Commercial cleaning cost calculator

The loaded rate is wage plus payroll taxes and insurance – $28 an hour is a mid-market default, not your number. Change it and the margin under "Your numbers". Rates last updated: September 2026.

A commercial cleaning invoice bills a median of $580 per month in 2026, with half of all invoices between $303 and $1,167 – based on 55,922 invoices from 639 cleaning businesses (Tofu data, 2024–2026). The median line item is $200. Per square foot, most office bids land between $0.05 and $0.25 per month depending on frequency and scope.

Commercial cleaning rates per square foot fall as the building grows: a 2,000 sq ft office runs about $0.39 per sq ft per month at three visits a week because the $60 minimum per visit applies, while 10,000 sq ft and up settle at about $0.13 – calculator output at $28 per hour loaded and 35% overhead and profit. A 3,000 sq ft office is about 47 minutes and $60 per visit, roughly $780 a month; a 2,000 sq ft office is the same $60 minimum for 33 minutes of work. Facility type moves it too: the same 10,000 sq ft is $118 per visit in retail, $161 in a restaurant, $182 in a medical office.

To bid a commercial cleaning job, walk the space, measure cleanable square footage by area type, convert it to hours with production rates, multiply by your loaded hourly rate, add overhead and profit, and quote per month at the frequency the client wants. A good bid shows the monthly price, the price per visit, and the scope – never the hourly rate.

The five steps behind the calculator:

• Walk the building and measure cleanable area by type – offices, restrooms, kitchens, warehouse floor – not gross square footage
• Convert area to hours: 10,000 sq ft of office at 4,200 sq ft per hour is 2.4 hours; four restrooms add about 16 minutes
• Multiply hours by your loaded rate – wage plus taxes and insurance, not the wage alone
• Add overhead and profit: 30–40% is the janitorial norm; below 25% the contract pays for itself and nothing else
• Multiply by visits per month (4.33 × visits per week), add quarterly carpet or floor care as separate lines, and set a minimum per visit

Post-construction is the exception: quote it once, by the job. Select Post-construction above – it switches the calculator to a one-time price at about 400 sq ft per labor hour; the line-item median in our data is $250 with a $507 median invoice.

Frequency changes both numbers in opposite directions. On a 10,000 sq ft office, one visit a week is $115 per visit and about $460 a month; five visits a week is $90 per visit and $1,980 a month – daily service cleans faster per visit because dirt never builds up, but the contract is four times bigger.

Bid the month, not the visit: that is how the client budgets and how you keep the account. Frequency, scope, and add-ons all change the monthly figure – set them in the calculator and the month follows.

Three things that move a monthly bid:

1. Scope. Detailed cleaning – high dusting, interior glass, spot-cleaning walls – cuts production rates by about 20%: the default office goes from 2 h 39 min to 3 h 15 min and from $100 to $123 per visit.
2. Add-ons on their own lines. Quarterly carpet cleaning, monthly interior windows, and floor stripping and waxing are separate line items – in our data window cleaning bills a median of $250 and carpet $175 per line.
3. Consumables. Paper, soap, and liners run about 8% of labor when you supply them; put it on the invoice or lose it.

Then run the contract: Tofu's recurring jobs schedule every visit and draft the monthly invoice, and proof of visit shows the client each visit happened.

A worked example: 10,000 sq ft office, four restrooms, three visits a week, standard scope, plus monthly interior windows and consumables – here is how it goes out as a monthly bid:

One bid, one recurring job, one invoice a month – the client sees what each line costs and can drop windows without renegotiating the contract.