Why janitorial owners time the building instead of quoting cents a foot
Two offices of the same size can take very different hours, so good bids turn square feet into time first and only look at cents per foot at the end.
Picture two 5,000 sq ft buildings: one with a hundred workers, hard floors and trash cans at every desk, the other with five staff and almost no traffic. The first might take three times as long each night. The usual starting point is the building's square footage divided by your production rate, meaning the square feet your cleaner gets through in an hour.
General offices are often cleaned at 3,000 to 4,000 sq ft an hour. Restrooms, breakrooms, desk count and hard floors move a building up or down that range, and a walkthrough is where you find out which way.
A 6,000 sq ft office, 3 nights a week: $124.47 a visit
The example office takes just under 2 hours on site per night and keeps $26.54 a visit, $345 a month, after every cost including the owner's wage.
It's mostly carpet with about 1,500 sq ft of tile, 2 restrooms, a breakroom and 14 desks, cleaned at night. That pace is a little over 3,000 sq ft an hour, inside the usual office range.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Per visit | Amount |
| 2 | Supplies | $4.32 |
| 3 | Cleaning labour and equipment | $71.54 |
| 4 | Drive and don't-forget minutes | $22.07 |
| 5 | Cushion, markup and profit | $26.54 |
| 6 | Price per visit | $124.47 |
The profit line is 21.3% of the price. Averaged over every minute the visit really takes, drive included, the account earns about $47 per labour hour. A one-time start-up charge of $204.94 covers the walkthrough, a first clean that takes longer, and training the cleaner on site.
Why a janitorial month is 4.33 weeks, not 4
Three nights a week is 13 visits a month, not 12, because 52 weeks divided by 12 months is 4.33.
Bill a monthly account on 4 weeks and you give away about 4 weeks of work a year. On the example office, pricing 12 visits instead of 13 would clean one visit a month for free, every month: about $1,494 a year at $124.47 a visit. Some owners get around it by billing every four weeks, 13 times a year, instead of monthly.
Once a week or five nights: how the same office runs from 12 to 39 cents a foot
The same 6,000 sq ft office prices at about $704 a month once a week and about 39 cents a foot at five nights, because visits spaced further apart take longer each time.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Same 6,000 sq ft office | Per visit | Per month |
| 2 | 5 nights a week | $108.15 | $2,343.64 |
| 3 | 3 nights a week (quoted) | $124.47 | $1,618.15 |
| 4 | 2 nights a week | $140.80 | $1,220.69 |
| 5 | Once a week | $162.56 | $703.88 |
More trash, dust and floor dirt pile up between weekly visits, so the example adds time to them, and nightly cleaning gets a little quicker once the building is under control. Once a week lands a bit above the $500 to $600 a month some owners charge for a 2-hour weekly account for that reason. The spread is the whole case against one rate per square foot: same building, same crew, same hourly cost, and more than three times the cents per foot.
$36.15 an hour to break even: the wage, burden and overhead behind it
The example company, an owner and two part-time evening cleaners, needs $36.15 per billable hour before equipment and profit, and almost all of it is wages and payroll cost.
Build the rate on the starting wage you will really pay in your market, not your best cleaner's pay. Evening cleaner wages in our research ran from about $14 to $15 an hour in the Southeast to $17 to $18 in California, and $16 to $20 in one owner's company. Payroll taxes and workers' comp then add something like 14% or more on top of each wage.
Because labour is most of the cost, a building that takes 20% longer than you timed wipes out most of the profit. Insurance and the janitorial bond are the biggest overhead lines, and they belong across every client rather than loaded onto the one who asked for more coverage. The break-even method is in the true hourly rate guide, and you can run yours in the free true hourly rate calculator.
On markup, a common rule of thumb is to add 30 to 35% on top of wages for overhead plus profit. Others price from margin instead: dividing the loaded wage by 0.65 keeps 35% of the price, where multiplying by 1.35 only keeps about 26%. The example's 21.3% is after overhead and the owner's pay, so it's closer to net profit than those gross figures; markup vs margin explains the difference.
