What should a commercial cleaning quote include?
A commercial cleaning quote should include who you are, what you will clean and how often, what you will not clean, the price per visit and per month, the price of extras, your terms, a start date and a place to sign. It is a short document, one or two pages, that a facility manager can forward to their boss without explaining it.
A quote is not a proposal and not a contract. The proposal is the longer document that introduces your company, insurance, references and quality program, usually for larger bids; our guide on commercial cleaning contracts covers proposals and government bids. The contract is what both sides sign once the quote is accepted (use the contract template). Most small commercial accounts, offices under 20,000 sq ft, clinics, retail units, gyms, are won on the quote alone, so it has to do the selling.
| Part | What goes there | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Your company, license and insurance line, client name, site address, quote date, valid-until date | Shows you are a real business and sets a deadline |
| Scope by frequency | Tasks grouped as each visit, weekly, monthly, quarterly | The scope is what you will be judged on |
| Exclusions | Dishes, inside appliances, exterior windows, carpet extraction, biohazard, and so on | Stops “I thought that was included” |
| Price | Per visit, visits per month, monthly total, and what it assumes (sq ft, headcount, supplies) | Managers budget monthly |
| Extras | Priced add-ons: floor stripping, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, post-event cleans | Turns a request into revenue, not an argument |
| Terms | Invoicing, payment days, price review date, cancellation notice, who supplies consumables | Your cash flow depends on it |
| Start date and acceptance | Earliest start, a signature line, and “sign and return or reply to accept” | Makes saying yes easy |
How do you write a quote for a cleaning service without a walkthrough?
You do not: quote a commercial account only after walking it, because the two numbers that drive the price, cleanable square feet and restroom count, cannot be guessed from a phone call. A 20-minute walk also tells you the condition of the building, where the closet and water are, and what the last cleaner got wrong. Use the first call to book the walk and fill in a client intake form with contacts, access and priorities, so you arrive prepared.
Ten questions to ask on the walk
- How many people work here on a normal day, and what hours? (Trash and restroom load, and when you can clean.)
- Which areas are in scope: every floor, or just common areas and restrooms?
- How many restrooms, and how many fixtures in each?
- What floor types: carpet, VCT, polished concrete, tile? Who does periodic floor care now?
- Who supplies paper, soap and liners, you or them?
- Where is the janitor closet, and is there a sink and a locked place for a cart?
- Do you need a key, a code, an alarm procedure, or an escort?
- What went wrong with the last cleaner?
- When do you want to start, and is anyone else quoting?
- What does a good month look like to you?
Measure or ask for cleanable square feet (not gross building area), count the trash points, note the dispensers, and photograph anything unusual: a warehouse mezzanine, a lab, a kitchen. The bid sheet in the contracts guide is a one-page form for all of this; fill it in on site, not in the car. For a printable version with fixture counts and photo prompts, use the commercial cleaning walk through checklist.
How do you set the scope and frequency?
Set the scope as a task list grouped by frequency: tasks done every visit, weekly, monthly and quarterly. Then set the visit frequency the client needs, usually two, three or five visits a week for an office, and you have a scope that both of you can hold each other to.
A frequency matrix for a 3-visit-a-week office
| Area | Every visit | Weekly | Monthly or quarterly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restrooms | Clean and disinfect fixtures, mirrors, dispensers; restock; empty trash; mop | Partitions and walls, grout at urinals | High dusting, vents (monthly) |
| Offices and open areas | Empty trash, spot-clean glass doors, vacuum traffic lanes | Full vacuum, dust clear surfaces, wipe phones and handles | Dust blinds, vents and high surfaces (monthly); carpet extraction (quarterly, extra) |
| Break room | Counters, sink, tables, trash, floor | Outside of appliances, microwave inside | Inside refrigerator (monthly, if in scope) |
| Lobby and corridors | Glass, floor, trash | Furniture, baseboards | Buff or scrub hard floor (monthly, extra) |
Write the scope in the quote exactly as it reads in this table. A scope that says “clean offices” invites complaints; a scope that says “vacuum traffic lanes every visit, full vacuum weekly” is something a night cleaner can be trained on and a manager can check. The office cleaning checklist has a complete task list by area to pull from.
If the client wants a lower price, change frequency before you change the task list. Two visits a week instead of three cuts the monthly price by a third and keeps every visit a full clean. Cutting tasks at the same frequency makes a building look half-cleaned and gets you replaced.
