Key takeaways:
Pricing commercial cleaning jobs requires knowing your costs, understanding industry standards, and adapting to each unique project for maximum profit.
- Understand standard pricing models. Commercial cleaning jobs are typically priced by the square foot, hour, room, or as a flat fee. It can average $0.05–0.20/sq ft or $25–50 per hour, with specialty services demanding higher rates.
- Factor in all costs for accuracy. Calculate labor, materials, and overhead expenses, then add a markup for profit to ensure your business remains sustainable and competitive.
- Know what impacts your price. Variables like building size, type, condition, service frequency, location, and your experience all influence rates and should be considered in every quote.
- Choose the right pricing strategy. Select or combine hourly, flat rate, per-room, or per-square-foot methods based on the job details and your business needs for efficiency and profitability.
- Stay competitive and don’t undercharge. Avoid undercutting and instead, deliver value, track job times, and review local demand so you can confidently charge what your services are worth.
Want more expert tips on running and pricing a commercial cleaning business? Sign up for the Jobber Newsletter.
Originally published in November 2020. Last updated on October 16, 2025.
Pricing commercial cleaning jobs can be tricky. If you price is too high, you might lose the job. On the other hand, pricing too low could cut into your profits.
Most businesses charge between $0.05 and $ 0.20 per square foot or $25 and $ 50 per hour in the United States, depending on location, building size, and scope of services. The key is finding a rate that keeps you competitive while still earning a healthy profit.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to price a commercial cleaning job based on different specialities and methods. Plus, you’ll learn more about the factors that go into setting your prices and how to send quotes to new clients.
How much to charge for commercial cleaning services
Wondering how much to charge for different types of cleaning services? We’ve broken it down using real, 2025 U.S. pricing data from Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor.
| Service type | Per hour (per cleaner) | Standard room rate |
| Office cleaning | $20–$80 | $50–$150 |
| Janitorial Services | $20–$80 | $50–$150 |
| Medical Office Cleaning | $50–$150 | $75–$150 |
| Commercial Kitchen Cleaning | $50–$80 | Varies (based on equipment) |
How much to charge for office cleaning
For professional cleaning at an office building, you could charge:
- Hourly Rate: $20–80 per hour, per cleaner
- Flat Rate: Anywhere from $150–1,500 as a flat rate, depending on the size of the job
- Room Rate: $50–150 per room
- Sq Ft Rate: $0.10–0.40 per sq ft (higher rates for high-effort areas like bathrooms)
This type of cleaning service involves cleaning a business office’s common spaces, cubicles, restrooms, break rooms, and reception areas. Regular cleaning tasks include mopping, dusting, polishing, and removing trash or waste.
On the Reddit thread r/housekeeping, professional cleaners report earning around $500 per month for a typical office cleaning job. Use this as a benchmark when quoting small to mid-sized office contracts.
How much to charge for janitorial service
For janitorial cleaning, you can charge:
- Hourly Rate: $20–80 per hour per cleaner
- Flat Rate: $150–1,500+, depending on the size of the space you’re cleaning
- Room Rate: $50–150, depending on your per-room rate breakdown (e.g., $50 for individual offices, $150 for kitchens)
- Sq Ft Rate: $0.10–0.40 per sq ft (similar to typical office cleaning jobs)
Janitorial services cover cleaning and maintenance for large public buildings, like schools, hospitals, or corporate complexes. Tasks include mopping floors, sweeping hallways, emptying trash bins, restocking supplies, and handling basic facility upkeep.
Because janitorial work usually involves regular service rather than one-time cleanings, pricing is often based on square footage, building type, and frequency. Establishing a predictable schedule helps create steady, recurring revenue while keeping costs consistent for clients.
How much to charge for medical office cleaning
For a commercial cleaning job at a medical office, you can charge:
- Hourly Rate: $50–150 per hour, depending on scope and experience level
- Flat Rate: $200–1,500+, based on the size of the medical building
- Sq Ft Rate: $0.25–0.35 per sq ft (with higher rates for sanitization)
- Room Rate: $75–150, varies depending on room sizes (e.g., exam rooms versus waiting rooms)
If you have the experience and skill set to offer medical office cleaning, it can be a highly profitable niche.
These jobs require strict attention to sanitization and disinfection, along with the usual cleaning tasks. The added responsibility often allows you to charge premium rates compared to standard commercial cleaning work.
How much to charge for commercial kitchen cleaning
Here’s the average commercial cleaning rate for kitchens:
- Hourly Rate: $50–80 per hour per cleaner
- Flat Rate: $200–500+, depending on the kitchen size and cleanliness
- Sq Ft Rate: $0.15–0.30 per sq ft
- Room Rate: A room rate may not apply to commercial kitchens, since you’ll most likely clean one room or space.
Hotels, restaurants, convention centers, and other facilities often pay a premium for a clean commercial kitchen. In this type of contract, you’ll sanitize cooking and food prep surfaces, wash floors, and remove buildup from cooking equipment.
How much to charge for specialty commercial cleaning services
Specialty services are add-ons that help solve specific problems for your clients—like a trapped odor in the carpet or mildew in ceiling tiles. For instance, you might bundle specialty carpet or rug cleaning into a regular office cleaning service.
