Commercial Cleaning Prices in 2026: Guides Say $25 to $50 an Hour, and How to Bid a Job

Price from labor hours, because guides use different units

Add up the cleaning minutes, multiply by what an hour of labor costs you, and divide by 0.64, because we assume labor is 64 percent of the price. A labor hour is one person working one hour. For the made-up 4,000 square foot office below, cleaned three nights a week, at an assumed labor cost of $24 an hour, that comes to $853 a month with a 12-inch upright vacuum and $609 with a backpack vacuum.

Guides list other numbers. Jobber's pricing guide, last updated April 22, 2026, says most businesses charge $25 to $50 an hour, and Jani-King's September 2025 guide says $25 to $50 for each cleaner. Per square foot, ISSA's December 2025 guide lists $0.09 to $0.17 for general office cleaning. ISSA is a trade association for the cleaning industry.

ISSA does not say whether its range is per month, per visit, or per year. Its formula is a monthly cost divided by cleanable square feet, the floor you actually clean, and its example is $12,000 a month on 100,000 square feet, so we read the range as a price per square foot per month for a big building.

The trouble with copying a range is the unit. Multiplying each printed range by 5,000 square feet shows how far apart they land:

Even with the unit settled, Housecall Pro's $2,000 to $4,000 a month for weekly cleaning of 5,000 square feet is five times Jani-King's $400 to $800 for the same size and schedule. Small offices run higher per square foot. Nilfisk says "Larger buildings typically cost less per square foot because of efficiency gains."

Routine janitorial work and periodic work are priced differently

Companies that separate the two words do it by how often the work happens. Nilfisk says janitorial services "focus on routine, day-to-day cleaning tasks" and commercial cleaning involves "deeper, less frequent tasks." A Jan-Pro regional developer draws the same line and says the terms "are often used interchangeably."

Routine janitorial work is a flat monthly price built from labor hours, and the rest of this post is about that. Periodic work, like carpet cleaning and floor stripping, is priced per job, and the machine and chemicals belong in that number. ISSA says such tasks "fall outside routine janitorial services and are priced separately." Printed prices:

Quote periodic work as its own line, not inside the monthly price. Our guides to carpet cleaning pricing and window cleaning pricing cover those two jobs. If you also clean houses, house cleaning pricing covers that side.

ISSA's cleaning times tell you the labor hours for each task

Labor hours come from a production rate: how many square feet one person cleans in an hour doing one task. ISSA publishes those times. Its formula: square feet to clean, divided by the square feet per hour for the task, times 60, gives minutes.

The full book costs $50 to $150, so we used only what is free: the worked examples in ISSA's own article, the vacuum times in a 2018 history of the book by consultant Mickey Crowe on ISSA's Korea site, and the 540 edition table (2009) that the janitorial supplier Parish Supply publishes. The history gives those two times from the 1999 edition and says the 612 edition (2014) "continues to support the same times" for them. It names only the 12-inch upright and the backpack, so those are the two vacuum times we could confirm at ISSA. The 540 table lists 32 times for vacuuming carpet, from 4.00 to 26.80 minutes per 1,000 square feet. ISSA's 2022 article calls an April 2021 release its latest edition, so other rows may differ.

The damp mop and restroom rows come from ISSA's 2022 article, and the other rows from the 540 table.

ISSA calls its times "a benchmark," so time your own crew. Ben Walker, who compiled the 612 edition, has you time a 1,000 square foot area three to five times and average it. He also says to apply the times to your cleanable square footage, the floor you actually clean, and that this is typically about 55 percent of a building's total.

Our example 4,000 square foot office takes 105 minutes a visit

Take a small office cleaned three nights a week. At the walkthrough, ZenMaid's cleaning business mentor says to note the square footage, the floor types, the scope of work, and how often you will clean. Our example office:

• 4,000 square feet in all: 3,000 of carpet and 1,000 of hard floor
• Cleanable floor at Walker's 55 percent: 1,650 square feet of carpet and 550 of hard floor
• 12 wastebaskets, 6 restroom fixtures, 400 square feet of desks and counters, and 1 glass front door
• Paper, soap, and liners paid for by the client, which Griffin, a cleaning consultant, calls the safest approach
• 13 visits a month (3 nights × 52 weeks ÷ 12 months)

ISSA's times are per 1,000 square feet, so 1,650 square feet is 1.65 in the math.

