How much should I charge per square foot for commercial cleaning in 2026?

Most US janitorial contracts land between $0.06 and $0.22 per square foot per month, depending on frequency and building type. Warehouses cleaned once a week sit near the bottom; medical offices cleaned nightly sit near the top. Always calculate labor hours first and use the per-square-foot number only to check your answer against the market.

What hourly rate should a commercial cleaning bid produce?

In 2026, divide the monthly bid by the monthly labor hours. Healthy accounts come out at $30-$45 per labor hour in most US markets and $38-$55 in high-wage metros like NYC, Seattle and the Bay Area. Below $28 per hour you cannot cover a $17 wage plus 25% burden, supplies, overhead and profit.

Should I include supplies and paper products in my bid?

Only if you price them. Providing paper towels, toilet paper and liners typically adds 4-7% to the contract value and shifts consumption risk to you. Many contractors quote both versions: base price with client-supplied consumables, and a second line for full supply, billed at cost plus 20%.

How long should a commercial cleaning contract run?

One year with automatic renewal is the US standard, with a 30-day termination notice for either side. Always include an annual escalation clause of 3-4% or one tied to CPI. Without it, three years of wage increases turn a 20% margin into a 6% one.

Do I need insurance before I can bid?

Practically, yes. Nearly every property manager requires a certificate of insurance with the bid: $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate general liability, workers' compensation, and often a $10,000-25,000 janitorial bond, with the client listed as additional insured. Bids arriving without a COI usually get discarded before the price is read.

How to Bid Commercial Cleaning Contracts in 2026

A commercial cleaning bid is one calculation dressed up as a proposal: how many labor hours the building really takes each month, multiplied by your fully loaded hourly cost, plus supplies, overhead and profit. In 2026 most US janitorial accounts land between $0.06 and $0.22 per square foot per month, but that number is the output of the math, never the input. Bid from square footage alone and you will win the jobs you should have lost. This guide walks through the walkthrough, the production rates, the labor burden, and the bid sheet that keeps a 15-25% net margin intact.

What do you measure during the walkthrough?

Never bid a building you have not walked. The walkthrough is where you find the two floors of stairs, the 40 toilets, and the loading dock nobody mentioned on the RFP. Bring a tape measure or a laser, a floor plan if they will give you one, and capture this:

Cleanable square footage — total area minus walls, elevator shafts and permanently occupied storage. It is usually 10-15% less than the gross square footage on the lease.
Floor type breakdown — carpet, VCT, polished concrete, ceramic. VCT that needs stripping and waxing twice a year is a separate line item, not part of the nightly rate.
Fixture count — toilets, urinals, sinks, showers. Restrooms drive labor more than any other space: budget 3-5 minutes per fixture per service.
Occupancy and density — 90 people in 9,000 sq ft trashes a floor faster than 20 people in the same space. Ask for headcount, not just area.
Frequency per area — the lobby may be 5x per week while the warehouse mezzanine is 1x per month. Price each zone at its real frequency.
Access rules — badge escorts, an 8pm-5am window, elevator reservations, union labor requirements. Every restriction adds hours or a pay premium.

How many square feet per hour should you plan for?

Production rates are the industry's way of converting area into hours. These are realistic 2026 ranges for a trained cleaner working a full shift with a cart:

General office, nightly (trash, vacuum, spot clean, restrooms): 2,800-3,800 sq ft per hour.
Medical office and clinics (disinfection protocols, biohazard handling): 1,800-2,500 sq ft per hour.
Schools and daycare (high density, heavy restroom load): 2,000-3,000 sq ft per hour.
Warehouse and industrial (large open areas, low fixture count): 8,000-15,000 sq ft per hour.
Retail and showroom (glass, entry mats, sales floor detail): 3,000-4,500 sq ft per hour.
Restrooms alone, measured separately: 250-400 sq ft per hour.

Take the lower end of the range for your first 90 days on a new account. Crews are slower before they learn a building, and a bid priced at the optimistic rate turns into unpaid overtime by week three.

