A commercial cleaning quote is built from the time needed to complete your scope each visit, multiplied by the cost of the labour doing it, plus supplies, equipment, insurance, overheads and the contractor's margin. Labour is the biggest part, so anything that changes the hours or the cost of those hours changes the price.
Why is labour the main cost?
Cleaning is hands-on work, so the time to do it is the product. Contractors estimate how long each task takes in your building, add the visits across the week, and cost those hours. Industry bodies such as ISSA publish productivity benchmarks that estimators use as a starting point, which is why a reputable contractor can explain how long each part of your site should take.
What rules set the cost of an hour?
For most commercial cleaners the Cleaning Services Award sets minimum pay rates and loadings, including higher rates for evenings, weekends and public holidays and minimum engagement periods for shifts. On top of wages come superannuation, workers' compensation insurance and leave entitlements. A contractor who pays correctly cannot price an hour below those combined costs, which is why very low quotes deserve questions.
What else goes into the price?
After labour, a quote covers consumables such as paper products and chemicals where the contractor supplies them, equipment and its upkeep, public liability and other insurance, supervision and quality checking, and administration. Then comes the contractor's margin. Where you provide the supplies yourself, the quote should be lower and should say so.
Why doesn't floor area set the price?
Floor area drives time for open areas such as offices and corridors, but it is a poor guide for everything else. Washrooms are timed by the number of fixtures, not square metres: ISSA's method allows around three minutes per fixture, so a small washroom with many fixtures can take longer than a large open floor. Kitchens, meeting rooms, bins and add-on tasks are timed separately, and how busy the space is changes how much cleaning it needs.
How does visit length affect price?
Every visit has fixed overheads: travel, setting up, packing down and a minimum paid shift. Short visits to small sites carry proportionally more of these costs, so a tiny office is not priced as a pure fraction of a larger one. Contractors that clean several nearby sites in one route can sometimes spread those costs, which is worth asking about.
What should you do with this?
Ask each contractor how they arrived at their hours, which pay rate assumptions sit behind them and what is and is not included. A clear answer means the quote is built, not guessed. Then read what affects a cleaning quote to see which parts of your own building move the number, and compare quotes like for like once they arrive.
For a quote built room by room from your actual site, book a walkthrough.