Commercial cleaning pricing is expressed in three currencies and they are not interchangeable: per square foot, per hour, and per month. The monthly figure is what the customer buys. The per-square-foot figure is what makes bids comparable. The hourly figure is what tells you whether you can staff it. A rate card is useful only if it can produce all three from the same underlying arithmetic, which means it has to start from hours rather than from a published rate.
Why a downloaded pricing chart cannot price your work
A janitorial pricing chart encodes somebody else's wage market, production rates and overhead. In a city where cleaners earn several dollars an hour more than yours, their rate per square foot is unwinnable for you; where they earn less, it is unprofitable. The structure of these charts transfers perfectly and the numbers do not, which is the same thing that is true of residential price lists.
Building your own rate, per space type
Take a building you clean now and profitably. Split the cleanable area by type. Record the hours actually spent on each type across several visits. Divide to get production rates. Load your wage with the employer costs. You now have a cost per square foot per space type, and the price is that divided by one minus your margin. Two afternoons of this produces a rate card that will outlast every chart on the internet.
Frequency, and the mistake of pricing it linearly
Five nights a week is not five times the cost of one night. Fixed time per visit, setup, travel and lock-up, does not scale, so a daily contract is cheaper per visit than a weekly one and your card should say so. Pricing frequency linearly makes you expensive on daily work, which is the work with the best route economics, and cheap on infrequent work, which is the work with the worst.
Questions people ask about commercial cleaning pricing
What is a typical commercial cleaning rate per square foot?
Published ranges vary so widely by market, space type and frequency that quoting one here would mislead. Derive yours from a building you already service.
Should I publish my commercial rates?
Generally no. Commercial pricing depends on the walkthrough, and a published rate invites comparison against specifications that are not yours.
How often should commercial rates be reviewed?
Annually, with an escalation clause in the contract so the review is expected rather than negotiated.