One good reason to charge more for the first office cleaning is to get the office in good condition to begin a proper cleaning maintenance schedule.
It would be difficult to promise clean floors when, in all honestly, the floors need a good deep scrubbing first. You’ll want to deliver good, quality cleaning maintenance right from the start.
Here are a few other things you should consider before pricing your next office cleaning.
✔ Take thorough notes when performing your initial walk through. You will want to highlight the overall condition of the office, not just getting the square footage.
✔ Writing down the condition of each room or each level helps with bidding a commercial cleaning job. This enables you to give a more accurate price for the commercial cleaning.
If you need help, please feel free to download this handy customer profile worksheet for janitorial cleaning services. It is designed to help you take note of the areas that really matter.
Assess the structural surfaces in-depth. This will determine why you should charge more for the first office cleaning.
Examine the floors (carpet and hard surface), the windows, the rest rooms, the break room/lounge, entrance, and the walls.
If these areas are in a manageable condition, then it may not be necessary to charge to wash windows, or clean carpet, or give the rest rooms a good deep cleaning.
Your company can just continue the established maintenance schedule. You can simply begin your work and perform the deep cleaning according to the existing schedule.
I must add, this is not typical for most commercial cleaning.
For whatever reason, you were selected to offer a bid to perform the cleaning maintenance. And, in most scenarios, the former cleaning service left the building in an unsatisfactory state.
In a situation that your company has won a bid and the office building is in bad shape, you should charge more for the first cleaning.
Undoubtedly, the floors, windows, and entrance will need a deep scrub. And, more than likely so will the rest rooms.
In this scenario, it would only make sense to add an additional fee to the cleaning costs. Think about it. You will need additional chemicals, supplies, and labor costs. All of those additional costs should not come out of your pocket. You should simply attach an initial cleaning price to your bid proposal. Got it. Cool.
Now, in a case where there are minimum extras you want to care for in the beginning of your new contract, you could probably charge an extra 30%-50%.
In this instance, you are not necessarily deep cleaning any one particular area of the office. You and your team are giving a comprehensive cleaning to all areas. This helps to bring the office to a certain standard for you to work with moving forward.
Attaching a small fee also gives you a little padding to familiarize yourself with the space. Even if you have an excellent maintenance schedule, actually running the schedule can be a bit challenging at first. It takes time to get a good routine going, especially if there’s a team involved.
Regardless, this extra time is money.
If you haven’t grabbed the commercial cleaning customer profile worksheet, you can still pick it up right here.
I’ll be honest, we have worked an “initial fee” into a maintenance contract for a few government agencies. So, we actually did the initial cleaning gradually. THIS does happen. We have only done this a few times with some of our customers.
You see, it is your business, and the cleaning contract is between you and your customer.
At the time, our customers simply couldn’t afford an initial fee. So, we simply added a percentage to their monthly fee over a one-year contract. It worked out just fine. And in all honesty, we really needed the work at the time and couldn’t afford to let the opportunity pass us by.
I will say that the vast majority of janitorial services will simply charge the additional fee up front just to get the work done and start off right.
So, on your next initial walk through, take a look at the floors, windows, lounge/ break room, rest rooms, entrance and walls. Calculate a fair price for one thorough initial cleaning if necessary. If not, add a small percentage into an annual contract to cover you.
These are the major reasons why you should charge more for the first office cleaning!
(By the way, if your existing janitorial service has not added additional cleaning maintenance tasks to your current office cleaning customers, consider doing so. It gives you the opportunity MAKE MORE MONEY and ENCOURAGE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. If you enter the FREE deep cleaning challenge, I will walk you through this simple process.)
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”
— Jim Rohn
Until next time,
Happy cleaning
Creator of A Janitor’s Story®. I started my office cleaning side hustle at 20 years old. Years later, with the partnership of my husband and our amazing staff, my business grew to mid-six figures and fulfilled my wildest dreams! Now, 27 years STRONG, I’ve retired, and I help aspiring entrepreneurs to START and GROW their house and office cleaning service businesses to achieve their biggest dreams. I’d like to help you do the same.
Click here to join my email list for constant inspiration, deals and special offers EXCLUSIVELY for new cleaning business solopreneurs and small cleaning teams. I look forward to meeting you inside!
