What cleaning do hotels actually contract out?
Hotels contract out five kinds of cleaning: guest-room housekeeping, public-area and night cleaning, laundry, periodic work such as carpet extraction and window washing, and kitchen or hood cleaning in full-service properties. Which ones a hotel outsources depends on its size, its brand and whether an owner or a management company runs it.
| Work | Who usually does it | How it is priced | Fit for a small company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guest-room housekeeping | In-house, or a staffing or housekeeping contractor | Per occupied room, by room type | Only once you can staff daily shifts and weekend peaks |
| Public areas and night cleaning (lobby, restrooms, corridors, fitness room, meeting space) | In-house night cleaner or a janitorial contractor | Monthly price, like an office | Good first hotel account |
| Laundry | In-house or an outside plant | Per pound or per piece | Only with a plant; see the laundry guide |
| Periodic work (carpet, upholstery, windows, floor refinishing, deep cleans) | Specialty contractors | Per job or on a quarterly schedule | Good first account, and a way in for room work later |
| Kitchen and hood cleaning | Specialty contractors | Per job | Needs certification; see the hood cleaning guide |
Hotel housekeeping contracts for guest rooms are the biggest and hardest to win. Companies like Hospitality Staffing Solutions, which supplies housekeeping staff to hotels nationwide and is a preferred supplier for the hotel purchasing group Avendra, show the shape of that market: large contractors with recruiting pipelines and the ability to send 20 room attendants on a Sunday morning. A small company competes best where those players are not interested: a 60 to 150 room independent or select-service hotel, its public areas, its periodic work, or room cleaning at one property it can staff reliably.
Who signs a hotel cleaning contract?
The general manager signs most contracts at independent and select-service hotels. At branded hotels run by a management company, the GM recommends and a regional director of operations or a corporate purchasing team approves. The executive housekeeper rarely signs, but a GM will not override one who says no.
- Owner-operated hotels. The owner or GM decides, often on the spot after a walkthrough. The fastest sales cycle.
- Management companies. One company may run 10 to 100 hotels for different owners. Win one property, perform for six months, and ask the regional lead for the next one. One contact can become a portfolio.
- Brand standards. A franchised hotel must meet its brand’s cleanliness standards and pass brand quality inspections. The brand does not hire you, but the contract will hold you to those standards, so ask for the written cleanliness checklist before you price anything.
- Purchasing groups. Larger management companies buy through programs such as Avendra, which keep lists of approved suppliers. Getting on those lists takes time and references; it is a year-two goal, not a first step.
Ask three questions on the first call: who approves vendor contracts, when the hotel sets next year’s budget, and when the current cleaning or staffing agreement ends. Hotels budget in the fall for the following year, and that is when a new vendor is easiest to add. The general approach to walkthroughs, bid sheets and proposals in our guide to winning commercial cleaning contracts applies here too.
Guest rooms or public areas: which should you bid first?
Bid public areas, night cleaning or periodic work first unless you already run daily shifts with a bench of trained cleaners. Guest-room contracts pay more, but they fail for one reason: a crew that cannot cover a Sunday with 90 checkouts.
| Guest-room housekeeping | Public areas and night cleaning | |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule | Every day, 8 am to about 4 pm, heaviest on checkout days | Nights or early mornings, five to seven days a week |
| Staff | Room attendants, a houseperson and a supervisor on site | One or two cleaners, plus a floater |
| Revenue | Moves with occupancy; low in the slow season | Fixed monthly price |
| Quality control | Room inspections and guest review scores | Walkthroughs with the GM, guest complaints |
| Supplies and equipment | Hotel usually supplies linen, amenities and carts; you supply chemicals or use theirs | You supply chemicals and equipment; the hotel supplies paper goods |
| What breaks the contract | Missed rooms, late room-ready times, turnover of attendants | Restrooms and lobby not ready by 6 am |
Many small companies use periodic work as the door. A quarterly carpet extraction or a deep clean of 40 rooms during a slow week gets you in the building, in front of the executive housekeeper, with a chance to show your crew. When the hotel’s room-attendant contract comes up, you are a known quantity. The carpet cleaning guide covers the equipment and pricing for that work.
How is hotel housekeeping priced per room?
Hotel housekeeping is priced per occupied room: a rate for a stayover (guest stays, bed made, bathroom refreshed) and a higher rate for a checkout (full change). The rate is your minutes per room, turned into labor cost, plus supervision, overhead and margin. Public areas, if included, are added as a flat monthly amount.
The method
- Time a stayover and a checkout for each room type (standard, suite). Use the hotel’s checklist, not yours.
