Commercial cleaning is quoted in several different units, which is the main reason bids are hard to compare. One vendor prices per square foot per month, another prices per visit, a third quotes an hourly rate and leaves the hours vague. All three can describe the same building and land thousands of dollars apart.
The figures below are typical published ranges for the US commercial cleaning market. They are reference points for evaluating a bid, not quotes. Real pricing comes from a walkthrough, because the variables that move cost the most are things nobody can see from a square footage number.
Typical market ranges
Recurring janitorial in the US commercial market is generally quoted between $0.05 and $0.25 per square foot per visit. Expressed monthly, a standard office cleaned three to five times per week typically lands between $0.10 and $0.30 per square foot per month. Hourly rates commonly run $25 to $50 per cleaner per hour, with staffed day porter coverage usually at the lower end of that band and specialty work above it.
Periodic work is quoted separately from the recurring program. Strip and wax typically runs $0.30 to $0.90 per square foot, buffing or burnishing $0.10 to $0.25, carpet extraction $0.15 to $0.40, pressure washing $0.10 to $0.35, and post-construction cleanup $0.20 to $0.60.
The spread inside each range is wide because these numbers describe very different buildings. A 60,000 square foot single-tenant office with two restroom cores is not the same job as 60,000 square feet split across fourteen suites, and the per-foot price will not be the same either.
What actually drives the number
Five variables explain most of the difference between a low bid and a high one. If a quote seems unusually cheap, one of these is almost always being under-scoped.
Frequency
This is the largest single factor. Moving from three visits per week to five is a 67 percent increase in labor, and labor is roughly 60 to 70 percent of a janitorial price.
Restroom and fixture count
Restrooms are the most labor-dense area in a commercial building. Two buildings with identical square footage and different fixture counts are not comparable jobs.
Floor type mix
Carpet, VCT, polished concrete, and specialty flooring each carry different labor and different periodic cycles. A building that is mostly VCT carries an ongoing finish program that a carpeted building does not.
Occupancy and traffic
Density matters more than area. A call center at high density soils faster than a professional office at low density in the same footprint.
Access conditions
After-hours work, badge and escort requirements, secured floors, and elevator scheduling all add non-productive time that has to be priced somewhere.
Why bigger buildings cost less per square foot
Per-foot pricing falls as buildings get larger, which surprises buyers comparing a small suite to a tower. The reason is that travel, setup, equipment staging, and closing out the building are fixed costs per visit. Spread across 10,000 square feet, they are significant. Spread across 100,000, they nearly disappear.
This is also why a portfolio of small sites rarely prices like one large site of the same total area. Each address carries its own fixed visit cost. Consolidating those sites under one vendor reduces administrative overhead and can improve rates, but it does not eliminate the per-site fixed cost.
How to compare quotes that are not scoped alike
Normalize the bids before comparing them. Convert every quote to the same unit, usually cost per square foot per month, then confirm each one is buying the same thing. The most common differences hide in frequency, in whether consumables such as paper and liners are included, and in whether periodic floor work is inside the recurring price or billed separately.
Ask for the scope as a task list by area and frequency rather than a paragraph describing the service. A specification that says restrooms are cleaned and disinfected daily, trash removed daily, floors damp mopped daily, and partitions wiped weekly is comparable across vendors. A specification that says restrooms will be maintained in a clean condition is not.
Finally, treat an unusually low bid as a scoping question rather than a bargain. Janitorial pricing is mostly labor, and labor rates do not vary that much within a market. A bid materially below the others is usually buying fewer hours, which shows up three months later as declining quality rather than as savings.
What is usually not included
Recurring janitorial prices typically exclude consumables, periodic floor restoration, carpet extraction, high-access glass, pressure washing, and any repair work. Each of those is normally a separate line or a separate scope.
Consumables are the most common surprise. Paper products, liners, and soap can add meaningfully to a monthly invoice, and vendors differ on whether they supply at cost, at markup, or not at all. Settle it in the contract rather than discovering it on the first invoice.