Retail cleaning contracts and store cleaning bids priced before you walk in
Janitorial sends retail cleaning contracts from clothing stores, showrooms, specialty shops, strip center tenants and multi-store chains in your service area to your feed, each with square footage, nights per week, opening hours and a monthly price range already calculated. A 12,000 sq ft store cleaned seven nights a week prices at about 3,400 to 4,000 USD a month in Texas, so you know before the walkthrough whether the account fits your crew.
Commercial and public-sector work only. Cancel any time. Your pricing data stays yours.
Price a retail store cleaning contract
The calculator below opens on the retail store facility type at 12,000 sq ft and seven visits a week, the size of a typical apparel or home goods store with a sales floor, fitting rooms, a stockroom and two restrooms. Change the square footage, the frequency and your state, add a supplies restock, monthly floor care, quarterly windows or a day porter, and you get labor hours per visit, crew size and a monthly price range. No account needed.
AI bid pricing
Enter the facility details. Get a monthly contract price, a crew plan and a proposal preview.
Results
Monthly contract price
6,000 USD
Price per sq ft0.326 USD
- Low
- Target
- High
- Production rate (sq ft per labor hour)
- Labor hours per visit
- Crew size
- Time on site
- Monthly labor hours
- Labor cost
- Supplies
- Overhead
- Margin
Note on the estimate
The estimate uses general industry ranges for commercial cleaning production rates and wages. On the Pro plan you set your own production rates and wage rates per area, and every price in your account uses them.
Proposal preview
Scope of work
Cleaning schedule
Pricing
- Labor cost
- Supplies
- Overhead
- Margin
- Monthly contract price
Full PDF proposals with your logo are part of every plan.
What retail cleaning contracts include
A store sells from its floor, so the floor and the glass are the contract. Shoppers judge a store in the first ten steps: smudged entrance doors, a gray haze on the vinyl and an overflowing fitting room trash can cost the manager sales, and the district manager sees it on the next visit. That is why retail buyers care more about what the store looks like at 10 am than about the task list.
Most retail work happens after closing, between about 9 pm and 2 am, or in an early morning window before the doors open. Many stores are open seven days a week, so seven-night service is common, and holiday weeks bring longer hours and heavier traffic. Malls and lifestyle centers often control the common areas through their own janitorial contract, which leaves each tenant to hire for the space inside its lease line.
The Janitorial pricing engine uses a production rate of 3,200 sq ft per labor hour for retail, faster than an open office at 3,000, because a sales floor has fewer desks, wastebaskets and break rooms per square foot. The time goes into floor care and glass instead.
- Sales floor dust mopped, damp mopped or auto scrubbed, carpet vacuumed, entrance mats cleaned
- Entrance doors, display windows, showcases and mirrors cleaned to a streak-free finish
- Fitting rooms, checkout counters and customer restrooms cleaned and disinfected every visit
- Stockroom, break room and office trash emptied, floors swept and mopped
Retail store cleaning checklist buyers put in the scope of work
Store managers and facility teams at chains usually attach a checklist, and a chain's brand standards set the minimum for every location. A bid that answers that list line by line reads as a crew that already cleans stores. This is the scope most retail requests describe, and it is the scope the Janitorial proposal builder drafts when you bid on one.
| Frequency | Tasks |
|---|---|
| Every visit | Clean entrance glass and door hardware; dust mop and damp mop or auto scrub hard floors; vacuum carpet; clean fitting rooms, mirrors and benches; wipe checkout counters, card terminals and the cash wrap; clean and restock customer and staff restrooms; empty trash and replace liners |
| Weekly | Dust fixtures, shelving edges and display tables; spot clean walls and baseboards; clean stockroom floors; wipe break room appliances; clean interior side of display windows |
| Monthly | Burnish or scrub and recoat VCT; detail edges and corners the scrubber misses; clean vents and light lenses within reach; wash trash cans |
| Quarterly or on request | Strip and refinish VCT; carpet extraction; exterior window cleaning; post-remodel or post-reset cleanup |
Write three things into the proposal that office bids never need: how you protect merchandise while you mop and scrub (covers, distance from racks, no spray near fabric), who opens and alarms the store when the crew leaves, and how you handle shrink rules such as bag checks and key control. Loss prevention questions decide retail bids as often as price does.
