How to compare commercial cleaning quotes without getting caught out

Commercial cleaning is unusually hard to price-compare, because the product is invisible and the specification is optional. Two contractors can look at the same building, write the same monthly figure, and be describing jobs that differ by a third in actual labour.

Below are the six things worth checking. None of them require you to know anything about cleaning.

1. Does the scope name surfaces, or only rooms?

A scope that says restrooms is a room. A scope that says restrooms cleaned, disinfected and restocked is a task. The more the document names specific surfaces rather than areas, the less room there is for a quiet reduction later.

2. Is the frequency per area, or one number for the site?

Buildings are not uniform. Your reception takes far more traffic than your storage room. A quote that applies one frequency across the whole site is either overcharging you for the quiet areas or underserving the busy ones, and usually both.

3. How long is the price held?

This is the question people forget to ask and then regret. A low opening figure that can be revised in four months is not a low figure, it is an introductory one. Ask for the period in writing. We hold ours for at least a year, and we put that in the agreement rather than saying it on the phone.

4. What happens on a night that goes wrong?

Every contractor will have an off night eventually. What matters is what the contract says about it before it happens. A remedy that exists only as goodwill is a remedy that depends on how the conversation goes.

Ours is deliberately blunt: if you are not satisfied with a day's service, call us the following business day and you do not pay for that day. It is written down precisely so that neither side has to negotiate in the moment.

5. Who is actually entering the building?

You are handing over a key to a building that will be empty when your contractor is in it. That is a genuine trust decision and it deserves a specific answer, not a general assurance.

• Are applicants reference checked before they start, or after a problem?
• Is there a criminal background check, and does it happen before orientation?
• Is there a drug test as part of the same screen?
• Will staff be identifiable on site, with a visible photo ID badge?
• Is the company fully insured and bonded?

If any of those get a vague answer, that is your answer.

6. Is the schedule built around your building or theirs?

A contractor who can only offer one shift is fitting your building into their route. That is not automatically bad, but you should know it, because it determines whether the clean happens when your building is genuinely empty or merely quiet.

Buildings that fill and empty in bursts, churches, country clubs, bowling alleys and municipal halls, are the clearest case. A fixed weekly slot that lands the evening before your busiest day is worth considerably less than the same visit placed the evening after it.

The one thing that is hard to fake

Ask where their work comes from. A cleaning company that has run for years mostly on referrals is telling you something that no proposal document can: that enough clients have been satisfied for long enough to recommend them to someone whose opinion they care about.

It is not a guarantee. But it is the only metric in this industry that cannot be written into a quote.

If you are collecting quotes for a building in the Saint Paul area, we are happy to be one of them, and equally happy to tell you if we think a nightly round is more than you need.