Cleaning businesses have recorded a 77 percent increase in their share of new sole trader sign-ups over the past five years, according to fresh data from sole trader platform Rounded, which analysed the industries reported by thousands of users who joined the platform between 2021 and 2026.
The analysis found that physical and in-person industries – including cleaning, construction, health and fitness and trades – rose from 18.3 percent of new users in 2021 to 28.3 percent in 2026. Health and fitness grew 75 percent as a share of sign-ups, IT consulting climbed 54 percent and construction gained 46 percent, marking a clear move towards mobile and physical service businesses among Australia’s growing sole trader population.
Creative and content occupations, by comparison, fell from 44.7 percent of new users in 2021 to 30.4 percent in 2026. Writing and journalism dropped 58 percent (blasphemy!), graphic design fell 35 percent and web design declined 32 percent over the same period.
Rounded co-founder Oliver Garside said in a statement the changing profile of new sign-ups reflected a broader change in who is starting a small business in Australia. “A new Rounded user is just as likely to be someone who cleans, runs a personal training business or does construction work,” he said.
New businesses, changing faces
Garside noted that the sole trader population turns over quickly, with businesses on the platform running for a median of two years and three months from sign-up to their final use of the software, meaning the overall user base can look markedly different within just a few years. Rounded found two distinct periods of decline in creative sign-ups, one between 2021 and late 2022 and a second, smaller fall from early 2025, suggesting the change has not followed a single steady pattern.
“There’s no such thing as a typical Rounded customer anymore, if there ever really was one,” Garside said. “We’d rather build for who’s actually signing up than who used to.”
The growing number of mobile and physical businesses on the platform prompted Rounded to launch a kilometre-tracking app designed to support tradespeople and other mobile workers who travel for their work.
For cleaning operators, the data offers a useful signal that theirs is one of the fastest growing corners of the sole trader economy, at a time when many small operators are weighing up the costs and logistics of running a mobile service business.
