Almost nobody in this industry will answer this question in public. The standard response is “it depends on your needs,” which is true and completely useless to someone trying to build a budget. So here are actual numbers, how they are arrived at, and how to tell when a quote is too low to be real.
One thing first: these are market ranges for the Sacramento area, not our rate card. Your building will land somewhere inside them, and where it lands depends on things covered further down.
The short answer
Monthly cost for standard commercial office cleaning, Sacramento area, 2026:
SIZE 1×/WEEK 2×/WEEK 3×/WEEK 5×/WEEK
2,500 sq ft $120–$210 $240–$410 $355–$620 $590–$1,030
5,000 sq ft $235–$410 $470–$825 $710–$1,235 $1,180–$2,060
10,000 sq ft $470–$825 $945–$1,650 $1,415–$2,470 $2,365–$4,125
20,000 sq ft $945–$1,645 $1,890–$3,300 $2,835–$4,945 $4,730–$8,255
40,000 sq ft $1,885–$3,295 $3,780–$6,595 $5,665–$9,890 $9,460–$16,510
Expressed the way most buyers think about it, that is roughly $0.05–$0.08 per square foot per month at weekly service, rising to about $0.24–$0.41 at five nights a week.
Two honest caveats before you use this. The table is linear; real pricing is not. Small buildings hit service minimums, so a 1,500 sq ft suite will usually cost more per square foot than this suggests. Large buildings gain efficiency, so a 40,000 sq ft floor plate often comes in at or below the bottom of the band. And these are ranges for standard office — other facility types shift, as below.
How that number is actually built
Cleaning is priced on labour hours. Everything else is derived from that, and once you can see the arithmetic you can check any quote you are given.
- Square footage ÷ production rate = hours per visit
- Hours × burdened labour cost = direct labour cost
- Direct labour ÷ 0.50 to 0.60 = price per visit
- Price per visit × visits per month = monthly price
Production rate is how much floor area one cleaner covers per hour. For standard office space, plan on 2,500 to 4,000 square feet per hour. Open plan sits at the fast end; heavily partitioned space with many small rooms, or anywhere with a high ratio of restrooms to floor area, sits at the slow end. This is an industry planning range rather than a published statistic — treat it as a sanity check, not a law.
Burdened labour cost is where the real numbers come in, and it is worth showing in full because it explains most of what follows.
COMPONENT RATE PER HOUR
Sacramento market wage — $22.90
Payroll taxes (FICA, FUTA, UI, ETT) 8.47% $1.94
Workers’ compensation 5.74% $1.31
Burdened direct labour — $26.15
The $22.90 is the Bureau of Labor Statistics mean hourly wage for building and grounds cleaning occupations in the Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom metro area. California’s statewide minimum wage is $16.90, so that figure represents a market rate for an experienced worker rather than a floor.
The workers’ compensation line surprises people. California’s rate for janitorial work performed by a contractor runs around $5.74 per $100 of payroll — against roughly $0.34 for clerical office staff. It is not a rounding error.
Labour share. In a janitorial contract, direct labour typically accounts for 50 to 60% of the price. The remaining 40 to 50% covers supervision and inspection, equipment and its maintenance, supplies and consumables, general liability insurance and bonding, vehicles and travel between sites, administration and billing, and margin. A company running at the low end of that range is either very efficient or very thin.
Worked through: a 10,000 square foot office at 3,000 sq ft per hour is 3.3 hours per visit, about $87 of burdened labour, which at a 58% labour share prices at roughly $150 per visit — about $1,950 a month at three nights a week.
A useful check on all of this: published industry guides put commercial cleaning at $0.05 to $0.20 per square foot and $25 to $50 per hour. Building the number independently from Sacramento wage data lands inside that band, which is a reasonable sign the arithmetic holds
What moves your number
FACTOR EFFECT WHY
Medical and dental +20–30% Slower production, more restroom and touch-point work, documentation, tighter protocols
Restaurant and food service +10–20% Grease, floor condition, harder surfaces to bring back
Warehouse and industrial −20–30% Very high square footage per hour, low fixture density
Heavily partitioned layout +10–20% Slower production rate — more doors, corners and small rooms
High restroom-to-area ratio + Restrooms are the slowest square footage in any building
Daytime service + Working around occupants is slower, and daytime labour costs more
Higher frequency − per visit Less soil accumulates between visits, so each visit is faster
Very small suites + per sq ft Travel and setup are fixed costs; minimums apply
Multi-site portfolio − Route efficiency and shared supervision
The floor — and what it means when a quote goes below it
This is the part of the article worth the most to you, and the part most cleaning companies would rather not put in writing.
