end of that range should verify they are not underfunding the launch.
Commercial window cleaning runs on different mechanics than residential:
Fish Window Cleaning is the clear commercial leader on system depth. Window Gang and Shine both handle commercial work alongside residential. The economics favor owners with B2B sales experience or existing commercial property relationships. Buyers from purely consumer-services backgrounds routinely underestimate the pipeline-building requirement and run out of working capital before the account book matures.
Residential is the higher-volume, lower-ticket half of the category:
Window Genie, Shack Shine, and Shine all operate primarily residential. Window Genie’s broader service mix (pressure washing, gutter cleaning, holiday lighting) is the main reason its median sits above the category. Holiday lighting in particular converts a dead December into a revenue month, which matters more in northern territories than most pro formas acknowledge. Cash-flow planning across a seasonal service business is covered in franchise seasonality revenue planning.
Working from the disclosed medians rather than franchisor projections:
Run the median through the margin range and a typical unit produces $65,000 to $108,000 in operating income before debt service and before paying yourself a salary. That is a real business, but it is not the $200,000-plus owner income that franchise brochures imply, and it is not achievable on one truck. Every owner earning at that level in this category is running four or more trucks with disciplined route geography. For the full method on turning an Item 19 into a defensible model, see build pro forma from Item 19 and franchise unit economics analysis.
💼 Validate any window cleaning franchise FDD before signing. Our $49 brand reports surface the full Item 19 distribution, route density assumptions, and the operational gotchas (seasonal cash flow, technician retention, commercial sales cycles) that brochures gloss over. See available window cleaning franchise reports →
Window cleaning rarely produces the highest absolute revenue in home services. It often produces the strongest return on invested capital. A $140,000 investment reaching a $386,484 median at 20-plus percent margins compares favorably against categories where revenue scales higher but the capital to get there is two to four times greater and the licensing burden is real.
The counterargument is the ceiling. A well-run plumbing or restoration franchise can reach $2M-plus per unit. Window cleaning tops out near $1M per territory in the disclosed data. If your goal is a large single-location business, this is the wrong category. If your goal is capital-efficient cash flow you can scale by adding territories, it deserves more consideration than most franchise comparisons give it.
For adjacent categories, see the home services franchise guide 2026 and best pressure-washing-adjacent picks in best mobile van based franchises. Territory geography is decisive here and is covered in franchise territory analysis market evaluation.
If you have $136,000 to $300,000 and want the broadest service mix with the best-disclosed Item 19, Window Genie is the validated default. It also has the lowest franchise fee in the category at $40,000.
If your target customer is commercial accounts, Fish Window Cleaning is the deepest system at 275 franchised units. Read the minimum-performance-standard royalty clause carefully before you sign.
If you want the lowest entry point, Shack Shine starts at $92,050 with a $359,378 median across 40 units, though the $60,000 fee consumes most of the low-end range.
If you are evaluating Window Gang, reconcile the $65,000 franchise fee against the $161,779 disclosed median before proceeding.
Whatever brand you pick, the success pattern in window cleaning is consistent: build route density aggressively, cross-sell beyond windows where the brand supports it, treat recurring contract retention as the primary revenue driver, and reach 3 to 5 trucks by Year 3. Validate at least 6 existing franchisees during discovery, with at least 3 in markets demographically similar to yours, and ask every one of them where they landed inside the quartile spread.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Total investment runs $92,050 to $305,683 across the five verified brands. Shack Shine starts lowest at $92,050 (2025 FDD) and Window Genie tops out highest at $305,683 (2026 FDD). Franchise fees range from $40,000 at Window Genie to $65,000 at Window Gang. Budget an extra $15,000–$35,000 per additional service truck beyond the Item 7 range.
Shack Shine has the lowest floor at $92,050 total investment per the 2025 FDD, followed by Fish Window Cleaning at $111,900 and Window Genie at $136,064. Cheap entry does not mean cheap fees, though. Shack Shine's franchise fee is $60,000, higher than Window Genie's $40,000. Compare the fee and the royalty separately from the Item 7 range.
The two brands disclosing medians report $359,378 (Shack Shine, 40 units, 2024) and $386,484 (Window Genie, 94 units, 2025). At 18–28% net operating margin, a median unit produces roughly $65,000–$108,000 before debt service. Owners clearing $200,000 or more are running 4–6 trucks with strong route density, not single-truck operations.
Window Genie's 2026 FDD reports $386,484 median revenue across 94 units, with the 25th percentile at $130,448 and the 75th percentile at $976,943. A median unit at 20–25% net margin returns $77,000–$97,000 before debt service and owner salary. Top-quartile owners running multiple trucks clear $200,000 or more. The 7.5x quartile spread is the number to interrogate at discovery.
Fish Window Cleaning is the category's largest system at 275 franchised units and the deepest commercial-account operator, franchising since 1998. Investment is $111,900–$179,900 with a $59,900 franchise fee and a 5–8% royalty tied to a minimum performance standard per the 2026 FDD. It discloses an Item 19 across 252 outlets but publishes no median, so validate revenue with franchisees directly.
No. Window cleaning requires no state contractor license in most jurisdictions, and franchisor training runs one to three weeks. The owner's job is sales, hiring, dispatch, and retention, not climbing ladders. Buyers from operations, retail, or service-business management backgrounds transition fastest. Commercial-focused brands like Fish Window Cleaning favor owners with B2B sales experience.
Most residential-focused units reach cash-flow breakeven between months 6 and 14. Commercial-focused operations take 9–18 months because property-manager sales cycles run 30–90 days and contract sizes build over time. Year 2 is where recurring contract revenue compounds. Window Genie's $130,448 bottom quartile is roughly what a first-year single-truck unit looks like.
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