Short answer: a commercial cleaning price is mostly labour. A provider estimates how many hours your scope will take, multiplies that by the cost of employing cleaners at the times you need them, then adds consumables, equipment, supervision, insurance, overheads and margin. Anything that changes the hours or the time of day changes the price. That is why two businesses with the same floor area can receive very different quotes.
This guide explains how commercial cleaning is priced, the factors that move the cost up or down, and how requirements differ between offices, strata buildings, healthcare, aged care, childcare, food businesses, warehouses, gyms and retail sites.
Most quotes are made up of the same components:
| Component | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Labour | Cleaner hours per visit x visits, at award or agreement rates, including penalties, allowances, leave, superannuation and workers compensation |
| Supervision and quality control | Supervisors, site inspections, reporting and account management |
| Consumables | Toilet paper, hand towels, soap, bin liners (if included) |
| Chemicals and equipment | Detergents, disinfectants, vacuums, scrubbers, colour-coded equipment, and their maintenance |
| Compliance | WHS inductions, training, safety data sheets, insurance |
| Overheads and margin | Administration, travel, vehicles and profit |
Labour is the largest component, so understanding what drives labour hours and labour cost explains most of the difference between quotes.
Whatever the model, ask for the estimated labour hours per visit behind the price. It is the most useful number for comparing quotes.
Floor area tells you how big a site is, not how long it takes to clean. A 1,000 square metre warehouse floor and a 1,000 square metre medical centre with consulting rooms, toilets and a waiting room need very different hours. Fit-out, the number of washrooms and kitchens, foot traffic, hygiene standards and the mix of carpet and hard floor all matter more than area alone. Use per-square-metre figures as a sense-check, not a basis for choosing a provider.
The task list is the biggest driver. Washrooms, kitchens and high-touch points take far more time than vacuuming open floor. Every added task, or higher standard for an existing task, adds hours.
Daily cleaning costs more per month than weekly cleaning, but each visit is usually shorter. Infrequent cleaning often needs more time per visit to catch up. Ask providers to show the price at two or three different frequencies.
Most contract cleaners are covered by the Cleaning Services Award 2020 (MA000022), which sets minimum pay and penalty rates. Under clause 20.2 (award as consolidated to 1 July 2026), penalty rates are expressed as a percentage of the minimum hourly rate:
| When the work is done | Full-time | Part-time | Casual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday–Friday shift starting before 6.00 am or finishing after 6.00 pm | 115% | 130% | 140% |
| Saturday | 150% | 165% | 175% |
| Sunday | 200% | 215% | 225% |
| Public holiday | 250% | 265% | 275% |
So the same scope costs more in labour if it is done at night, at weekends or on public holidays. For many businesses, after-hours cleaning is still the right choice, but it is worth asking which tasks can be done during the day.
The award sets minimum shift lengths for part-time and casual cleaners based on the area being cleaned (clause 13.5):
Employees must be paid for the minimum shift even if they work less. This is one reason a very small site can cost more per hour of actual cleaning than a larger one, and why combining tasks into fewer, longer visits can be more efficient.
The award also provides allowances for certain work, including broken shifts, toilet cleaning, work at heights, hot and cold work, refuse collection and leading hands. Sites that need these tasks carry these costs in the price.
The Fair Work Commission’s Expert Panel reviews minimum wages each financial year, and the decision usually comes into operation on 1 July. Labour costs, and therefore cleaning prices, can change each July. Check how your contract handles price reviews. For current award rates and what they mean for a quote, see our cleaning award pay guide.
Open-plan space is quicker to clean than the same area divided into small rooms. The number of toilets, kitchens and showers, the amount of glass and the floor types all change the hours required.
Security inductions, swipe or key access, sign-in, booked service lifts, loading-dock windows, parking and noise restrictions all add time. City buildings with strict access rules usually cost more to service than a ground-floor site with its own entry.
Some quotes include washroom consumables; others charge them at cost or with a margin. Specialist equipment, such as ride-on scrubbers for warehouses, may be included or charged separately.
Scheduled inspections, reporting, WHS inductions and training are real costs. So is chemical safety: Safe Work Australia says that if you supply, use or store hazardous chemicals, you must keep copies of the safety data sheets in your workplace. A quote that looks much cheaper may not include these.
