Is Overpriced Office Cleaning Crushing Your Budget?

How much should you be paying for office cleaning services?

Are you paying too much for what you are getting?

Are you getting real value for your office cleaning budget?

Or do you need to scale back your office cleaning budget without compromising the overall maintenance of your facility?

Is your office cleaning budget in line with your needs, or is overpriced office cleaning crushing your budget?

Office cleaning is a necessary investment to keep your office well maintained and running smoothly. Yet spending more doesn’t always get you more.

So how can you understand office cleaning prices in order to negotiate good value for your facility and stay on budget?

How Commercial Office Cleaning Pricing Is Estimated

There is no one-size-fits-all commercial cleaning price tag because there are so many variables.

And yet, the better you understand how the variables impact janitorial pricing, the better you can negotiate solid value for your facility.

Office cleaning prices can depend on a variety of factors, including:

1. Geographic Area – Where is your office located?
2. The Scope of Office Cleaning Services – What areas do you want cleaned? What tasks are critical? Do you need outdoor work? Do you need services like window cleaning or specialty floor care? Do you want a basic service or a full service?
3. Frequency of Office Cleaning Services – Do you want your office cleaned daily during the work week, or is once or twice per week sufficient?
4. Square Footage of Your Facility – Do you manage a 1,000 square foot facility or a 30,000 square foot office building?
5. The breakdown of square footage by flooring type.
6. The density of the building population.
7. The number of restrooms that need maintenance.

Getting Bids On Commercial Office Cleaning Services

Requesting bids is the easiest and most efficient way to get office cleaning pricing.

The challenging part is getting clear bids so that you can compare “apples to apples.” If you’re new to this process, the results can feel overwhelming.

There are so many sizes and types of cleaning companies that sifting through the good, the bad, and the ugly can be exhausting. The best office cleaning companies offer transparent pricing so you know exactly what you are getting for your office cleaning dollar.

Comparing commercial cleaning prices can be tough. More expensive doesn’t automatically mean you are getting more. But very cheap cleaning prices can be a sign that you are dealing with an inexperienced office cleaning company that won’t be able to deliver what you need for the initial price they set.

Some companies also play pricing games by providing a low initial estimate followed by frequent upsells and surprise fees down the road.

To get the clearest pricing possible, ask how many hours they plan to spend per night maintaining your facility.

Annualize the cost and divide it by the annualized number of labor hours to calculate an hourly billable rate. If they charge too little, they may be taking illegal shortcuts on hiring, taxes, and insurance. If they are charging too much, they may not offer good value.

Key components that affect pricing typically include:

• Labor costs
• Insurance & taxes
• Employee health insurance
• Employee vacation time
• Direct costs (e.g., cleaning supplies, toilet paper, etc.)
• A management fee
• Profit

Why Office Cleaning Profit Should Not Be A Taboo Subject

Profit should not be a taboo subject.

If your office cleaning company has not outlined a healthy profit margin from the start, they may look for one later through upsells and hidden charges. Or worse, they may go out of business, leaving you back at square one.

Outsourcing office cleaning services is a business partnership that works best with honesty and transparent pricing. Profits create and maintain successful companies.

Profitable companies can reinvest in employees, technology, and equipment, which ultimately benefits you. They also support their communities by creating stable jobs and opportunities.

Shopping Local For Your Office Cleaning Solutions

Everything else being equal, most of us prefer to partner with local businesses.

With commercial cleaning, buying local instead of choosing a national-leaning company is often ideal, but it can be tricky. Because the perceived cost of entry is low, new cleaning startups flood the market each year, and many quickly disappear.

Any seasoned business person knows there are no “sure things,” only hard work and enough capital to recover from mistakes. Too often, new startups use your facility as their training ground.

Although every new company goes through a learning curve, most facility managers would rather that learning happen somewhere else. After all, you outsource office cleaning to make your life easier, not harder.

Some good resources for finding an effective, experienced office cleaning contractor include:

• Referrals from surrounding buildings in your area
• Referrals from other vendors or contractors you trust
• Google & online directories
• ISSA CIMS Certification

When You Have Cleaning Budget Cuts That You Must Live With

Labor costs generally comprise the largest component of Janitorial Pricing, so cutting costs often means cutting labor.

How do you get your Detroit office cleaning service to do more with less and still deliver an acceptable level of clean?

With a healthy office cleaning budget and a fully staffed janitorial team, a cleaning specification can be completed line by line, every night. But reduced budgets create competing needs.

The real question becomes the level of clean balanced with the need to meet your budget. With Smart Cleaning, your office cleaning service focuses attention where the need is greatest.

This can mean that high-traffic areas are cleaned more frequently than low-use areas. Smart cleaning can be a solution to tightening budgets, but it requires an experienced cleaning company to avoid sacrificing service quality.

Using CIMS Certification As An “Easy Button”

If you have wished there was an “easy button” to finding a reputable Michigan office cleaning company, you are in luck. It is called CIMS certification.

CIMS (the Cleaning Industry Management Standard) is an industry certification that signals a company is professional and skilled at service delivery. The accreditation is demanding and requires mastery across key areas.

The CIMS standard measures:

• Quality Systems: A framework to ensure effective operations & continuous improvement
• Service Delivery: Processes & systems in place to deliver consistent, quality service
• Human Resources: Best practices for managing a service industry’s greatest asset—their people
• Health, Safety, & Environmental Stewardship: Ensuring regulatory compliance, workplace safety, and health and environmental management
• Management Commitment: Establishing Mission, Vision, and Values and ensuring organizational continuity

Find a company that has invested time and resources into best practices and you can feel more confident about service outcomes. There are no guarantees, but CIMS certification can help you build a short list of providers capable of delivering real quality and value.

And if you are looking for a day porter program for your office, download our free guide to learn more.