How to Get Commercial Cleaning Contracts: Where to Find Them, How to Bid and How to Keep Them

A commercial cleaning contract is the reason most people start a janitorial business: one office cleaned five nights a week pays every month, and a handful of contracts can support a crew. Getting the first ones is the hard part. Building owners don't search for a cleaner the way homeowners do; they switch when the current one lets them down, and they buy from someone they've already met.

This guide covers where commercial cleaning contracts come from, how to reach the people who sign them, how to bid and write the proposal, how government bids work, and how to keep the contracts you win. If you're still setting up the business, start with how to start a commercial cleaning business.

1. Get contract-ready first

Before you ask anyone for a contract, have the things they will ask for:

• Registered business and EIN, with a business bank account and invoicing set up.
• Certificate of insurance. The SBA describes general liability as covering bodily injury, property damage, medical expenses and lawsuit defense. Commercial clients usually ask for specific limits and to be named as an additional insured. Workers' compensation is required by state law in most states once you have employees.
• A janitorial bond. It pays the client if an employee steals. Many clients ask for one even though the law usually doesn't require it.
• A one-page capabilities sheet: services, the types of buildings you clean, service area, insurance, how you screen and supervise staff, and two or three references.
• A proposal template and a contract template with scope, schedule, price, payment terms and termination notice.

2. Choose the buildings you want

"Commercial cleaning" is too broad to sell. Pick two or three types of buildings you can clean well and that have enough of them nearby:

• Small and medium offices: the easiest start. Predictable tasks, evening work, decisions made by an office manager or owner.
• Medical and dental offices: steady, priced higher for disinfection, but with stricter standards and OSHA bloodborne pathogen requirements for staff who may be exposed.
• Property management: apartment common areas, turnovers and HOA facilities. One property manager can control many buildings.
• Retail, gyms, churches, schools and daycares: each with its own hours and priorities.
• Post-construction cleaning for general contractors: one-time jobs that can lead to the building's recurring contract.

Small buildings are the best start. A 3,000-square-foot office cleaned three nights a week is a contract you can do yourself, win without a long track record, and use as your first reference.

3. Find the decision makers

Make a list of 50 to 100 target businesses in your service area from Google Maps, local business directories, chamber of commerce member lists and the office parks you drive past. For each one, find who decides:

• Owner or office manager in a small business.
• Facility manager in larger companies, hospitals and schools.
• Property manager for multi-tenant office buildings, medical buildings and apartment complexes. They often hire one cleaner for the common areas and sometimes for the tenants too.

LinkedIn, the company's website and a polite question to the receptionist ("who handles your cleaning service?") usually give you a name.

4. Reach out the way buyers actually buy

Commercial cleaning is sold, not advertised. The approaches that work:

• Drop in with a purpose. Visit in person with your capabilities sheet, a business card and a short line about what you'd do better. Ask for the decision maker; if they're out, leave the sheet and follow up.
• Call or email after the visit to ask for a 15-minute walkthrough. Many businesses aren't unhappy enough to switch today but will remember you when the current cleaner misses a night.
• Follow up on a schedule. One visit rarely wins a contract; the cleaner who is still in touch when the current one slips usually gets the walkthrough. Track each prospect, the date and what was said in a simple CRM or spreadsheet; our guide to the best CRM for contractors covers options.
• Network where facility people go: the local chamber of commerce, business networking groups, and local associations of property managers and building owners.
• Ask for referrals. Every satisfied client knows other business owners, and property managers talk to each other.
• Be findable. Buyers who hear your name will look you up. A Google Business Profile, reviews and a simple website listing your services, buildings you clean and service area make you look like a safe choice. The contractor website checklist shows what to put on it.

Lead services and bidding sites that sell commercial cleaning leads exist too. Some are useful, but you're competing with every other cleaner who bought the same lead, so test one at a time and track what you win.

