What Do Commercial Cleaning Companies Charge in 2026? #
Commercial cleaning is usually quoted two ways: per square foot per month for recurring contracts, and per hour for smaller or one-off jobs. Typical ranges are $0.05-$0.25 per square foot and $25-$60 per hour (ISSA editorial guidance, 2025).
By facility type, the ranges spread out: standard offices land in the middle, while medical, healthcare, and specialty spaces sit at the top because of sanitation and compliance requirements. Wherever a bid falls, it has to clear one hard number, the cost of labor, which federal data lets you pin down precisely.
Per-Square-Foot vs Hourly vs Monthly Contract Pricing #
Each pricing model fits a different job:
- Per square foot (monthly) - the standard for recurring contracts. It rewards efficient crews and makes budgeting predictable for the client.
- Hourly - best for variable or one-off scopes (post-construction, deep cleans) where the work is hard to standardize. Common range $25-$60/hr (ISSA).
- Flat monthly - a fixed price derived from an estimate of labor hours and production rate, popular with clients who want one predictable number.
Need the numbers for janitorial services?
The federal record for NAICS 56172: headline figures, the seven-year Census series, every reportable state and official concentration, with a source and provenance sheet. No written analysis.
What Drives a Cleaning Rate: Facility Type, Frequency, and Scope #
Three factors move a rate within, or beyond, the typical range:
- Facility type - offices $0.09-$0.17/sq ft, medical/healthcare $0.14-$0.29, industrial $0.08-$0.20, retail $0.07-$0.15, schools $0.07-$0.14 (ISSA editorial guidance, 2025). Compliance and contamination risk push medical to the top.
- Frequency - daily service costs more per month than weekly, but often less per visit thanks to route efficiency.
- Scope - restroom sanitation, floor care, and window work carry specialty labor and consumables that a base rate does not cover.
The Labor-Cost Floor Every Bid Has to Clear #
Cleaning is a labor business, and labor is where federal data anchors the pricing conversation. The janitorial industry employs 1,088,193 workers across 67,799 establishments, with total annual payroll implying about $30,100 in payroll per worker (Census CBP, 2023).
This is why the low end of the ISSA ranges is a warning line, not a target: bids below it usually mean someone mispriced labor. Grounding your floor in the federal payroll figure keeps you from winning work that costs you money.
Pricing a Contract Against Industry Ranges and Federal Data #
Put the two data sources together. Build the bid bottom-up from the federal labor floor (~$30,100/worker base, fully loaded with taxes, insurance, and overhead), then sanity-check the result against the ISSA ranges of $0.05-$0.25/sq ft and $25-$60/hr. If your bottom-up number lands far outside those ranges, recheck your production-rate and labor assumptions.
For clients, the same logic runs in reverse: a quote well below the range likely reflects underpaid or under-supervised labor, which shows up later as turnover and quality problems. In a fragmented market of 67,799 janitorial firms (Census CBP, 2023), there are plenty of comparables to benchmark against.