- Add the houseperson and supervisor time, spread across the rooms cleaned that day.
- Convert minutes to labor cost with wages plus payroll burden.
- Add supplies, overhead and margin, then divide by rooms to get a rate per stayover and per checkout.
- Model a slow month and a peak month at the hotel’s real occupancy, so you know your revenue range before you sign.
A worked example (hypothetical numbers)
A 120-room select-service hotel runs about 70% occupancy on average, so roughly 84 rooms are cleaned a day. Say 60% of those are stayovers and 40% are checkouts. Your timed rates are 22 minutes per stayover and 38 minutes per checkout. These are round numbers to show the method, not market rates.
| Line | How it is worked out | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Room attendant minutes a day | 50 stayovers × 22 min + 34 checkouts × 38 min | 2,392 min, about 39.9 hours |
| Houseperson and supervisor | One houseperson 8 h, one supervisor 8 h | 16 hours |
| Labor cost | 55.9 hours × $17 average wage × 1.22 payroll burden | $1,159 a day |
| Supplies and overhead | Chemicals, gloves, uniforms, recruiting, management: 18% of labor | $209 |
| Price at a 15% margin | $1,368 ÷ 0.85 | about $1,609 a day |
| Per occupied room (average) | $1,609 ÷ 84 rooms | about $19.15 |
| Split into two rates | Weighted by minutes | about $14.80 per stayover, $25.55 per checkout |
At 70% occupancy that is about $49,000 a month. At 50% occupancy in the slow season, billing the same per-room rates on 60 rooms a day brings in about $35,000, while your supervisor and houseperson still cost the same, which is why contracts often include a minimum daily charge or an occupancy floor. ISSA explains the production-rate math behind this in How to Calculate Cleaning Times: cleaning time is the area or units to be cleaned divided by the production rate. Time your own attendants on the hotel’s rooms and replace every number above with yours.
For the public-area part, price it like an office from labor hours. Our commercial cleaning prices guide shows that math line by line, and the commercial cleaning calculator runs it for you.
How do you staff checkouts, weekends and seasonal peaks?
Staff a hotel from the checkout forecast, not from the room count. The front desk knows tomorrow’s departures by the afternoon before, and your supervisor should build the next day’s board from that number every evening.
- Daily board. Rooms per attendant are set from the mix: more checkouts, fewer rooms each. A 14-room board on a stayover-heavy Tuesday can be a 10-room board on a Sunday.
- Weekend bench. Keep two or three part-time attendants who only work Friday to Monday. They cover the peak without inflating the weekday payroll.
- Cross-training. Train your public-area cleaner to strip rooms and your houseperson to clean a stayover. On a bad morning, everyone cleans.
- Seasonal swings. Ask for last year’s monthly occupancy before you bid. A ski-town or beach hotel can double its rooms cleaned between seasons, and you need to know whether you can hire for it.
- Room-ready times. Most hotels want checkouts ready by early afternoon. Clean departures first, stayovers after, and tell the front desk which rooms are ready as you go.
Safety rules that follow your crew into a hotel
Housekeeping is physical work: lifting mattresses, pushing carts, scrubbing tubs. In California, Cal/OSHA’s Hotel Housekeeping Musculoskeletal Injury Prevention standard (Title 8, section 3345) is written to control the risk of musculoskeletal injuries to housekeepers in hotels and other lodging establishments, and requires each covered employer to establish, implement and maintain a housekeeping musculoskeletal injury prevention program as part of its injury and illness prevention program. The text does not address contractors separately, so if you employ the housekeepers, expect the hotel to want your program and training to meet the standard, and confirm with the hotel or Cal/OSHA how it applies to you. Outside California, check your state’s rules; the practices (fitted-sheet beds, long-handled tools, worksite evaluations) are worth copying anywhere.
Your crew also handles chemicals, so OSHA’s Hazard Communication standard applies: labels, safety data sheets and training for the products they use. If the hotel supplies the chemicals, get their data sheets and train on those. Never mix products, and keep bleach away from anything acidic or ammonia-based. Hiring and training for this kind of turnover is covered in how to hire cleaners.
What do brand standards and inspections mean for your contract?
A branded hotel is inspected by its brand and scored by its guests, and your contract will tie your pay, and your renewal, to both. Get the hotel’s cleanliness checklist, its last inspection report and its current guest cleanliness score before you quote.
What to expect in the contract
- Room inspection standard. A percentage of rooms inspected daily by your supervisor, with a pass rate the hotel can audit.
- Room-ready deadline. A time by which all departures are clean, and a fee or a credit when it is missed.
