The Eva team
Your AI general manager
Learning how to get commercial cleaning contracts is how a cleaning business stops living job to job. One office, medical building, or gym on a recurring contract can be worth more than a dozen one-time house cleans, and the revenue shows up on a schedule you can plan around. The catch is that commercial work is won differently than residential. It runs on bids, walkthroughs, and trust, not on a quick quote over text. This guide walks through where to find the contracts, how to bid and price them, and how to actually win and keep them.
What a commercial cleaning contract really is
A commercial cleaning contract is a written agreement to clean a business space on a set schedule for a set price, usually billed monthly. Think offices, retail, medical and dental practices, gyms, schools, and restaurants. Unlike a one-off residential clean, it locks in recurring revenue for months or years, which is exactly what makes your business stable enough to hire and grow. It also raises the stakes. Facility managers expect proof of insurance, consistent results, and someone who answers the phone when something goes wrong. Treat the contract as the start of a relationship, not a single transaction, and you will price and pitch it very differently.
Where to find commercial cleaning contracts
The fastest way to find commercial cleaning contracts is to go where the buildings are and where the decision makers already gather. Start local and specific. Drive your service area and write down every office park, clinic, and storefront that looks like it needs a better cleaner. Call or visit the office manager or facility manager directly, because in small and mid-size buildings that one person usually makes the decision. Network with realtors and property managers, since they turn over spaces constantly and need cleaners they can recommend on repeat.
Beyond cold outreach, join your local chamber of commerce and a referral group like BNI, watch public bid sites for schools, churches, and government buildings, and ask your existing residential clients who among them owns or manages a business. Local business Facebook groups and a simple presence online help too. If you already have a system for landing residential work, much of it transfers: see our guide on how to get cleaning clients for the outreach habits that carry over to commercial.
How to bid and price a commercial cleaning job
Commercial cleaning is usually priced per square foot or per visit, and you cannot quote it honestly from your truck. Walk the space first. Measure or ask for the square footage, note the floor types, the number of restrooms, the foot traffic, and how often they want service. Most offices land somewhere between 0.05 and 0.20 dollars per square foot per visit depending on scope and frequency, but treat that as a sanity check, not a price. Build your number up from your real costs: labor hours times your loaded hourly rate, plus supplies, plus a margin you can defend. For the full method, read how to price cleaning jobs, and check current market ranges in our 2026 commercial cleaning rates report so you know when your bid is wildly off.
A common question is how much to charge to clean a 2,000 square foot office. Cleaned a few times a week, that often runs a few hundred dollars a month, but the honest answer is that it depends on scope and your local market, which is exactly why the walkthrough matters. Quote from what you saw, not from a number you guessed before arriving.
How to win the contract, not just bid on it
Facility managers are not buying the lowest price. They are buying peace of mind. The owner who answers fast, shows up to the walkthrough on time, and sends a clean written proposal the same day wins contracts over cheaper competitors who go quiet for a week. At the walkthrough, ask what the last cleaner got wrong, because the answer tells you exactly how to win them. Then propose a clear scope, carry general liability and workers compensation insurance, and have a couple of references ready. Speed is a real advantage here, and slow replies lose deals. Keeping up with every prospect by text is hard, which is why Eva handles client messaging so a hot lead never sits unanswered while you are on a job.
What to put in the commercial cleaning contract
A solid contract protects both of you and prevents the slow leak of unpaid extras and scope creep. Spell out the exact tasks and areas you will clean, the schedule, the monthly price and what triggers an extra charge, and the payment terms, since net 15 or net 30 is common in commercial work. Include the start date, the length of the term, and how either side can cancel with notice. Vague contracts are where the money and the relationship both leak out. Because commercial clients usually pay on terms rather than on the spot, set up your billing to invoice and follow up automatically, the way we lay out in getting paid on time.
How to keep the contract and turn one into many
Keeping a commercial contract is mostly about consistency and communication. Show up when you said you would, hold the same quality every visit, do a quick monthly check-in with the manager, and fix small issues before they become complaints. Give the manager one easy way to reach you. This matters more than it sounds, because facility managers move buildings and talk to each other, so one happy client is often the door to the next three contracts. That referral engine is how owners scale commercial work without a marketing budget, and it pairs naturally with the steady growth approach in how to grow a cleaning business.
Let Eva run the back office while you chase bigger contracts
Winning commercial work adds recurring schedules, monthly invoices, and more people to coordinate, which is exactly the admin that buries owners and pulls them off the phone with new prospects. That is the part I take off your plate. I answer the client messages, send and chase the invoices, and keep the schedule straight, so you can spend your time walking buildings and closing contracts instead of typing on your phone at midnight. See what Eva does across the day, or try the online booking and Client Hub that makes you look as buttoned-up as the national companies you are bidding against.
Commercial contracts are not harder than residential, they are just won on different ground. Find the buildings, walk them, bid from real numbers, answer faster than anyone else, and then keep your promises once you win. Do that consistently and a single contract becomes the foundation the rest of your business is built on.