How to price commercial cleaning jobs

A property manager asks for a price to wash the outside of a two-story retail building. An office manager wants nightly cleaning three times a week. Both jobs are called commercial cleaning, and both are easy to underprice if you start from a number you read online. This guide builds both prices from your own time and costs, then shows where the published figures land and why they disagree so much.

Two kinds of commercial cleaning

• Exterior building cleaning. Soft washing or pressure washing walls, storefronts, canopies, sidewalks, dumpster pads and parking areas. Usually a one-off or a few times a year. Priced per job.
• Interior office and janitorial cleaning. Trash, restrooms, floors, kitchens and dusting on a weekly schedule. Priced per visit or per month on a contract.

The method is the same for both. Measure the work, apply your production rate to get hours, cost the hours, add materials and travel, then add overhead and profit.

The cost build-up

• Labor. Hours on site plus travel, at the wage plus burden (payroll taxes, workers' comp). For the wage, BLS's May 2025 survey puts the national mean for janitors and cleaners at $18.64 an hour, median $17.71 (BLS OEWS 37-2011). For washing equipment and surfaces, the closest group, cleaners of vehicles and equipment, has a mean of $17.78 and a median of $17.23 (BLS OEWS 53-7061). Both checked October 8, 2026. Your local wage is the one that counts.
• Materials. Chemicals, surfactant, liners, paper goods if you supply them, mop heads and pads.
• Equipment. Pressure washer, surface cleaner, backflow and water recovery gear, vacuums, floor machines. Set aside a fixed amount per job for repair and replacement.
• Access. Lift or boom rental, delivery and pickup, and any permits for blocking a sidewalk or a lane.
• Travel. Drive time and miles. For recurring work, it is the drive on the route, not the drive from home.
• Overhead. Insurance (commercial clients often require higher limits and a certificate naming them), phone, software, vehicle, advertising. Take it as a share of last year's sales.

What the published figures say, and why they disagree

National price guides for commercial cleaning do not agree with each other, and it helps to know why before you lean on any of them.

Sources, all checked October 8, 2026: Housecall Pro's commercial cleaning pricing guide (updated August 13, 2026), Thumbtack commercial cleaning prices (updated March 31, 2026) and Thumbtack pressure washing prices.

Look at Thumbtack's own numbers. A 4,000 to 5,000 square foot space averages $834, which is about $0.17 to $0.21 per square foot. Its 10,000 square foot office example is $210, about $0.02 per square foot. Both can be right. Small one-off cleans carry a minimum, the first deep clean takes far longer than the tenth weekly one, and some figures are per visit while others are per month. That is why a per square foot number on its own is a poor way to price a contract.

Your production rate

Production rate is square feet cleaned per hour. It is the core number in commercial pricing, and it has to be yours.

Thumbtack's 10,000 square foot office example, cleaned in 6 hours, works out to about 1,667 square feet per hour. Treat that as a starting point only. A dental office with six restrooms is slower than an open-plan office with one. For exterior washing, your rate depends on the surface, how dirty it is, whether you can reach it from the ground and how much rinsing and runoff control the site needs.

Time your first few jobs of each type and write the rate down. After a month you will have rates you can quote from.

Worked example: washing a two-story retail building

All inputs are assumptions for the example.

• Building: two stories, about 6,000 square feet of wall, all reachable from the ground with extension wands and a downstream chemical injector. No lift.
• Production rate: 1,000 square feet of wall per hour for a crew of two, so 6 hours on site.
• Setup, runoff control and pack-up: 1 hour. Drive: 1 hour round trip. Total: 8 hours each.
• Wage $17.78, with 20% burden, so $21.34 an hour loaded.
• Chemicals: $80. Drive: 40 miles at $0.76. Equipment wear: $40.
• Overhead plus profit: 35% of the price.

1. Labor: 2 people x 8 hours x $21.34 = $341.44
2. Chemicals: $80
3. Drive: 40 x $0.76 = $30.40
4. Equipment wear: $40
5. Direct cost: $341.44 + $80 + $30.40 + $40 = $491.84
6. Price: $491.84 / 0.65 = $757

That is about $0.13 per square foot of wall. If the building needed a lift, the rental and the delivery go on their own line, plus the slower production rate from the basket. The 76 cents a mile used here is the IRS standard mileage rate for business use from July 1 to December 31, 2026 (72.5 cents from January to June 2026, 70 cents for 2025, per IRS standard mileage rates, checked October 8, 2026). Use your own cost per mile if you know it.

Worked example: a recurring office contract

Again, every input is an assumption for the example.

• Office: 5,000 square feet, cleaned three evenings a week. About 13 visits a month (3 x 52 / 12).
• Production rate: about 1,667 square feet an hour, so 3 hours per visit.
• Wage $18.64, with 20% burden, so $22.37 an hour loaded.
• Supplies: $60 a month. Drive: 10 miles a visit at $0.76. Equipment wear: $30 a month.
• Overhead plus profit: 35% of the price.

1. Labor: 13 visits x 3 hours x $22.37 = $872.43
2. Supplies: $60
3. Drive: 13 x 10 x $0.76 = $98.80
4. Equipment wear: $30
5. Direct cost: $872.43 + $60 + $98.80 + $30 = $1,061.23 a month
6. Price: $1,061.23 / 0.65 = $1,633 a month

That is about $126 a visit, or $0.025 per square foot per visit. It sits near Thumbtack's 10,000 square foot example on a per square foot basis and well below its small-space averages, which is what you would expect for a recurring contract. Quote it as a monthly price, and spell out what is included: which rooms, how often, and who supplies paper goods.

Minimums and first cleans

• Job minimum. Price the smallest job you will take from its labor, drive, supplies and wear, plus overhead and profit, so a single storefront or a small office still pays.
• First clean. The first visit on a new contract often takes two or three times as long. Price it as its own line rather than averaging it into the monthly rate.
• Out of scope. Floor stripping and waxing, carpet extraction and window cleaning are separate services. Housecall Pro's guide lists floor stripping and waxing at $0.30 to $0.80 per square foot and window cleaning at $2 to $7 per pane.

Present good, better, best

Property managers compare bids. Three options from you means they compare your options with each other. See our guide to good, better, best estimates for the idea in full.

• Exterior: Good is the walls and storefront. Better adds the sidewalks and entry. Best adds the dumpster pad and a quarterly schedule at a set price.
• Office: Good is two visits a week. Better is three. Best is three plus a monthly deep clean of floors and kitchen.

Koira estimates send up to three options from your price list, with signature and deposit on the same page, and follow up on day two and day four if nobody answers.

Finding and keeping commercial work

One property manager can control many buildings. On the Front Office plan, Koira's commercial outreach writes to property managers, realtors and HOAs near the towns you work with a short three-email sequence, and replies land in your inbox as leads. Recurring visits can be sold and billed as maintenance plans on the card on file, and crew clock-ins tie each person's hours to the job, so you can check your production rate against what you quoted.

Raising commercial prices

• Put an annual price review in every contract, with the notice period spelled out.
• Compare actual hours on each account with the hours you quoted. An account that always runs long is underpriced.
• When scope grows, such as a new floor, more restrooms or longer hours, requote. Do not absorb it.

See how your business looks to property managers searching for a cleaner with the free AI report, and find more calculators on the free tools page. Koira for cleaning businesses and pressure washing companies shows how the rest of the day runs.

Questions contractors ask