- Guest-score clause. Some hotels tie a bonus or a penalty to the cleanliness score on guest surveys.
- Deep-clean cycle. Every room deep-cleaned on a rotation (often quarterly), either included or priced separately. Price it separately.
- Brand inspection cooperation. Your staff may need to be on site and presentable during brand visits.
Write your own checklist to match the brand’s, room by room, and inspect to it from day one. The housekeeping checklist includes a hotel-room section you can adapt. Photos of inspected rooms, with the date and the attendant’s name, settle most disputes about a guest complaint.
What insurance, bonds and checks do hotels require?
Hotels require general liability insurance with the hotel and often its management company and owner named as additional insureds, workers’ compensation, and background checks on everyone who enters guest rooms. Many also want a janitorial bond, employment eligibility verification and a drug-free workplace policy.
- General liability. Limits of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate are a common ask. Insureon reports that cleaning businesses buying through it pay a median of about $59 a month for general liability, $114 a month for workers’ compensation and $9 a month for a janitorial bond. Your quotes will depend on payroll, state and claims history.
- Workers’ compensation. Required in most states once you have employees, and a hotel will not let an uninsured crew on the property. Check your state.
- Janitorial bond. Covers the hotel if an employee steals from a guest room. See the janitorial bond guide.
- Background checks and I-9s. Hotels often require a criminal background check for anyone with room access and proof that you verify work eligibility. Some ask for E-Verify.
- Key and card control. A written policy for master keys and key cards, signed out and in each shift.
Ask for the hotel’s vendor packet on the first visit: it lists exact limits and forms. The cleaning business insurance guide explains certificates and additional insured endorsements. This is not legal or insurance advice; your agent and your state’s rules decide what you need.
A 90-day plan to land a first hotel account
Pick 15 to 25 hotels within 30 minutes of your base, meet the GM or executive housekeeper at each, offer periodic or public-area work first, and follow up on a schedule. Expect 60 to 120 days from first visit to a signed agreement, longer at management-company properties.
- Weeks 1 to 2: build the list. Independent, select-service and extended-stay hotels first; resort and full-service properties later. Note the brand, room count, whether a management company runs it, and the GM’s name.
- Weeks 2 to 4: visit mid-morning on a weekday. Ask for the GM or executive housekeeper, leave a one-page sheet (services, insurance, references) and ask when the next deep-clean cycle or carpet work is due.
- Weeks 3 to 6: quote the small job. Walk the property, count rooms and public-area square feet, and send a written quote for the periodic work or night cleaning within two days. Use the cleaning proposal template.
- Weeks 6 to 10: do one job well. Show up early, finish on time, send photos, and invoice the same day.
- Weeks 10 to 13: ask for the next step. A monthly public-area contract, or a trial of room cleaning on one floor or on weekends only.
- Follow-up rhythm. Day 3, day 10 and day 30 after each proposal, then a check-in each quarter and one in September before budgets close.
Track every hotel in one list with the decision maker, contract end date and your last contact. Hotels change cleaning vendors at budget time, after a failed brand inspection, or when a GM changes, so the ones that say no today are worth a note in six months.
What goes in a hotel housekeeping contract?
A hotel housekeeping contract should spell out the per-room rates by room type, a minimum daily charge, who supplies what, room-ready times, inspection standards, the term and notice period, and an annual price review tied to wages. Public areas and periodic work get their own prices.
- Rates. Stayover and checkout rates per room type, the public-area monthly price, deep-clean price per room, and an hourly rate for extras.
- Minimums. A minimum daily charge or a floor on rooms billed, so a 40% occupancy week does not sink you.
- Supplies. Who buys linen, amenities, chemicals, carts and vacuums, and who repairs equipment.
- Staffing. Supervisor on site, maximum rooms per attendant, how you cover call-outs, and background check requirements.
- Service levels. Room-ready time, inspection pass rate, response time to a guest complaint, and the credit if you miss them.
- Term and exit. One year with automatic renewal and 30 or 60 days’ notice is common; a hotel may ask for termination on shorter notice for cause.
- Price review. Yearly, tied to minimum wage changes and the hotel’s actual occupancy.
- Payment. Weekly or twice-monthly invoices for room work, based on the hotel’s occupied-room report; net 15 or net 30.
Start from the free cleaning contract template and add these clauses, then have a lawyer look it over before you sign a contract this size. One note on tools: Broombook is built for residential cleaning businesses, with recurring home cleans, a crew app with checklists and clock-in, and online booking, so it suits a company that cleans homes and takes on a hotel’s periodic or public-area work. It is not a hotel housekeeping system with room boards and occupancy feeds. See features for what it covers.