That is 1.75 hours a visit, or 2,286 square feet per labor hour across the whole building.

BSCAI, the association of building service contractors, gives an example of 2,500 square feet per labor hour for a 25,000 square foot medical facility. Swept, software for janitorial companies, lists 3,000 to 4,000 for a standard office. Our office is slower than Swept's range because we used the 12-inch upright, the slowest of the 32 carpet-vacuum times in the 540 table, and it takes 44 of the 105 minutes. The next section swaps in two faster vacuums.

This is the nightly work inside the building. Add travel to the site, which Swept counts as non-billable time, and dusting and other weekly or monthly tasks at their own frequency.

Our example office bids at $853 a month, $66 a visit, or $37.50 an hour

The price is labor hours, times what an hour of labor costs you, divided by labor's share of the price.

The $24 and the 0.64 are our assumptions, not published figures.

Assumption: $24 an hour. The BLS puts the median wage for janitors and building cleaners at $17.71 an hour in May 2025. Its June 2026 release for all private workers says wages are 80.0 percent of what a part-time worker costs an employer and 68.5 percent for a full-time one, so that wage really costs you $22.14 to $25.85 an hour, workers' compensation included. We picked $24, between the two. Use your local wage.

Assumption: labor is 64 percent of the price. The rest is supplies and equipment at 6 percent, overhead at 15 percent, and profit at 15 percent. The published ranges around those splits:

• Swept's guide uses about 70 percent of the price for labor and supplies and 30 percent for overhead and profit.
• BSCAI's David Murphy says labor is roughly 50 to 80 percent of the price and typical margins run 8 to 30 percent.
• Cleaning consultant William Griffin put supplies near 4 percent and equipment at 2 in 2011, and typical overhead on small and medium accounts at 10 to 18 percent, with up to 25 seen.

Divide by 0.64 and do not multiply labor by 1.36: the 36 percent is a share of the price, not a markup on labor, so $546 × 1.36 gives $743 and leaves you short.

The same bid, four ways:

• $853 a month
• $66 a visit ($853 ÷ 13)
• $37.50 an hour ($24 ÷ 0.64), inside the $25 to $50 an hour range
• $0.21 a square foot a month on all 4,000 square feet, or $0.39 on the 2,200 cleanable. Both are above ISSA's $0.09 to $0.17, Nilfisk's $0.15 to $0.20 for small offices, and Jobber's $0.05 to $0.15 for offices, and inside Jobber's $0.10 to $0.40 for small offices (units not stated). Guides disagree on which square feet to count: Housecall Pro and ISSA's formula say cleanable, while ISSA's intro and Nilfisk say the building's total.

The vacuum you use moves our example bid from $853 to $609

Vacuuming is 44 of the 105 minutes because the 12-inch upright is the slowest of the 32 carpet-vacuum times in the 540 table. The same table lists a 16-inch upright at 14.20 minutes per 1,000 square feet and a backpack vacuum with a 12-inch tool at 8.25. Same office, same 15 percent profit:

A crew with a backpack vacuum can quote $609 and keep the same 15 percent. Quote $853 with the slowest machine in the table and you are 40 percent above them; quote $683 with a 16-inch upright and you are 12 percent above. Time your own vacuum on 1,000 square feet before you bid, because it moves the price more than any other line.

Quote one monthly price, and keep the hourly and per-visit rates for extras

Give the client one monthly price and a written list of tasks and how often. ZenMaid's mentor says not to hand over a breakdown of hours but to "simply give them the total monthly charge." ISSA tells buyers to ask for a proposal that "lists tasks, frequencies, and cleaning standards" and to "Look for pricing breakdowns," so expect some clients to ask for more than one number. Swept and Housecall Pro both suggest offering service levels if the client wants to choose.