Here’s how much you can charge for specialized commercial cleaning services (in addition to your agreed-upon contract rate):
| Service | Price |
| Sanitization and odor removal | $75–100/hour |
| Furniture, upholstery, and curtain cleaning | $100/hour |
| Ceiling/wall cleaning | $0.50–0.60/sq ft |
| Floor stripping and waxing | $0.30–0.50/sq ft |
| Floor buffing and burnishing | $0.04–0.12/sq ft |
| Tile cleaning | $0.12–0.21/sq ft |
| Carpet cleaning | $0.08–0.40/sq ft |
| Green cleaning supplies | $5–10 per cleaning job |
| Blinds and window cleaning | $2–5 per window |
| Appliance cleaning | $10–40 per appliance |
| Disaster restoration cleaning | $1,000–4,000 |
Some of these add-ons may already be included in your service packages—like wiping blinds, cleaning appliances, or offering green cleaning options. If not, consider adding them as upsells to boost your revenue and give clients a more customized service.
Different pricing strategies for commercial cleaning jobs
Price your services for profit by using one of these methods: hourly, fixed, per room, or per square foot. You can even combine methods, depending on what works best for your business.
Commercial cleaning rates per hour
Setting commercial cleaning rates per hour is a good idea when you’re unsure about the scope of work. It’s especially useful when you’re just starting out and may need extra time to complete each visit.
There are a few considerations to keep in mind:
- Speed doesn’t always mean higher earnings. You won’t necessarily make more money just because you complete a job faster.
- Clients may need reassurance about value. Make sure they understand your hourly rate reflects the quality and results of your work, not only the time spent on the job.
Latoya Barrington of Go2Girl Services charges per hour to protect her business from surprises.
A client books you for four hours. When you get to their home, you find out that the shower alone is going to take you four hours to clean. That’s a lesson learned.
Commercial cleaning flat fees
A flat fee gives clients peace of mind about their budget and saves you from having to negotiate every job detail. Plus, when you work efficiently, you get to keep more of what you earn.
A fixed fee or flat rate works well when you understand the scope of work, so it’s ideal for established cleaners. That said, the biggest downside of this pricing method is that underestimating a job could mean lost time or revenue.
Commercial cleaning room rates
With a room-based commercial cleaning rate, you count the number of rooms you’ll be cleaning, calculate a per-room rate, and calculate an average.
Say you’re cleaning an office building with:
- One bathroom ($100)
- Kitchen ($150)
- Two separate offices ($75 each)
- Reception area ($50)
In this example, your average commercial room rate would be $90 ($450 divided by five spaces to clean).
This method makes it easy to estimate cleaning jobs quickly. Clients don’t need to know their exact square footage, and you can avoid the challenges that sometimes come with hourly pricing.
Commercial cleaning rates per square foot
Your square foot rate depends on two key factors: the size of the commercial space and the type of surfaces you’re cleaning.
Larger buildings usually come with lower per-square-foot rates, since you’re cleaning more area at once. On the other hand, spaces that require extra attention (kitchens, restrooms, or textured flooring) take longer and justify a higher rate.
For example, you might charge $0.10 per square foot for a 10,000-square-foot office (approximately $1,000 total), but $0.25 per square foot for a smaller medical clinic that requires specialized sanitization (approximately $625 total for 2,500 square feet).
Keep in mind that not every client knows their building’s exact square footage. You may need to confirm measurements or make a quick site visit before quoting.
We price our jobs based on the amount of work.
We price it by square footage, whether it’s a standard or a basic clean versus a deep cleaning or a move-out cleaning.
How to price commercial cleaning jobs
Many cleaning pros start by checking what competitors charge in their area, but that approach doesn’t always capture your full value or costs. A better pricing strategy is to base quotes on your own expenses, skill level, and the quality of your service.
Here’s how to quote commercial cleaning jobs step-by-step so you stay profitable and competitive:
1. Define your scope of work
Consider factors that affect commercial cleaning service prices, like the job location, building size, types of cleaning services needed, and types of rooms you’ll be cleaning.
The best way to get all this information is to visit the job site, speak to the client on the phone, or use your cleaning CRM to track every job detail.
We do a walkthrough to determine the amount of cleaning needed and to figure out how many hours we’re going to need, level of build-up, and so forth.
2. Calculate your labor costs
Follow these three steps to calculate your labor cost:
- Calculate labor hours. Determine the number of hours a job will take, and then multiply that by the number of employees needed. This gives you your labor hours. For example, say you’re cleaning a small office space and you know the job will take four hours and three employees. This means your labor hours are 12 (4 x 3 = 12).
- Calculate hourly labor cost. This includes hourly wages and extras like workers’ compensation, taxes, and other employee-related expenses. Twenty percent is usually a reliable amount to add for these extras. For example, if you pay employees a $15 hourly wage, your hourly labor cost is actually $18 ($15 x 1.2).
- Multiply labor hours by labor cost. Using our example, you’ll multiply 12 labor hours by your $18 hourly labor cost. Your total labor cost for the job is now $216 (12 x $18).
