Are Commercial Cleaning Services Expensive?

 

I get it...we're small business owners too. Everywhere you look you're seeing a price increase here and a price increase there. Your employees are facing the same and you'd be a rarity if they haven't asked for a raise yet. But do you realize what goes into pricing, and what we can take off of your shoulder in terms of cost? We can actually SAVE you money. 

The below guide talks about pricing on aa 30K foot view but I'll dive in deeper to share what goes into pricing and the money you can save by hiring a professional cleaning service like Clean Line Janitorial Services. 

The 30K Foot View...

If you were to Google around you'd find high rates listed like $200-$400 per clean for a 1000 sqft office. I've seen some square footage rates online as high as 12 cents per square foot (so a 10,000 sqft office would be $1200!!). These are all wrong!

Nationwide, the average cost for cleaning services is roughly $30/hour for basic cleaning for commercial properties for locations that take about 8 hours per visit to clean. I head this stat from an industry cleaning event and the source came from ISSA. 

Big differences between the two. But know as the decision-maker for your next cleaning service that there's a lot that impacts rates. These include the size of your property, the cleaning frequency, surface types, the scope of work, schedule, and a lot more. 

The Details....

Our pricing is a set monthly rate, or if the cleaning is weekly or less frequent (e.g. 1X), then our proposal will have a price per visit. 

Labor - If we want to pay $15/hour, for example, we're not just factoring in $15. We're factoring in more. These include total hours and benefits like paid time off or holiday pay. We also pay on their behalf 6.2% for the Social Security Tax and 1.45% for the Medicare tax. Plus, by law, we also have to pay federal and state unemployment. And depending on where you are located, we might have some local taxes too, like DC's Family Leave tax. 

Supplies - We don't want our client to provide any supplies. It's an added expense to you and quite often we're able to source them much cheaper and less expensive. Our team is trained on certain supplies and equipment too. We also cover replacements. So if that vacuum breaks, there's no added cost to you. If we need a special floor machine, there's no extra cost. These supplies will always depend on your surfaces and what you'd need us to do in terms of a service.

Overhead - Yea, that is something. I can definitively say that each of our clients are kicking in a few extra on their invoice for our next holiday party. But it also includes some very important stuff too, like liability insurance or workers' comp insurance. It includes office staff to help you on the backend and management to keep our employees on task. And it includes other necessary stuff like a phone system, internet for email communication, and much more. But these overhead costs are low in relation.

Profit - If overhead wasn't bad enough, profit would be better. The sole reason why businesses are in business is to make a profit (unless you knew about a past enterprise I had decades ago that acted like a non-profit because it never made a profit. 

The Calculation....

Well, I mentioned in the 30K foot view that the average rate is about $30.hr. But what does that mean in context of time? Generally speaking, the average commercial cleaner should be able to clean 2500-3500 sqft per hour per person. So, if a property is 25,000 sqft, then generally it should be done within 8 hours, and yes, our rate would be close to $240 per day. But if it were 2500 sqft (getting rid of a zero), would that mean the price would be $30? No way. It might be $100! You have to look at it on the practical side of things. Would anyone in the world roll out of bed to show up for $15 to clean for only 1 hour? No way! For 8, sure! So therefore, if you were to graph this all out, there's a curve in the graph. The less hours we work, the more we pay per hour to our staff to make it worthwhile to come and clean.

The more hours we can get our crew, the lower the rate, and the less hours, the higher the rate. So, there's no set rule. It's just a guide, in addition to all of the other factors listed like the scope, frequency, and more.

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Clean Line Janitorial Services provides janitorial and porter services to facilities throughout the DC Metro Area. Give us a call to 703-541-9761 or email cleanlinejanitorialservices@gmail.com for your FREE, no-obligation comprehensive guide and proposal for services at your commercial office or facility.