How do you turn hours into a price?

Here is a 20,000 sq ft office cleaned 5 nights a week, at 3,200 sq ft per hour, run at 2026 costs:

Labor hours: 20,000 / 3,200 = 6.25 hours per night. 6.25 x 21.7 nights per month = 135.6 hours per month.
Base wage: $17/hour in most secondary US markets ($20-24 in Seattle, NYC or the Bay Area).
Labor burden: add 22-30% for payroll taxes, workers' comp, and paid time off. At 25%, your true labor cost is $21.25/hour.
Monthly labor: 135.6 x $21.25 = $2,881.
Supplies and consumables: 4-7% of the contract if you provide paper and liners, 2-3% if the client stocks their own. Budget $150.
Equipment and vehicle allocation: $120 per month for a single-site route.
Overhead (admin, insurance, software, marketing): typically 12-18% of revenue. Budget $520.
Cost subtotal: $3,671. At a 20% net margin, the bid is $4,589 per month — about $0.23 per sq ft, or $33.85 per labor hour.

Now sanity check the result. Divide the monthly price by the monthly hours: if the answer is under $28 per hour in 2026, you are underwater the first time someone calls out sick. If it is over $45, expect to defend the number line by line.

What should you charge for periodic and add-on work?

Nightly cleaning is the recurring revenue; the periodic work is where the profit hides. Quote these separately, with their own frequency, so they never get absorbed into the base rate:

Strip and wax VCT: $0.35-$0.75 per sq ft, typically 1-2x per year.
Carpet extraction: $0.15-$0.30 per sq ft, quarterly or semiannual.
Interior and exterior window cleaning: $4-$9 per pane, quarterly.
High dusting above 10 feet: $0.03-$0.06 per sq ft, semiannual.
Post-construction or move-out deep clean: $0.20-$0.55 per sq ft as a one-time job.
Emergency or after-hours call-out: your hourly rate x 1.5, with a two-hour minimum.

What does the winning proposal actually contain?

Property managers compare three bids side by side in about six minutes. Make yours the easy one to say yes to:

A scope matrix: every task with its frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly). Ambiguity here becomes free work later.
One monthly price plus a separate table of periodic services with unit pricing.
Proof of insurance: $1M/$2M general liability, workers' comp, and a janitorial bond, all with the client named as additional insured.
Your quality control process — inspection frequency, who inspects, and how issues get reported and closed.
Photo verification of completed work, which has quietly become the tie-breaker in 2026 bids.
Term, escalation clause (3-4% annually or tied to CPI), and a 30-day termination notice for both sides.

How does CleanOS help you bid and hold the margin?

The bid is a hypothesis; the account tells you whether it was true. CleanOS logs the real clock-in and clock-out on every visit, so after 30 days you can compare bid hours against actual hours per building and see exactly which contracts drifted. Every cleaner uploads before and after photos, so when a property manager claims the restrooms were skipped on the 14th you answer with timestamped evidence instead of an apology. Invoices, supplies and payroll sit in the same place, which means the monthly margin per contract is a number you can read, not one you estimate in December.

Which bidding mistakes cost the most money?

Bidding from a floor plan without walking the building — you miss stairwells, fixture counts and access rules.
Forgetting labor burden, which quietly eats 22-30% of every hour you sell.
Pricing all zones at the office production rate when 15% of the area is restrooms at 300 sq ft per hour.
Signing a multiyear contract with no escalation clause while wages rise 4% a year.
Absorbing supplies you never priced — paper towels and liners alone can run 5% of the contract.
Chasing the lowest bid on a building you cannot staff. Losing a bad bid is cheaper than servicing one.

Bid the hours, not the square feet. Walk every building, use conservative production rates, add the burden, and protect a 15-25% margin in writing with an escalation clause. Do that consistently and you will lose a few bids on price and keep the accounts that actually pay for your business.