How much to charge for commercial cleaning has no market answer, because the two figures that decide it, your wage market and your production rates, are local to you. What there is instead is a method that produces a number you can defend, and defending the number is most of the job when a facilities manager comes back and asks for ten per cent off. Below is the method with an example worked through, which is the same arithmetic the free sheet on this site performs.
How to price janitorial services: area to hours, hours to cost
Take cleanable area by space type, apply your production rate for each, add the fixed time per visit that does not scale, and multiply by visits per month. That gives monthly hours. Multiply by a loaded hourly cost: the wage plus the employer's payroll tax and insurance, not the wage alone. Federal employer FICA is 7.65% of wages before any state unemployment or workers' compensation, so a $19 wage is already over $20 before your state is considered.
How to charge for commercial cleaning what the labor line does not cover
Supplies and consumables, at cost per visit or as a stated monthly allowance. Equipment cost per visit, being the replacement cost of machines spread over the jobs they will do. Travel, priced defensibly rather than guessed: the IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile for the second half of 2026, and 72.5 cents for the first half. And overhead per paid hour, which is your fixed monthly costs divided by the hours you actually bill.
How much to charge for commercial cleaning: divide, then sanity-check per square foot
Monthly price is monthly cost divided by one minus your target margin, with any processing fee taken off the same side. Then divide the price by the cleanable area to get your figure per square foot, and compare that against what you know of the market. If it sits well above, look at your production rates before you cut the margin, because the rate is usually where the difference actually lives.
Other questions people ask
How much do commercial cleaners charge per hour?
The hourly figure is an output, not an input. Two contractors charging the same hour can be wildly apart on profitability depending on their production rates.
Should I charge less for a bigger building?
Per square foot, usually yes, because fixed time is spread further. Per hour, no. Let the arithmetic produce the discount rather than offering one.
What margin should commercial cleaning carry?
Enough to cover your drawings, tax, equipment replacement and the accounts that go bad. Pick it deliberately and apply it by division.
How much should I charge for office cleaning a week?
There is no market answer, because your wage market and your production rates are local to you. Work out the monthly hours from cleanable area and your own rates, cost them at a loaded wage, add supplies, equipment and travel, divide by one minus your margin, and spread that monthly price across the visits.
Is there a commercial cleaning pricing guide worth using?
For the structure, yes; for the numbers, no. A published guide encodes somebody else's wage market, production rates and overhead, so its figure per square foot is unwinnable where cleaners are paid more than yours and unprofitable where they are paid less. Use a guide to check that you have not forgotten a cost line, and take every number from a building you already clean.
Why are commercial cleaning rates per hour a poor way to compare two bids?
Because the hourly figure is an output rather than an input. Two contractors quoting the same hour can be far apart on profitability depending on their production rates, and the cheaper hour may simply be planning fewer hours than the building needs. Compare the monthly price, the specification and the hours behind it, in that order.