How we price
Published, because you are comparing three proposals
We looked at 49 commercial cleaning companies. Twenty-three lead with "get a quote" and not one of them shows a price. That is not a secret worth keeping, and withholding it costs you a fortnight of phone calls before you can rank anybody.
What actually moves the number
Six things, in roughly the order of how much they matter. Everything else on a proposal is detail.
Cleanable square footage
Not your leased area. It excludes empty suites, mechanical rooms, shafts and anything you carve out. Billing on leased area is the quietest way a bid gets inflated.
Frequency
Five nights costs roughly three times once a week, not five. Travel, setup, supervision and supplies are close to fixed per night, so the price curve flattens as frequency rises.
Building type
A medical suite is roughly twice an office per square foot. A warehouse is roughly two thirds. Touch-point density and compliance drive it, not floor area.
Restroom count
The single biggest swing in an office. Restrooms are labour-heavy and the fastest way for a contract to be judged a failure.
Floor surface mix
Carpet is vacuumed. Hard floor is mopped, and periodically burnished or stripped, which is a separate line most bids fold in invisibly.
Access and hours
A building with a loading dock and a key fob is cheaper than one with a security desk, a sign-in sheet and a 6pm to 10pm window.
Four ways a low bid gets to be low
All four are legal, common and discoverable in the scope document if you know what to look for.
| Billing on leased area | Priced against a bigger number than they will actually clean. Ask what square footage the price is based on and whether it is cleanable or leased. |
|---|---|
| Thin frequencies | "Dusting" with no frequency attached usually means quarterly. Ask for a frequency against every line. |
| Subcontracted labour | Cheaper per hour, no control over who is in your building, and turnover you will feel by month four. Ask whether cleaners are employees. |
| Extras priced later | Floor burnishing, carpet extraction, consumables and day porter hours left out of the monthly figure and invoiced separately. Ask for the annual all-in cost. |
| Understaffed hours | Two people for a building that needs three. It looks fine for a month. Ask how many cleaner-hours a night the price assumes. |
| No supervision line | Supervision costs money and is the thing that keeps a contract from drifting. If it is not in the price it is not happening. |
Try it
Price your building
The same estimator as the home page. The range moves as you change the inputs.
What procurement asks
Sample answers for demonstration. Replace with your own before launch.
Usually because we employ our cleaners, pay above the local average and price supervision into the monthly figure. If the lowest bid you have is meaningfully below ours, ask that bidder the six questions in the table above and see which line it comes from.
The contract price holds for twelve months. After that we index it, and the indexation basis is written into the contract rather than negotiated by surprise. If your building changes, the price changes and we tell you before it does.
Carpet extraction, floor stripping, window exteriors and anything you asked us to exclude. They are quoted as separate lines and shown in the proposal, not folded in and revealed later.
Twelve months with a 60-day cancellation clause on both sides. Anybody asking for three years without a break clause is pricing for the tail, not for the service.
Want the number for your building?
The estimator gives you a range now. The written proposal follows within one working day.