How to Compare Commercial Cleaning Quotes

Three quotes for the same building can differ by forty percent and every one of them can be honest. The gap is almost never the hourly rate — it is what each contractor assumed when nobody told them what to assume.

Comparing on the headline number is how facilities managers end up switching contractors every eighteen months. Here is how to compare properly.

Make every quote answer the same questions

The only reliable way to compare quotes is to send every contractor the same brief. If you let each one define the scope, you are not comparing quotes, you are comparing interpretations.

A brief does not need to be long. It needs to state:

• The areas covered, room by room or zone by zone
• The floor finishes in each area
• Approximate headcount and operating hours
• Required cleaning windows, and any noise or access restrictions
• Who supplies consumables
• Anything specifically excluded

Send that to three contractors and the quotes become comparable in a way that no amount of negotiation afterwards can achieve.

Convert every quote to the same unit

Quotes arrive in different shapes — per hour, per visit, per month, per square metre. Before you can compare anything, put them all in the same unit. Monthly cost is usually the most useful, because that is what you will actually be invoicing against.

Then check the arithmetic yourself:

• Monthly cost divided by visits per month gives cost per visit
• Cost per visit divided by the hours quoted gives an effective hourly rate

If one contractor's effective hourly rate is far below the others, that is not a bargain. It usually means fewer hours on site, and you should ask directly how many staff for how long.

Ask what happens in the hours you are not there

Most commercial cleaning happens when the building is empty, which means you are buying something you will never watch being done. That makes verification part of what you are purchasing.

Ask each contractor:

• Will the same team service the site each visit, or a rotating pool?
• Is there a per-visit record of what was completed?
• Who is the named contact, and what is the response time for an issue?
• How are staff inducted to this specific site?

A contractor who cannot answer the second question is asking you to take the whole service on trust. That is fine when it works and impossible to argue about when it does not.

The five things that most often differ between quotes

When two quotes for the same building are far apart, the gap is usually hiding in one of these:

1. Periodic work. One quote includes quarterly carpet extraction and hard-floor maintenance; the other prices them as extras. Over a year this is a large number.
2. Consumables. Hand towel, toilet paper, bin liners and soap are a real monthly cost. Confirm whether they are in the rate, at cost, or excluded.
3. Washroom frequency. Some quotes service washrooms every visit; others rotate them. This is the most common quiet reduction.
4. Waste handling. Moving bins to a collection point is labour. It is often assumed by the client and excluded by the contractor.
5. Team size versus hours. Two cleaners for two hours and one cleaner for four hours are the same labour on paper and very different in practice for a large floor.

Insurance, and why the certificate matters

Ask for a current certificate of currency for public liability and workers compensation, and check the dates rather than just filing it. A contractor working in your building without current cover transfers a risk you did not agree to carry.

For sites with specific requirements — healthcare, education, buildings with children or vulnerable residents — ask what background checking the contractor does for staff, and get the answer in writing before the contract starts rather than after an incident.

Price the exit, not just the entry

The cost of changing cleaners is real: re-inducting a team, re-cutting keys, a month of variable standards while a new crew learns the building. It is worth asking about at the quoting stage.

• What is the notice period, in both directions?
• Is there a lock-in term, and what happens if the standard slips?
• Are keys, fobs and any site-specific equipment returned on exit?

A contractor confident in their work will usually offer a short notice period. A long lock-in on a cleaning contract is a signal worth asking about.

The cheapest quote and the most expensive quote are both easy to explain once you have the scopes side by side. It is the quote nobody can explain that should worry you.

A simple comparison method

Put the three quotes in a table with one row per task band — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly — and one column per contractor. Fill in what each one actually includes. The gaps become obvious in about ten minutes, and the conversation shifts from "why are you more expensive" to "you have not priced the quarterly carpet work, can you add it".

That is a much better conversation to have before signing than after.

You can see the full range of services we quote on. If you would like a quote written in that format — task bands, frequencies and a fixed monthly price, so it lines up against whatever else you have received — tell us about your site and we will send one through within a business day.