What janitorial owners charge per hour, per month and per foot
Owners in our research charge from about $25 to $70 an hour, with the rate going up as the visit gets shorter.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What owners said they charge | Amount |
| 2 | Per hour, 1-hour visits | $60 to $70 |
| 3 | Per hour, 3-hour visits | $45 to $50 |
| 4 | Per hour, 5-hour visits | about $35 |
| 5 | Per month, 5 hours a night, 5 nights | $4,000 to $4,500 |
| 6 | Per sq ft per month, one owner's buildings | about 23 to 45 cents |
| 7 | Monthly minimum, small weekly account | about $275 |
These are single owners in their own markets, not averages. The hourly rate slides because a short visit carries the same drive and setup as a long one, so each hour has to carry more of it. A one-hour stop across town at $35 an hour barely pays the trip.
Supplies barely move the price: owners put them at about 2 to 3% of the bill. The example's $4.32 a visit is about 3.5% with liners counted.
Drive, lock-up and re-cleans: the minutes a walkthrough misses
On the example office these small lines add $10.64 to every visit's cost; leave them out and the same rules price it at $111.07, about $2,090 a year gone.
The drive from the last stop. It's paid time on every visit and nobody sees it, which is why short visits need a higher hourly rate. Count the miles as well as the minutes.
Keys, the alarm and locking up. Disarming, checking doors and arming again happens every night. A term that bills a visit you couldn't do because you were locked out covers the rest.
Checking the supply closet. Skip it and you run out mid-shift and make a trip; do it and it takes minutes. Either way it belongs in the price.
Your own walk-throughs and call-outs. Owner inspections keep the account, and a trip back for one missed bathroom costs the whole drive again. Spread both per visit.
The new cleaner. You timed the building at your pace; your hire will take longer. A common fix is a cushion of extra time: if a building takes you 3 hours, quote 3.5 to 4. The example leaves this line open on purpose so the quote check flags it.
The first clean and the setup. The first clean of a new building usually takes about double, and the walkthrough, proposal and training come before you've earned anything. Those go in start-up, not the monthly price.
Why new janitorial owners underbid their first buildings
Most early losses come from a guessed pace that nobody checks once the contract starts. Almost every owner underbids a few buildings early on; the trick is catching it in the first month, not the first year.
Pricing on square feet alone. Two clients of the same owner can sit at 23 and 45 cents a foot. Price from time, then check the cents.
A big start-up fee. New clients balk at a large upfront charge. Spreading start-up equipment into the monthly rate keeps the bid easy to say yes to.
A contract that can be cancelled over price. A big account can walk when new managers go shopping for a cheaper quote, taking months of profit with it. Keep a few accounts rather than one that carries the business.
The fix for underbidding is to log real hours on every building for the first months and compare them with the quote; job costing covers the habit.
Dishes, holidays and strip-and-wax: terms for a cleaning contract
A written scope stops a janitorial account from growing for free.
- Scope of work. The classic creep is the client who remembers you agreed to do the breakroom dishes for free. Extras like dishes and event clean-ups are quoted separately, and additions go on a written change order.
- Holidays and closures. Clients may ask for a refund for days the building was shut. Say the monthly price already allows for them.
- Paper towels, toilet paper and soap. Decide who supplies them on every account and write it down.
- Existing damage. Take photos on the walkthrough so old stains and wear aren't blamed on you.
- Floor work. Routine cleaning is priced by the hour, but carpet, tile and VCT strip-and-wax are usually priced by the square foot, as separate jobs.
For a firm price versus a rough figure on a building you haven't walked, see quote vs estimate, and for what belongs in overhead, overhead and profit. The Commercial Cleaning Pricing Calculator comes with ready-made janitorial terms along these lines that you can edit.