Travel time, parking and the distance between sites are part of a provider’s costs. If you have several sites, ask whether they can be grouped into one contract and schedule.
Sector requirements change the scope, the products and the documentation, and those changes drive hours and cost.
| Sector | What tends to add time or cost | Related guide |
|---|---|---|
| Offices | Kitchens, washrooms, touch points, after-hours access in multi-tenant buildings | Office cleaning costs |
| Strata buildings | Common areas, bin rooms, garages, lifts, foot traffic, committee reporting and approvals | Strata cleaning costs |
| Medical centres | Infection-control procedures, appropriate disinfectants, colour-coded equipment, clinical and non-clinical zones | Medical centre cleaning |
| Aged care | Risk-based cleaning schedules, documented schedules, ARTG-listed disinfectants, trained contracted staff | Aged care cleaning |
| Childcare and schools | Daytime touch-point cleaning, toilets and nappy-change areas, toys and equipment, school holiday deep cleans | Childcare cleaning checklist |
| Restaurants, pubs and clubs | Grease, food waste, kitchen cleaning around trading hours, late-night and weekend work | Restaurant cleaning |
| Warehouses | Large hard-floor areas, machine scrubbing, high-level dusting, working around forklifts and loading docks | Warehouse cleaning |
| Gyms | High-touch equipment, change rooms and showers, extended opening hours | Gym cleaning checklist |
| Retail and shopping centres | Trading-hours restrictions, day porters, high foot traffic, food courts and amenities | Shopping centre cleaning |
Health and care settings need cleaning that supports infection prevention. For aged care, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care’s Aged Care IPC Guide (August 2024) says cleaning schedules “should be determined by the risk of transmission of infection”, that organisations should have a documented cleaning schedule, and that disinfectants used in residential and centre-based aged care must be listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). It also says contracted cleaning staff should be trained by their employer. These requirements add documentation, product and training costs compared with a general commercial site.
The Food Standards Code (Standard 3.2.2) requires food premises to be kept to a standard of cleanliness with no accumulation of garbage, food waste, dirt, grease or other visible matter (clause 19), and requires food-contact surfaces to be in a clean and sanitary condition whenever food that will contact them is likely to be contaminated (clause 20). Meeting that standard around service times usually means more detailed kitchen cleaning, late-night or early-morning work and periodic degreasing, which are reflected in the price.
Early childhood services follow the NHMRC’s Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services (5th edition). Cleaning programs for these sites often combine daytime touch-point cleaning by staff with after-hours cleaning by a contractor, so be clear in the scope about who does what.
Many sites buy cleaning alongside washroom hygiene, waste management, pest control and building or grounds maintenance. Bundling these under one contract does not automatically reduce the hourly cost, but it can reduce duplicated administration, travel and site inductions, and give you one schedule and one point of contact. If you are budgeting for pest control as well, see our guide to what commercial pest control costs.
Many websites publish hourly or per-square-metre rates for commercial cleaning. Before relying on them, check:
A written quote based on your scope and a site visit is the only reliable figure.
We haven’t found an independent, current source for charge-out rates, but the law sets a floor. From the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, the Cleaning Services Award minimum is $27.08 an hour for a full-time Level 1 cleaner, with casual, part-time and penalty rates on top. A contractor’s hourly charge also has to cover super, leave, insurance, supervision, equipment and margin, so it will sit well above the wage.
Neither is cheaper in itself. Both are ways of expressing the provider’s estimate of labour hours. Per-square-metre pricing can suit large, uniform areas such as warehouse floors, but it tends to misprice sites with many washrooms, kitchens or small rooms, so ask for the hours behind either figure.
Usually as a separate job, quoted after a site visit either by the hours needed or as a fixed price. A first or deep clean takes longer than a routine visit because of built-up dirt, and specialist work such as carpet extraction, hard-floor stripping or high-level dusting is often priced on its own. Ask exactly which areas and tasks the price includes.
Whether you manage one site or several, B&K Services can price your cleaning from a free site walk-through, with the scope, frequency, timing and responsibilities set out in writing before service starts. We work across Sydney, Wollongong and the Illawarra and Nowra and the Shoalhaven, and if your sites also need hygiene, waste, pest control or maintenance, those services can sit under the same contract with one point of contact. Read more about how we work.
Request a free commercial cleaning quote or call 1300 136 954.