Burdened labour at the Sacramento market wage is $26.15 an hour. If direct labour is 50 to 60% of a legitimate price, the implied billing rate is roughly $44 to $52 an hour.
Published market ranges for commercial cleaning run from about $25 to $50 an hour. Notice what that means: the bottom of the published range is below the burdened cost of employing someone at the market wage.
That is not necessarily fraud, and it is worth being precise rather than dramatic. A quote at the bottom of the range can work arithmetically — but only on a specific set of conditions. At California’s $16.90 minimum wage, burdened labour is about $19.30 an hour, which leaves a thin margin at $25 for absolutely everything else.
So a very low quote is not usually a bargain. It is information. It tells you some combination of the following is true:
Workers are being paid at or very near minimum wage.
Hours have been cut — the crew is allocated less time than the building needs, which is why quality slides after a few months.
There is little or no supervision or inspection built into the price.
Workers may be classified as independent contractors rather than employees, which shifts tax and workers’ compensation costs off the contractor’s books.
Workers’ compensation coverage may be inadequate — which matters to you, because an uninsured injury in your building is a problem that does not stay with the contractor.
There is a free thirty-second check on the last two. California requires janitorial employers to register with the Labor Commissioner, and registration requires documentation of valid workers’ compensation insurance. The Department of Industrial Relations publishes a searchable public registry. Look up anyone who has quoted you.
The same logic runs in reverse: a quote far above the band is not automatically wrong either. Ask what it includes. Often it includes things the cheap quote left out.
What is usually not included
Most quote comparisons go wrong here rather than on the headline number. The following are typically priced separately:
Floor care cycles — strip and refinish, burnishing, recoating. Often the largest annual extra.
Carpet extraction, usually quarterly or semi-annually.
Window cleaning, interior and exterior.
High-level cleaning — vents, light fixtures, above head height generally.
Consumables — paper, liners, soap. Sometimes included, sometimes billed at cost plus, sometimes your responsibility entirely. Always ask.
Day porter hours, which are a separate service and priced by the hour or the day.
Post-construction or move-out cleaning.
Pressure washing and exterior work.
How to compare two quotes properly
Normalise the scope. Put both on the same zones and the same frequencies before you compare a single number. Most gaps between quotes are scope gaps, not price gaps.
Ask both what is excluded. Not what is included — what is excluded. It is a different question and it gets a different answer.
Get monthly, not per visit. Per-visit pricing at different frequencies is not comparable without doing arithmetic, which is how mistakes happen.
Ask how consumables are handled. This alone can swing a comparison by a meaningful amount on a large building.
Ask about the annual increase. California’s minimum wage rises most years. A contract with no stated escalation mechanism does not mean the price never rises; it means you will have that conversation without a framework.
Divide by square footage and check it against the table above. If one quote is far outside the band in either direction, you now know to ask why.
Frequently asked questions
How much does commercial cleaning cost per square foot in Sacramento?
Roughly $0.05 to $0.08 per square foot per month for weekly service, and about $0.24 to $0.41 per square foot per month for five nights a week, for standard office space. Medical facilities run 20 to 30% higher and warehouse space 20 to 30% lower. Small suites cost more per square foot because service minimums apply.
What does office cleaning cost per month?
For a 10,000 square foot Sacramento office, expect roughly $470 to $825 a month at once a week, $1,415 to $2,470 at three nights a week, and $2,365 to $4,125 at five nights a week. Layout, restroom density, floor type and service hours move the figure within and sometimes outside those bands.
Why are some commercial cleaning quotes so much cheaper?
Burdened labour at the Sacramento market wage is about $26.15 an hour once payroll taxes and workers’ compensation are included, which implies a legitimate billing rate of roughly $44 to $52. A quote materially below that generally means minimum-wage labour, fewer hours than the building needs, no supervision built in, or workers classified as contractors rather than employees. California’s janitorial registration is publicly searchable and registration requires proof of workers’ compensation coverage.
How is commercial cleaning priced?
On labour hours. Square footage is divided by a production rate of roughly 2,500 to 4,000 square feet per hour for standard office space to get hours per visit; those hours are multiplied by burdened labour cost; and that direct cost typically represents 50 to 60% of the contract price, with the balance covering supervision, equipment, supplies, insurance, administration and margin.
Get the number for your building
The table above will get you to a budget figure. An actual price needs someone to see the building — the layout, the floor types, the restroom count, how it is used.
JAN-PRO Commercial Cleaning in Sacramento offers a free facility visit, about twenty minutes, and you get a written scope with zones and frequencies stated alongside the price. If our number lands outside the band above, we will tell you why.
Call (916) 376-8977 or request a facility visit online.