5. How to bid on commercial cleaning jobs

Winning the contract at a price that makes money is the core skill. Every bid follows the same steps:

1. Walk the building with the decision maker. Note square footage, floor types, number of restrooms and fixtures, break rooms, entrances, special areas, when the building is empty, access and alarm codes, and what they don't like about the current service.
2. Write the scope: each task and how often it's done (nightly trash and restrooms, weekly dusting, monthly high dusting, quarterly floor care), plus what's excluded.
3. Estimate the labor hours for each visit from production rates you've timed on real jobs. Labor is the largest cost in janitorial work, so this is the number to get right.
4. Price it: labor hours times your loaded hourly labor cost (wages plus payroll taxes and workers' comp), plus supplies and equipment, overhead (insurance, vehicles, supervision, software) and profit. Present it as a monthly price.
5. Price extras separately: floor stripping and waxing, carpet extraction, window cleaning and post-event cleanups as add-ons.

Don't price from a rule-of-thumb rate per square foot you found online without checking it against the hours. And don't win the first contracts by underbidding: low prices are hard to raise, and a contract that only works when everything goes perfectly loses money the first month something doesn't.

6. Write a commercial cleaning proposal that gets signed

A good proposal is short and specific. Include:

• A summary of what you heard on the walkthrough and how you'll handle it.
• The scope of work as a table of tasks and frequencies by area.
• Schedule: days and times of service.
• Price: the monthly amount, what it includes, and how extra work is quoted.
• Staffing and quality control: who cleans, how they're screened and trained, how and how often you inspect, and how the client reports problems.
• Insurance and bonding, with certificates attached or available on request.
• References from current clients.
• Terms: start date, contract length, payment terms, price adjustments and termination notice.

Our free contractor estimate template can serve as a starting point for the price and scope sections, and the contractor invoice template for monthly billing.

7. Government cleaning contracts

Public agencies buy a lot of cleaning, and their bids are posted publicly. They take more paperwork, but the rules are the same for everyone.

Federal contracts. The SBA lists the basic requirements: a NAICS code that matches your services, a business that meets SBA's size standard for that code, and registration in SAM.gov, the database agencies search to find contractors, which also gives you a Unique Entity ID. The SAM.gov registration checklist says it's free to get a Unique Entity ID, register and maintain your registration; it advises allowing at least ten business days for a new registration to become active, and the registration must be renewed every 365 days. Small businesses can also complete an SBA profile during registration, used for programs such as HUBZone and 8(a).

Federal cleaning contracts usually come under the Service Contract Act. It covers federal contracts over $2,500 whose principal purpose is furnishing services through service employees, and those contracts must state the minimum wage and fringe benefits for each class of worker, set by the Secretary of Labor according to what's prevailing in the locality. Read the wage determination in the solicitation before you price: it sets your labor floor.

State, county, city and school contracts. Each runs its own vendor registration and posts bids on its procurement website. Register as a vendor with the ones in your area, set up alerts for janitorial and custodial services, and read past bid results where they're published: they show who won and at what price.

Subcontracting to larger janitorial companies that hold big public or private contracts is another way in. It builds references and teaches you the paperwork.

8. Keep the contracts you win

The cheapest new contract is the one you don't lose. Missed tasks and slow responses to complaints are what push a client to start taking other bids:

• Inspect regularly with a checklist for each building, and fix problems before the client notices.
• Respond the same day to every complaint, and tell the client what you changed.
• Check in monthly with the decision maker, not just when something goes wrong.
• Keep crews stable and supervised; turnover shows up as missed tasks.
• Offer add-ons (floor care, carpet cleaning, windows) once the basics run smoothly.

Scheduling, checklists and inspection software helps as you add buildings; our comparison of cleaning business software covers Swept, which is built for commercial janitorial companies, alongside residential tools.

Commercial cleaning contract checklist

For the residential side of cleaning, see how to start a cleaning business and our guide to house cleaning marketing.