How to quote commercial cleaning from hours to price
Convert the scope to hours per visit, cost the hours with what you really pay plus payroll burden, add supplies, travel and overhead, then add your margin. The result is a price per visit; multiply by visits per month for the monthly figure.
1. Hours per visit
Use a production rate (cleanable square feet per labor hour) or add up task times. ISSA publishes The Official ISSA Cleaning Times, a guidebook of tasks, tools and workloading data the industry uses for exactly this, and our office cleaning prices guide lists typical rates by building type and the hourly and per-square-foot price ranges they produce. For a general office with mixed open areas and private rooms, many companies start from a planning assumption of roughly 2,500 to 3,500 sq ft per hour and then correct it with their own timed visits; restrooms, kitchens and cluttered desks pull it down.
2. Labor cost
Use your real wage, not an average. For reference, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics put the median hourly wage for janitors and cleaners at $17.71 in May 2025; in most metro areas you will need to pay more than the median to keep people. Then add your payroll burden: employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and liability insurance. Get the real percentage from your payroll provider and insurance agent; 20 to 25% is a common planning figure, not a rule.
3. Supplies, travel and overhead
- Supplies: chemicals, cloths, liners (if you supply them). Track what an account actually uses; in our worked example we plan on about 5% of labor for an office account, more if you also supply paper and soap.
- Travel: the IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile for July 1 to December 31, 2026 (72.5 cents for the first half of the year). Use it for the vehicle, and add the cleaner’s drive time at the loaded wage when the account is small or out of the way.
- Overhead: software, phone, insurance, your time. Work out your own share from last year’s books; the example below uses 12% on top of direct costs.
4. Margin
Divide cost by (1 minus your target margin). A 20% margin means cost ÷ 0.80. Below 15% there is no room for a callback or a sick cleaner.
The commercial cleaning calculator does these four steps with your numbers and prints the per-visit, monthly and per-square-foot results.
A worked commercial cleaning quote, line by line
Here is an 8,000 sq ft office, three visits a week, priced from a walkthrough. The numbers are hypothetical; swap in yours.
Inputs from the walk
- 8,000 cleanable sq ft, 28 staff, two restrooms with 7 fixtures total, one break room, carpet with VCT in the lobby.
- Client supplies paper and soap; you supply chemicals, cloths and liners.
- 12 miles round trip from your last account; 20 minutes of drive time.
- You pay $19 an hour; burden 22%, so $23.18 an hour loaded.
The math
- Hours per visit: 8,000 ÷ 3,000 sq ft per hour = 2.67 hours.
- Labor: 2.67 × $23.18 = $61.89.
- Supplies at 5% of labor: $3.10.
- Travel: 12 miles × $0.76 = $9.12, plus 20 minutes of drive time at $23.18 an hour = $7.73. Total $16.85.
- Direct cost per visit: $61.89 + $3.10 + $16.85 = $81.84.
- Overhead at 12%: $9.82. Cost per visit: $91.66.
- Margin 20%: $91.66 ÷ 0.80 = $114.58. Round to $115 per visit.
- Visits per month: 3 × 52 ÷ 12 = 13. Monthly price: $1,495.
- Sanity check: $115 ÷ 8,000 sq ft = $0.0144 per sq ft per visit, a little above the $0.0108 office example in the prices guide because of the higher wage and the travel line, which is what you would expect for a smaller account.
How it reads on the quote
Janitorial service, 8,000 sq ft, 3 visits per week (Mon, Wed, Fri after 6 p.m.): $115 per visit, 13 visits per month, $1,495 per month. Includes chemicals, cloths and liners. Client supplies restroom paper and soap. Optional: monthly VCT buff, lobby, $140; quarterly carpet extraction, open areas, $480.
If the manager says the budget is $1,200, offer two visits a week at $115 each: 8.67 visits a month, $997, with the same full scope each visit. You keep your margin and they get a real choice. Write the quote with the estimate template, or, when the account is large enough to need a cover letter and references, the proposal template.
Commercial cleaning quote template: what goes on the page
A commercial cleaning quote template is a fixed layout you fill in for every account, so no quote leaves without its exclusions, terms and acceptance line. Here is the layout, with sample wording you can adapt.
