Among the many casual questions we hear quite often is one that goes something like this: how much do commercial cleaning services cost in Brookline? The question could be asked just as easily about Boston, Foxboro, and Medford cleaning services. But it’s not a question with an easy answer.
Commercial cleaning services are generally not priced statically. Contracting for services is not like going to the local hamburger joint and picking items off the menu. Pricing is determined by a variety of factors. These factors can vary significantly from one company to the next. Even different spaces a single company needs cleaned could present very different scenarios.
There are seven key pricing factors that dominate commercial cleaning in Brookline and the greater Boston area:
1. Size and Layout
A general practice among Boston-area commercial cleaning providers is to price with a base rate tied to square footage. A provider could charge as little as a few cents per square foot for simple and easily cleaned spaces. That same company could charge many times more for larger and more complicated spaces.
Size and layout are big factors because they contribute directly to the amount of time and effort cleaning crews must invest in a space. However, there are times when larger spaces are eligible for lower rates based on a provider’s volume discounts.
2. Service Schedule
Pricing is impacted by service schedules in that more frequent cleaning leads to higher costs. Spaces that require nightly cleaning will incur higher costs compared to similar spaces that only need service a few times per week.
3. Facility Type and Industry
The type of facility and its related industry impact pricing. The impacts can be profound. For example, medical offices require unique and specialized cleaning strategies for health and safety reasons. It would be normal for a commercial cleaning company to charge significantly higher rates for medical offices as compared to business offices.
4. Work Scope
The scope of a cleaning crew’s work is another important pricing factor. Standard cleaning that barely goes beyond traditional janitorial is the least expensive of all. But when you are talking about more complex tasks – like cleaning at height or waxing and stripping floors – you’re also talking about more expensive services.
5. Labor Costs
Commercial cleaning companies incur their own labor costs. Those costs are passed on to clients through service pricing. And in fact, labor costs are the single most important factor in determining how much cleaning services cost in Brookline and the greater Boston area.
The larger the team, the more expensive the cleaning costs are. The same goes for cleaning crew skills. Highly skilled teams assigned to unique spaces incur higher labor costs.
6. Location and Accessibility
Additional costs related to accessibility and location often come into play. For example, a company with offices in both downtown Boston and on the outskirts of Brookline might incur different costs. The Boston location might be more costly because of things like parking restrictions and more difficult access.
7. Custom Requests
Finally, any custom requests a company might make will affect pricing. Such is the case in most businesses. Customizations require deviating from normal practices and policies. And because deviations reduce efficiency, services become more costly.
There is no way to give a blanket price for the cost of commercial cleaning services in Brookline or anywhere else in the Boston area. But now that you know the factors that go into pricing, it should be easier to determine if your space is likely to be priced at the low end, the high end, or somewhere in between.