Pro Tip: It can be tricky to know how long a job will take when you’re first starting a commercial cleaning company. Use Jobber’s time tracking software to track how long your crew spends on a job, and use that information to estimate time spent in the future.
3. Factor in materials and overhead costs
In addition to labor, you’ll want to add in other business expenses like marketing, cleaning insurance, vehicle mileage, and the cost of your commercial cleaning software. These are your overhead costs.
Your overhead costs will differ from other commercial cleaning businesses. In the cleaning industry, adding 20–25% to your labor total is a safe estimate to cover overhead costs like insurance, supplies, equipment, and administrative expenses.
Continuing with our previous example, multiply your total labor cost by your overhead cost percentage. The job’s total cost is now $259.20 ($216 x 1.20).
4. Add your markup for profit
Finally, add your markup percentage. This is the amount you add to your cost to make a profit, instead of just breaking even on a job.
Let’s say your markup is 30%. That means your final commercial cleaning cost is $336.96 ($259.20 x 1.30). That’s a profit margin of 23%, which is pretty healthy for a commercial cleaning company.
At the end of the day, your profit margin is the portion of revenue that fuels reinvestment, stability, and long-term success.
READ MORE: How much markup should I charge?
Factors that affect commercial cleaning service prices
There are several factors to consider before you set your commercial cleaning prices and start getting cleaning contracts:
Overhead costs
Your commercial cleaning prices should be high enough to cover your overhead expenses during the time you’re working. For example, if your hourly overhead rate is $18, you need to earn enough to cover that cost—plus labor, supplies, and profit margin.
That said, try to keep your overhead rate as low as you can. Look for ways to run your cleaning business more efficiently. For example, you could buy cleaning supplies in bulk, optimize routes to cut fuel costs, or review your expenses regularly to cut unnecessary costs and improve your margins.
Christine Hodge of Clearview Washing recommends adjusting your rates regularly to stay ahead of rising overhead costs. Her team increased prices by 15% in one year to offset transaction fees and encourage clients to keep their credit cards on file for automatic payments.
Building type
Certain buildings allow you to charge more per square footage due to more specialized cleaning needs. For example, you can charge more for a medical building than for a general office block because you’ll use different supplies and more detailed cleaning methods.
Room type
High-traffic rooms take longer to clean (e.g., bathrooms, breakrooms, and kitchens), increasing the overall cost.
Building conditions
A dirtier office building requires more cleaning, so charge more to cover the time and effort spent cleaning it. You may even want to do a deep cleaning before you provide ongoing service.
On the other hand, a building that’s been cleaned often will likely take less time to clean and you can likely charge a lower rate for regular cleaning.
Cleaning frequency
It’s common for commercial cleaning professionals to charge less as cleaning frequency increases because each subsequent visit requires less cleaning.
Job location
The further you have to travel to the job, the higher the rate you need to charge to cover costs.
To keep costs down, optimize your routes to reduce mileage and schedule all clients who are close to each other on the same day.
Cleaning experience
The more time you spend in the commercial cleaning industry, the more experience you’ll have. This also translates to more clients and a better reputation, so you can charge a higher rate for your time.
Undercharging or offering steep discount pricing won’t always help you build a profitable cleaning business. Instead, build up your experience and reputation so you can charge premium prices to higher-value clients.
Service area
Where your clients are located plays a major role in how much you should charge. Cleaning services in large metropolitan areas or high-cost-of-living regions—like New York City or San Francisco—naturally command higher rates to offset increased labor, transportation, and supply costs.
In smaller towns or rural areas, cleaning rates usually run lower because both costs and client budgets tend to be lower.
Here’s a quick look at how average rates compares across different parts of the country:
| City / Region | Estimated Hourly Rate |
| New York, NY | $30 – $100 / hour |
| Chicago, IL | $44 – $52 / hour |
| Boise, ID | $21 – $45 / hour |
| Smaller U.S. markets (mid-size cities, non-coastal) | $25 – $60 / hour |
| Other premium markets (San Francisco, Boston, Seattle) | $50 – $ 120+/hour (Premium market pricing may exceed the national average.) |
When setting commercial cleaning services rates, benchmark against local competitors. This ensures your rates stay competitive while still reflecting the true cost of doing business where you operate.
How to quote commercial cleaning jobs
Once you’ve set your rates, the next step is to create quotes that clearly communicate your services and value. A professional quote can help you win bigger, more profitable jobs.
Jobber helps you speed up the quoting process with customizable templates you can pre-load with your most popular services and pricing. This saves time and ensures every quote looks consistent and professional.
You can also include optional line items that showcase premium packages or add-on services—like green cleaning products, appliance detailing, or sanitization. These options give clients flexibility while helping you upsell higher-value work.
Plus, Jobber automatically follows up with customers who haven’t responded, so you spend less time chasing leads and more time booking jobs.
Run a more profitable commercial cleaning business
Once you’ve mastered your pricing structure, you’ll be on your way to tracking crucial job details, collecting invoice payments, and generating recurring business. In other words, running a successful cleaning business.
Use commercial cleaning software to stay organized, impress your customers, and grow.