How Much Does It Cost to Hire Professional Office Cleaning Service?
By far the biggest question office managers, GM’s and facility managers want to know is what are your prices or how do commercial cleaning services come up with their prices.
I’m sure sometimes it seems like contractors just make it up but there is some methodology to it. Today we just want to go over some of the variables that have an impact on office cleaning costs.
Commercial cleaning is mostly labor, the typical service will have labor percentages of 40%, 50% and even higher in some situations. The key to reducing cost is reducing labor. Its critical to keep this in mind when taking estimates.
Table of Contents
Business Objectives
This may seem odd at first but the Buffalo NY market has over 30 K businesses. Each of them is in completely different industries and may have needs specific to their business.
A financial service business with wealthy clients coming in may need a very high level of cleanliness for appearance purposes. While medical buildings have to keep areas clean for practical reasons. Some manufacturing plants even have clean rooms but only need a standard cleaning in the office areas.
Service Frequency
How many services per month plays a large role. Generally speaking, with any product or service the more you buy the less the unit cost.
This applies to cleaning also, 21 services a month for example will be much easier to clean on a daily basis versus 10 services months. What happens is the per clean rate is much higher for 10 services because the building is dirtier and takes longer to clean.
Day and Time of Service
Above all, supply and demand matters most. What days and times can play a big part in rate per service? If cleaning needs to be done after 11pm for example there is just a much smaller labor pool available for contractors and they need to pay higher wages.
Payment & Invoice Terms
Equally important for most cleaning services is cash flow. This is something most business managers probably don’t think about but is critical for cleaners. Most businesses will pay net 30 days but some require 60 and even 90 days until sending an invoice.
Most commercial cleaning businesses are pretty small and this can be a huge burden on their monthly cashflow. Some will not bid on these properties or will add a mark up to cover the long payment cycle.
Hours Per Month
In addition to frequency, the larger a building or more hours needed per month plays a huge part in per clean costs. One big reason is supervision, with larger buildings a supervisor or team leader can be assigned nightly.
For smaller jobs a supervisor will need to drive to multiple sites per night which adds significantly to the cost.