Keep the other forms for where they fit:

• Hourly is for work you can't scope. Housecall Pro says it fits one-time and irregular work. At the BLS median wage the math above gives about $35 to $40 an hour ($22.14 ÷ 0.64 and $25.85 ÷ 0.64). Supplies, equipment, and overhead take 21 percent of the price in our bid, so break-even at $24 labor is $30.38 an hour ($24 ÷ 0.79) before profit, and at $25 an hour you break even only if your labor costs $19.75 an hour or less.
• Per visit is the price of one added night, from the same hours.
• Per square foot suits recurring office work, say ISSA, Housecall Pro, and Jobber. We still set the price from labor hours and divide by the square feet to see where it lands, because ISSA says the method "becomes less accurate when cleaning needs vary significantly from space to space."

Don't cut the price in proportion to the visits. BSCAI says a building cleaned five days a week "will require a little less time to complete a task" than one cleaned once a week, so half the visits is not half the minutes. Write any added area or added night into the agreement as a written change. Swept says that stops extra requests from quietly eroding your margin.

Guides cite a one-year contract, 30 days' notice, and net 30, but the terms can differ

This is what industry guides say. It is not legal advice, and rules differ by state. Griffin says an attorney should review the wording on any account over a few thousand dollars a month. His clauses to avoid include key loss: "Re-keying a building due to one lost key can run tens of thousands of dollars for a large account."

Length. Griffin's 2016 article says "Normally contracts last for at least one year, but could be any length," and that three- and five-year agreements are also common. Housecall Pro's sample is a 12-month agreement billed monthly, and Swept's contract template offers month-to-month, 6, 12, and 24-month terms. Swept says a defined notice period, commonly 30 days, means neither side can walk without warning.

Payment. Net 30 means the client has 30 days to pay. Swept says "Net 30 with a late fee is standard and fair," and its template also offers Net 15 and due on receipt. Late-fee rules can differ by state, so ask an attorney how to size and word one. Jobber says "When the 30 days begin is up to you," and its example for a weekly cleaner who sends a monthly invoice starts the 30 days when the client receives it.

So write the start date into your terms, then do the cash math. If you invoice at the end of the month on net 30, you will have paid about two months of labor, $1,092 for the office above (2 × $546), before the first $853 arrives. Ask whether the client will pay the month ahead.

Insurance and sales tax change what you quote

Insurance. Insureon publishes the median cost of the policies its small cleaning customers bought, across all cleaning trades, updated October 12, 2026:

A janitorial bond reimburses your client if one of your employees steals, and you pay the insurer back. Insureon says you might need one to sign a contract with a client, that state laws typically require workers' compensation for businesses with employees, and that most states require commercial auto for vehicles a business owns. Ask a licensed agent what your state and your clients require.

Insureon also lists bundles at an average cost: $90 a month for general liability, a janitorial bond, and tools and equipment, $205 with workers' compensation and hired and non-owned auto added, and $590 with workers' compensation, commercial auto, and umbrella insurance added. Spread insurance across all your accounts: the $90 bundle fits inside the $128 of overhead in one $853 bid and leaves $38, but the $205 bundle does not. The $24 already includes workers' compensation at the BLS all-industry average, 0.9 percent of compensation, so any premium above that comes out of overhead.

Sales tax. Some states tax janitorial work. The Texas Comptroller says "Tax is due on the charge to clean a home, office, warehouse, garage, restaurant, or any other building" (Cleaning and Janitorial Services). Pennsylvania's regulation says separately stated employee costs for interior office cleaning "are not taxable if these costs are specifically itemized or listed in aggregate on the invoice" (61 Pa. Code section 60.1). Each 1 percent of tax is $8.53 a month on the $853 bid. This is not tax advice, and rules differ by state, so ask your state tax agency whether to add tax and how to show it on the invoice.

Where ServicePro fits

ServicePro is home services software. It starts with getting you found, so when a client looks up your business there is a website to look at. The Free plan ($0, no card) builds a website from your Google Business Profile with five service pages, a booking page, and a Powered by ServicePro.co badge that stays on. Web forms and bookings reach your inbox. Pro is $99 a month with no contract. It adds 25 town pages and custom booking forms, and the badge becomes optional. Every business can create and send an invoice.

ServicePro does not write quotes or bids, draft contracts, or keep timesheets. Swept lists time tracking, scheduling, and inspections for janitorial crews, so look at it if you need those. Get the free site built.

How this post was made: drafted with AI from the sources linked on this page. Figures and links were checked on October 22, 2026.