Commercial cleaning calculator: bid, quote and price per sq ft
Charge for the labor hours a building takes, plus supplies, overhead and profit, quoted as a monthly price. With example starting numbers you can change ($18 an hour pay, 20% margin, 2,500 to 4,000 sq ft cleaned per hour), office cleaning comes to about $0.008 to $0.013 per sq ft per visit, or $0.18 to $0.28 per sq ft per month at five nights a week.
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Monthly bid
$2,340
$108.00 per visit, 21.67 visits a month, $0.234 per sq ft per month
Labor hours per visit
3.33
Labor hours per month
72.2
Price per sq ft per visit
$0.0108
Effective hourly rate
$32.40/h
Cost per visit
$86.40
Gross profit per month
$468
Per-visit breakdown
$108.00
- Wages: 3.33 h × $18.00/h
- $60.00
- Payroll burden (20% of wages)
- $12.00
- Supplies (5% of labor)
- $3.60
- Overhead (15% of labor)
- $10.80
- Cost per visit
- $86.40
- Profit (20% of price)
- $21.60
The math
10,000 sq ft ÷ 3,000 sq ft/h = 3.33 h per visit
$86.40 ÷ (1 − 20%) = $108.00 per visit
$108.00 × 5 per week × 52 ÷ 12 = $2,340.00 per month
Monthly cost $1,872, so the account leaves $468 a month before owner pay and income tax.
How do you bid a commercial cleaning job?
Estimate the labor hours each visit takes, price those hours with all your costs, then add your margin. Square footage alone is not a bid: two 10,000 sq ft buildings can take very different time.
- Walk the building. Measure the cleanable square feet, count restrooms and fixtures, note floor types, and write down every task and how often the client wants it.
- Estimate hours.
cleanable sq ft ÷ production rate = labor hours per visit. ISSA, the cleaning industry association, describes this method and how to build times from individual tasks in How to Calculate Cleaning Times. - Load the labor cost. Hours times cleaner pay, plus payroll burden: employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and any benefits.
- Add supplies and overhead. This calculator takes both as a percentage of labor, because labor is the cost that grows with the building.
- Add your margin.
price per visit = cost ÷ (1 − margin %). - Make it monthly.
monthly bid = price per visit × cleanings per week × 52 ÷ 12. A month averages about 4.33 weeks, so a nightly weekday account is about 21.67 visits a month, not 20.
Put the scope, schedule and monthly price in writing. The free cleaning estimate template works for a commercial quote too.
What is a good production rate for commercial cleaning?
A good production rate is the one your crew actually hits on this building, measured on a timed walkthrough. Until you have that, start from a typical range for the facility type and adjust for restrooms, floor types and how detailed the scope is.
The rates below are the starting points this calculator uses. They are our assumptions for routine cleaning (trash, dusting, restrooms, floors), not measured standards, so change them to fit the job.
| Facility type | Typical starting range | Calculator default |
|---|---|---|
| Office | 2,500 to 4,000 sq ft/h | 3,000 sq ft/h |
| Medical or dental office | 1,500 to 2,500 sq ft/h | 1,800 sq ft/h |
| School or daycare | 2,000 to 3,000 sq ft/h | 2,500 sq ft/h |
| Retail store | 3,000 to 4,500 sq ft/h | 3,500 sq ft/h |
| Gym or fitness studio | 2,000 to 3,000 sq ft/h | 2,500 sq ft/h |
| Church or event space | 3,500 to 5,000 sq ft/h | 4,000 sq ft/h |
| Warehouse or light industrial | 5,000 to 8,000 sq ft/h | 6,000 sq ft/h |
Rates for a single task are much higher than for a full scope. ISSA’s own example uses 5,355 sq ft per hour for mopping alone (source). A full nightly clean bundles many tasks, so the combined rate is lower. Slow down the rate for medical spaces, schools and anywhere with many restrooms; speed it up for open floors with little furniture.
Commercial cleaning rates per square foot
Price per square foot is a result of your labor math, not a number to start from. Quote recurring accounts per month and use price per square foot to compare a bid with your other accounts.
Here is what the calculator gives for each facility type with the example numbers above ($18/hour pay, 20% payroll burden, 5% supplies, 15% overhead, 20% margin, 5 cleanings a week). These are examples, not market rates in your area.
| Facility type | Per sq ft per visit | Per sq ft per month |
|---|---|---|
| Office | $0.011 | $0.23 |
| Medical or dental office | $0.018 | $0.39 |
| School or daycare | $0.013 | $0.28 |
| Retail store | $0.009 | $0.20 |
| Gym or fitness studio | $0.013 | $0.28 |
| Church or event space | $0.008 | $0.18 |
| Warehouse or light industrial | $0.005 | $0.12 |
What labor cost should I use?
Use what you really pay, plus payroll burden. For reference, the median hourly wage for janitors and building cleaners was $17.71 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is why the example uses $18. Wages vary a lot by city, so use your own.
Payroll burden starts with the employer’s 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare taxes (IRS), then adds unemployment taxes, workers’ compensation and any benefits. The 20% default is an assumption; ask your accountant or payroll provider for your real figure.
Why divide by one minus the margin?
Because margin is a share of the price, not a markup on cost. If a visit costs $80 and you want a 20% margin, $80 ÷ 0.80 = $100, and $20 is 20% of $100. Adding 20% to cost gives $96, and $16 is only about 17% of $96.
Commercial and residential in one business
Many cleaning companies run both. Residential jobs are priced differently, by bedrooms, bathrooms and frequency: the house cleaning price calculator handles that side. To see how a new contract changes your whole business, run your numbers through the cleaning business profit calculator. Looking for accounts to bid on? Start with our guide on how to get cleaning clients.
FAQ
Commercial cleaning pricing questions
How much should I charge for commercial cleaning?
Charge for the labor hours the building takes, plus supplies, overhead and profit. Divide the cleanable square feet by your production rate to get hours, multiply by your cleaner pay plus payroll burden, add supplies and overhead, then divide by one minus your margin. With our example numbers ($18/hour pay, 20% margin), office cleaning works out to about $0.008 to $0.013 per sq ft per visit. Your own wages and timed rates will move that.
How much should I charge for office cleaning?
Bid offices from hours, then check the price per square foot. In our example, a 10,000 sq ft office cleaned 5 nights a week at 3,000 sq ft per hour comes to $2,340 a month, or about $0.23 per sq ft per month. More restrooms, kitchens or detail work lower your production rate and raise the price.
How do you calculate a commercial cleaning bid?
Measure cleanable square feet, pick a production rate for the scope, and divide to get labor hours per visit. Multiply hours by your loaded labor cost, add supplies and overhead, and divide by one minus your profit margin to get the price per visit. Multiply by visits per month (cleanings per week times 52, divided by 12) for the monthly bid.
How many square feet can one cleaner clean in an hour?
It depends on the building and the scope. As a starting point, this calculator uses 2,500 to 4,000 sq ft per hour for routine office cleaning and lower rates for medical spaces and schools. Those are assumptions: time your crew on a real walkthrough and use your own number.
Should I bid commercial cleaning per square foot or per hour?
Work it out per hour, present it per month. Labor hours are what the job really costs you, so build the bid from them. Most commercial clients compare a monthly price, and price per square foot is a useful check against your other accounts.
What should a commercial cleaning bid include?
The scope of work room by room, how often each task happens, the days and hours of service, who supplies paper and liners, the monthly price, the contract term and notice period, and proof of insurance.