How to price commercial cleaning
Commercial office cleaning prices at $0.08 to $0.20 per square foot per month for five nights a week. Medical runs higher, retail lower. Behind every one of those numbers is a production rate of 2,500 to 4,500 sq ft per cleaner per hour.
Bid from hours, present as a monthly price
(Area ÷ production rate) = hours per visit. Hours × visits per month × loaded labour cost, ÷ target labour % , + consumables.
A 6,000 sq ft open-plan office, five nights, two washrooms:
- 6,000 ÷ 3,200 sq ft/hr = 1.9 hours per visit
- Round to 2.0 hours for the washrooms
- 2.0 × 21.7 visits/month = 43.4 hours
- 43.4 × $24 loaded cost = $1,042
- Labour at 55% of revenue: $1,042 ÷ 0.55 = $1,894
- Consumables: $120
- Monthly price: $2,014 — which is $0.34/sq ft… too high.
That result tells you something useful. Either your production rate is too conservative for an open-plan floor, or this is not a five-night building. Re-check at 3,800 sq ft/hr and four nights and you land near $0.16/sq ft, inside the band.
That is how the formula is meant to be used — not to produce a number, but to tell you when your assumptions are wrong.
Price a commercial cleaning job
Your numbers, the formula above. Nothing is sent anywhere — this runs in your browser.
$720 base (6,000 square feet × $0)
This is a starting number, not a bid. Walk the property before you send it.
Production rate is the whole bid
Everything above rests on one number, and published figures are worth very little because buildings differ enormously.
Time yourself. Clean a real floor properly, at the standard you intend to deliver, and divide. Then adjust:
- Open-plan office — fastest
- Cellular offices with many doors — much slower
- Washroom-heavy buildings — slower again, and washrooms are where contracts are lost
- Medical and dental — slowest, highest standard
- Retail with large open floor plates — fast per square foot
What the bid must include
Consumables. Soap, paper, liners, hand towels. Real money, most-omitted line.
Periodic work. Floor machine, carpet extraction, high dusting, window cleaning. Either priced into the monthly or quoted separately — but named.
Supervision. If you will be checking the work, that is time somebody pays for.
Equipment and supplies. Machines, chemicals, replacement parts.
A first deep clean. Separately, at two to three times a routine visit.
The mistakes
Bidding per square foot without an hours model. You will win the bad buildings.
Trusting a published production rate. Time your own.
Forgetting consumables. Straight off your margin, every month, for the contract term.
Underestimating washrooms. They take disproportionate time and they are what a facility manager judges you on.
No annual escalator. Labour costs rise; a three-year contract at a fixed price is a three-year decline in margin. Build in a review.
Running the contract once you win it
Jobber at $49/mo plus $29 per seat handles recurring contracts with monthly invoicing, and its Connect tier adds time tracking — which is what tells you whether your production rate was right. Housecall Pro at $189/mo for five seats adds employee GPS and structured photo reports, the two things that let you manage a night crew you never see. QuoteIQ at $29.99/mo suits an owner-operator with a few small sites.
Questions operators actually ask
How do I price a commercial cleaning contract?
Work from a production rate — square feet one cleaner covers per hour — not from a per-square-foot price. Estimate the hours, multiply by your loaded labour cost, add consumables and margin, then check the result against $0.08 to $0.20 per square foot per month for offices.
What is a production rate?
How many square feet one cleaner can properly clean in an hour, typically 2,500 to 4,500 for offices. It is the single number your whole bid rests on, and it varies enormously with layout, washroom count and standard expected. Time yourself on a real site before trusting a published figure.
Should I charge per square foot or per hour?
Bid a monthly price, calculated from hours. Per square foot is how the client compares you; hours are how you cost it. Show both on the proposal — the monthly figure they will pay, and the hours behind it so they can justify approving it.
Who pays for consumables?
State it either way. Soap, paper, liners and hand towels are real monthly money and the most common omission in a commercial cleaning bid. A competitor's cheaper number may simply have left them out.
How do I price a first deep clean?
Separately, as a one-off, at two to three times a routine visit. Taking on a neglected building at your contract rate means losing money for the first month and being blamed for a standard you inherited.