Landscaping and cleaning companies in South Carolina by county

South Carolina had 1,906 landscaping companies with paid employees in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP), NAICS 561730. They employed 13,358 people in the March 2023 pay period and paid $592.6 million in annual payroll.

With a Vintage 2024 population estimate of 5,478,831, that is 3.48 landscaping companies per 10,000 residents. The U.S. rate is 3.45 (117,185 companies for 340.1 million people), so South Carolina sits at the national level.

The same holds for cleaning. The state had 1,084 janitorial and cleaning companies (NAICS 561720), or 1.98 per 10,000, against 1.96 nationally. That code covers both commercial janitorial contractors and residential house cleaning companies with employees. Combined, the two industries had 2,990 establishments and 33,290 employees.

Beaufort County has the highest density in the state: 239 landscaping and cleaning companies, or 11.84 per 10,000 residents, more than twice the state rate of 5.46. Jasper (10.95) and Georgetown (9.09) follow. These coastal counties combine resort communities, second homes and short-term rentals, all of which buy grounds care and cleaning on a schedule.

On raw counts, Greenville (332), Charleston (323) and Horry (318) lead. Horry and Greenville each have 197 landscaping companies, the most in the state, and Charleston has the most cleaning companies at 139.

The mix of the two services also shifts by county. Statewide there are about 1.8 landscaping companies for every cleaning company. Richland County reverses that, with 134 cleaning companies and 100 landscapers, which fits a county with a large base of offices, state agencies, campuses and medical facilities that contract janitorial work. York County leans the other way, with 105 landscapers and 48 cleaning companies, more than two to one.

We flagged counties with at least 25,000 residents whose 2020 to 2024 growth beat the county median (2.75%) and whose combined density was below the state rate of 5.46. Most of the state's suburban growth belts appear on the list.

New subdivisions create demand for both services at once: lawn care for new yards, move-in and recurring house cleaning, and janitorial work for the offices, clinics and stores that follow new rooftops. In these counties the supply of employer firms has not caught up with the population on a per-resident basis.

• Lancaster County: 48 companies, 4.30 per 10,000, population up 16.3%.
• Berkeley County: 113 companies, 4.28 per 10,000, up 15.0% (34,495 more residents).
• Spartanburg County: 175 companies, 4.74 per 10,000, up 12.6% (41,259 more residents).
• Kershaw County: 34 companies, 4.74 per 10,000, up 9.6%.
• Dorchester County: 84 companies, 4.81 per 10,000, up 8.3%.
• York and Anderson counties: 5.05 and 5.06 per 10,000, up 7.5% and 6.6%.

Greenville County's 135 cleaning companies reported 7,764 employees, an average of about 58 per establishment and 39% of all janitorial employment in the state. Charleston's 139 cleaning companies employ 2,781, and Richland's 134 employ 2,035.

The pattern points to a few large commercial janitorial contractors with headquarters or main operations in Greenville. CBP assigns employees to the establishment that reports them, so a contractor that runs crews across several states can show a large workforce in one county. For a residential cleaning company in Greenville, the useful number is the count of competitors (135), not the employment total.

Statewide, cleaning companies average 18.4 employees against 16.1 nationally, while the share with 50 or more employees is lower in South Carolina (0.8% against 3.2%). A few very large firms raise the state average while most companies stay small.

Most are small. Of South Carolina landscaping companies with a published size class, 69.7% had fewer than 5 employees and 15.1% had 5 to 9. Cleaning companies follow a similar shape, with 64.8% under 5 employees.

Annual payroll per employee was $44,363 in landscaping and $24,199 in cleaning, both below the national figures of $51,319 and $30,149. Cleaning payroll per head is low partly because of part-time schedules; CBP counts everyone on payroll in mid-March.

The labor market is competitive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a May 2025 national median wage of $19.27 an hour for grounds maintenance workers and $17.71 for janitors and building cleaners. BLS projects grounds maintenance jobs to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035 and janitorial jobs 2%. It also reports that 20% of grounds maintenance workers are self-employed, a group CBP does not count.

Only three counties had no employer landscaping or cleaning company in 2023: Allendale, Fairfield and Marlboro. Lee, Union, Dillon, Chesterfield and Marion had fewer than 2 per 10,000 residents. Residents and businesses there rely on owner-operators without payroll or on companies based in neighboring counties.

For companies in neighboring counties, these gaps are a service-area decision. Driving time and route density decide whether a recurring account in a thin county is profitable, so it pays to price the travel before marketing there.

In dense markets such as Beaufort, Horry and Charleston, a homeowner or property manager can choose among dozens of companies. Winning there depends on fast quotes, reliable scheduling and a review profile that shows consistency. In growth counties such as Berkeley, Lancaster and Spartanburg, the job is reaching new residents while they are choosing providers for the first time.

Recurring work is the core of both businesses, so the systems that matter most are the ones that keep a schedule full: online quote requests, automated reminders, easy rescheduling and invoicing that does not wait on the office. Monvell builds quoting, scheduling and follow-up systems for service companies, and can turn this county data into a territory plan for your team.

• Compare your county's rate with the state figure of 5.46 per 10,000.
• If you border a high-growth, low-density county, test a service-area expansion with a location page and a small ad budget.
• Track how many quote requests become recurring customers.

Dataset: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023, county file (cbp23co.txt, released June 2025), NAICS 561730 Landscaping Services and 561720 Janitorial Services. Population: Census Bureau Population Estimates Vintage 2024 county file (co-est2024-alldata.csv).

Method: we summed establishments, March employment and annual payroll by county and code and divided establishments by the July 1, 2024 population. State totals include 3 establishments CBP lists as statewide rather than in a county. The U.S. rate sums every county row for each code and divides by the population of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Growth is the 2024 estimate over the April 1, 2020 base, minus one. Size shares use establishments with a published size class (1,844 of 1,906 landscaping and 996 of 1,084 cleaning companies).

Limits: CBP counts employer establishments only; owner-operators with no payroll appear in Census Nonemployer Statistics. Employment is assigned to the reporting establishment, which can concentrate a multi-county contractor's workforce in one county. Carpet and upholstery cleaning (NAICS 561740) and pest control (561710) are excluded. CBP employment is noise-infused and counts full- and part-time staff. Population figures are Vintage 2024; Vintage 2025 has since been released.