Stratus Clean Nears 100 Masters, Betting on Smaller Cities

The Milwaukee owners signed their first cleaning customer before they sold a single franchise. It was the company that sold them their office furniture.

That story anchors Stratus Clean's Oct. 27 announcement that the Los Angeles commercial cleaning franchisor now has 97 active master franchise regions and is closing in on 100. It says it is nearly sold out in Canada, plans to enter the United Kingdom next year and is aiming its next U.S. push at secondary and tertiary markets in states from Alabama to Vermont. The company says it has more than 5,000 unit franchisees.

The system has two layers. A master franchisee buys a region, then sells unit franchises to local owners and trains them. Stratus is pitching the smaller-market version hard. "There's a misconception that you have to be in a major metro to build a big business, and our system proves otherwise," said Rob Lancit, its vice president of franchise development.

Tywone Redmond and Darrel McNeal are the proof point. The childhood friends bought the southeast Wisconsin region in August 2023 and opened in January 2024. They now sell about two unit franchises a month, and in January 2026 the territory passed $100,000 in recurring business, according to the company.

"You're paid a month behind, so August's work is paid in September, and that predictability works almost like a line of credit," McNeal said.

That is the appeal in one sentence. It is also the part I would read twice. The release does not spell out who signs the customer contracts in Stratus's system or how money moves between customers, masters and unit owners. In janitorial franchising, that has become the question that matters.

In September, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that Jani-King of Oklahoma's franchisees are employees under federal wage law, largely because the franchisor controlled accounts, billing and pay. A month later, a California appeals court refused to send two SBS Franchising cleaners to arbitration over their misclassification claims. Neither case involves Stratus. Both involve commercial cleaning franchises, the same industry Stratus is selling into.

None of that means smaller cities are a bad bet. Fewer competitors and faster local relationships are real advantages, and Milwaukee's numbers suggest the model can work there. But anyone buying a Stratus master region, or a unit underneath one, should ask the Jani-King question before signing: who owns the customer?

CEO Doug Flaig said the company's focus as it finishes "the road to 100" stays on "franchisee alignment and profitability." The 5,000 unit owners are the ones who will test that promise.