Service guide
Cleaning: how to scope the job, compare quotes and find a company
Cleaning is priced by labor time, so the fastest way to a fair price is to write the job down: which spaces, which tasks, how often, and when the cleaners can work. This page shows how to do that for a home and for an office or building, how to read a quote against it, and how to have one local company contact you.
Reviewed September 30, 2026
Get a cleaning company
Free. Takes a minute. One company that serves your area contacts you.
For a home
- Say how big and how often. Bedrooms, bathrooms and rough square footage, and whether you want weekly, every two weeks, monthly or a one-time deep clean.
- Say what is different about your home. Pets, stairs, hardwood or stone floors, anything fragile, and rooms to skip.
- Ask what a standard visit includes. Inside the oven and fridge, windows, baseboards and laundry are often extras. Get the list in writing.
- Ask who comes. The same person or team each visit, employees or subcontractors, and whether the company is insured for damage and injury in your home.
- Agree on supplies and access. Whose products and vacuum, how they get in, and what happens if you need to skip or move a visit.
For an office or building: what the work covers
"Janitorial", "custodial" and "office cleaning" mean the same thing. The work splits into five kinds, and most contracts combine two or three of them.
| Kind | What it is | How it is usually bought |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring janitorial | Trash, restrooms, floors, touch points and dusting on a fixed schedule, usually after hours | Monthly price under a term contract |
| Day porter | A cleaner on site during business hours for restrooms, lobbies, spills and restocking | Hourly rate for scheduled hours |
| Floor care | Strip and wax, scrub and recoat, carpet extraction, burnishing | Per project or on a periodic schedule inside the contract |
| One-time and post-construction | Move-in, move-out and construction cleanup | Per project, quoted after a walk-through |
| Specialized environments | Medical and dental offices, labs, food service, clean manufacturing | Recurring contract with written procedures |
What drives the price
A cleaning price is mostly labor hours multiplied by a loaded labor rate. Anything that adds minutes per visit adds cost; anything that lets a crew move faster lowers it. Seven things move the hours:
- Cleanable area. Count what gets cleaned, not the gross building. Storage rooms nobody enters do not belong in the number.
- Frequency. Five nights a week is not five times the price of one: daily cleaning keeps soil from building up, so each visit is faster.
- Density and use. A call center with 200 desks takes longer than an executive suite of the same size.
- Restrooms and fixtures. Restrooms are the slowest square feet in any building. Give the fixture count.
- Floor types. Carpet, resilient tile, polished concrete and stone each have their own routine and periodic work.
- Service window. Overnight work in a managed tower with security check-in and freight elevator rules costs more than daytime work in a single-tenant building.
- Who supplies consumables. Paper, soap and liners can be a meaningful share of a monthly invoice. Decide whether they are in the price.
How to write the scope
List the spaces
Offices, open work areas, restrooms, break rooms, lobbies, stairwells, elevators. Note the floor type in each and anything off limits.
Set a frequency for every task
Trash and restrooms every visit. Vacuuming of traffic lanes every visit and wall-to-wall weekly. High dusting monthly. Floor refinishing quarterly or annually. A task without a frequency will not get done.
Decide who buys supplies
State whether paper products, hand soap and liners are included, billed at cost, or supplied by you.
Describe access and security
Keys or badges, alarm procedures, elevator bookings, and the hours crews may be in the building.
Say how quality is checked
Who inspects, how often, and how a missed task is reported and fixed. Ask for the inspection form.
Set the term and the exit
Ask for a one-year term with a 30-day termination right for either side, and put the notice period in writing before you sign.
The janitorial RFP checklist turns these six steps into a document you can send to bidders.
How to compare proposals
Two bids for the same building can differ by a wide margin and both be honest, because they assume different hours. Ask every bidder for the same seven items and the differences explain themselves.
| Ask for | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Labor hours per visit | The single most useful number. A low price with too few hours is a scope that will not be delivered. |
| Task list with frequencies | Shows whether the bidder priced your scope or their standard package. |
| Supplies and consumables | Confirms what is inside the monthly price and what is billed on top. |
| Supervision and inspections | Who checks the work, how often, and what you receive as a record. |
| Employees or subcontractors | Tells you who will actually be in your building and who is responsible for them. |
| Certificates of insurance | General liability and workers' compensation certificates naming your entity, sent by the insurer. |
| Price changes and termination | How and when the price can rise, and how much notice ends the contract. |
Medical and dental offices
Health care spaces add a regulatory layer. OSHA's bloodborne pathogens standard applies to all occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials, and it requires the employer to implement a written schedule for cleaning and a method of decontamination based on the location, the type of surface, the type of soil and the tasks performed in the area. [1]
That means three questions for any cleaning company: how its staff are trained for exposure risk, what written procedures it follows in clinical rooms, and where the line sits between what its crew handles and what your own staff or a medical waste vendor handles. Get the answers in the proposal, not in a conversation.
How a request works here
Tell us the job and your ZIP code in the form on this page. A person checks the request, and one cleaning company that serves your area and does that kind of job contacts you. We email you who it is. If nobody fits, we tell you. Free for you. Our promise.
Questions and answers
- What is the difference between janitorial and office cleaning?
- In practice, none that matters to a contract. "Janitorial" usually means the recurring routine (trash, restrooms, floors); "office cleaning" is the broader term that also covers floor care and one-time projects. Write down the tasks and how often, and the label stops mattering.
- How do I know a cleaning bid is too low?
- Ask for the labor hours per visit and multiply by the number of visits in a month. If the monthly price divided by those hours is near or below the local minimum wage, the bid cannot cover wages, payroll taxes, insurance, supplies and supervision, and the scope will be cut after you sign.
- Should cleaning supplies be included in the price?
- Either works. Including consumables gives one predictable invoice; buying them yourself shows the true labor price and removes the markup. Whichever you choose, write it into the scope so every bidder prices the same thing.
- How long should a cleaning contract for a building be?
- A one-year term with a 30-day termination right for either side keeps the price stable and leaves you an exit. A longer term can earn a lower price, but it makes it harder to leave a provider that stops performing.
- Does CityPreferred clean buildings?
- No. CityPreferred connects you with a cleaning company. We check your request and one company that fits contacts you. That company does the work and sets the price.
Sources
- 1.Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 29 CFR 1910.1030, Bloodborne pathogens. Read September 30, 2026.