- Header. Logo, company name, address, phone, email, license number if your state issues one, “Insured: general liability $1M / janitorial bond $10,000” (your real figures). Client company, contact name, site address. Quote number, date, “Valid for 30 days”.
- Service summary. One sentence: “Janitorial service for 8,000 sq ft office at 120 Main St, three evenings per week, starting December 1, 2026.”
- Scope by frequency. The matrix from above, as bullet lists under “Every visit”, “Weekly”, “Monthly”, “Quarterly”.
- Not included. “Dishes; inside of appliances except as listed; exterior windows; carpet extraction and floor stripping except as priced below; clean-up after construction or flooding; biohazard.”
- Price. Per visit, visits per month, monthly total, and the assumptions: square feet, headcount, who supplies consumables. State that the price is reviewed annually.
- Optional services. Each priced per occurrence.
- Terms. “Invoiced monthly in advance (or in arrears), net 15. Either party may cancel with 30 days’ written notice. Access: key and alarm code provided by client; our staff are background-checked. Client to report any issue within 24 hours and we will correct it at no charge on the next visit.”
- Acceptance. “To accept, sign below or reply ‘approved’ to this email. Earliest start date: ___.” Signature lines for both parties.
Keep it to two pages. Put the price on page one. Facility managers compare three quotes side by side, and the one they understand in a minute wins the shortlist. If you send a lot of quotes, quote software keeps the layout fixed, tracks who has opened what, and turns an accepted quote into the recurring schedule without retyping it.
How should you present a commercial cleaning quote?
Present it in person or on a short call the day after the walkthrough, then send the PDF while you are still talking. A quote that arrives as an email attachment with no conversation is judged on price alone; a quote you walk someone through is judged on whether they trust you to fix problems.
A five-minute presentation
- Repeat what they told you went wrong with the last cleaner, and point to the line in the scope that prevents it.
- Walk through the frequency matrix: “every visit this, weekly this, monthly this”.
- Give the monthly price, then the per-visit price, then what it assumes.
- Offer the second option (fewer visits) without being asked.
- Ask for the start date: “If we start on the 1st, I would do the first clean myself with the lead cleaner. Does that work?”
When they say the price is higher than the others
- Ask what the other quote includes, visit by visit. Many low quotes are two visits a week described as “three times weekly service” with trash-only visits.
- Show the hours: “This building takes 2.7 hours a visit done properly. At $X a visit, a cleaner would have 1.5 hours. That is what you had before.”
- Offer the lower-frequency option, not a lower rate per visit. Your rate is your cost structure; the frequency is their budget.
- Never cut the price on the spot. Say you will check the numbers and reply tomorrow, then decide in daylight.
Good, better, best pricing works here too: the base quote, the base plus monthly floor care, and the base plus floor care plus quarterly carpet extraction and window cleaning. The middle option gives the buyer a way to say yes to more without feeling upsold.
How do you follow up on a commercial cleaning quote?
Follow up on day 3, day 10 and day 30, each time with something useful rather than “just checking in”, and keep every open quote in one list with its next action date. Commercial decisions take weeks: the manager has to get approval, the current contract has a notice period, and nobody tells you when it moves.
A follow-up schedule
- Day 0: Send the quote as a PDF with a two-line email: the monthly price and the start date you discussed.
- Day 3: Call or email: “Did the quote come through? Any questions on the scope?” Offer to adjust frequency.
- Day 10: Send something: a reference from a similar building, your insurance certificate, or a one-page checklist for the first month. Ask when the decision is expected.
- Day 30: “Our quote expires this week. Would you like me to extend it, or is the timing wrong?” Many “no answers” become “call me in March” here.
- Day 90 and every quarter after: A short note with an opening in your schedule. Contracts come up for renewal; be the name they remember.
Track your quotes
Keep a quote log: date, building, square feet, visits per week, monthly price, per-square-foot price, status, reason lost. After 20 quotes you will know your close rate, what size of building you win, and whether you are losing on price or on trust. If most losses are on price in one building type, your production rate for that type is probably optimistic; if they are on trust, the presentation needs work. Those numbers also tell you what a quote is worth: at a 30% close rate on $1,500 a month accounts, each quote you send is worth about $450 of monthly revenue, which makes the hour spent on the walkthrough and the follow-up the best-paid hour of your week.