How much to charge to clean a retail store
Charge from labor hours, then check the result per square foot. With the Janitorial engine at a 22 percent target margin, supplies and overhead included, a retail store cleaned seven nights a week lands at about 0.31 USD per square foot per month in Texas and about 0.42 to 0.43 USD in California and New York. Five nights a week in Texas comes to about 0.22 USD. The table shows what the estimator returns for typical stores.
| Store | Frequency | State | Labor hours per visit | Monthly price range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 sq ft boutique | 3 nights a week | Texas | 0.9 | 350 to 450 USD |
| 5,000 sq ft specialty store | 5 nights a week | Texas | 1.6 | 1,000 to 1,200 USD |
| 8,000 sq ft showroom | 7 nights a week | Texas | 2.5 | 2,250 to 2,650 USD |
| 12,000 sq ft apparel store | 5 nights a week | Texas | 3.8 | 2,400 to 2,850 USD |
| 12,000 sq ft apparel store | 7 nights a week | Texas | 3.8 | 3,400 to 4,000 USD |
| 12,000 sq ft apparel store | 7 nights a week | California | 3.8 | 4,600 to 5,400 USD |
| 12,000 sq ft apparel store | 7 nights a week | New York | 3.8 | 4,800 to 5,600 USD |
| 25,000 sq ft home goods store | 7 nights a week | Florida | 7.8 (crew of 2) | 7,050 to 8,300 USD |
| 40,000 sq ft department store | 7 nights a week | Texas | 12.5 (crew of 4) | 11,300 to 13,250 USD |
| 40,000 sq ft department store | 7 nights a week | Illinois | 12.5 (crew of 4) | 13,300 to 15,600 USD |
| 60,000 sq ft big box store | 7 nights a week | Georgia | 18.8 (crew of 5) | 16,450 to 19,300 USD |
Add-ons change the picture more than in an office. On the 12,000 sq ft Texas store, quarterly window cleaning lifts the range to 3,550 to 4,150 USD, restocking paper and soap to 3,650 to 4,300 USD, monthly strip and wax to 4,800 to 5,650 USD, and a four-hour day porter to 5,850 to 6,850 USD. Quote each as its own line so the manager can approve them one at a time.
How much does it cost to clean a retail store?
Most retail stores pay between about 350 and 19,000 USD a month for professional cleaning, depending on size, nights per week and local wages. A typical 12,000 sq ft store cleaned seven nights a week pays about 3,400 to 4,000 USD in Texas and about 4,600 to 5,600 USD in California or New York. Floor refinishing and day porters are billed on top.
How do I get retail cleaning contracts?
Answer the request fast and show that your crew can work inside a store full of merchandise without damage or loss. Stores change cleaners after a bad district visit, a missed night before a weekend sale or a shrink incident, and the manager wants a new crew in place within days.
- 1 Walk the store after closing if you can. You see the real floor, the fitting room traffic and where the scrubber can and cannot turn between fixtures.
- 2 Ask who owns the common areas. In a mall or lifestyle center, the landlord's contractor may already clean the corridors, so price only the space inside the lease line.
- 3 Price the floor finish they want. A store that wants a wet-look shine on VCT needs burnishing or monthly recoating, and that changes the price more than the square footage.
- 4 Name your loss prevention routine. Badge or roster per night, no bags on the sales floor, one key holder, alarm code per crew lead.
- 5 Offer a nightly checklist with photos of the entrance and fitting rooms. District managers can check it without visiting.
- 6 Send the bid the next morning with one monthly price, the nightly schedule and optional lines for windows, floor care and a day porter.
Chains rarely hire store by store forever. Win two or three locations in one metro with clean glass and no incidents, and you are the crew the district manager calls for the next store.
How Janitorial helps you win retail cleaning contracts
Retail requests arrive in your feed with the details a bid needs: square footage, nights per week, store hours, floor type when the buyer lists it and the bid due date.
- Contract request feed with email alerts on every plan, filtered to your service area and to the retail store facility type, so stores near you reach you first.
- AI bid pricing that starts from the retail production rate and your state's labor cost, with every number visible and editable.
- Proposal builder with 3 templates and PDF export with your logo on Starter; on Growth the AI proposal builder drafts the nightly scope, the floor care schedule, a pricing table and terms from the request.
- Price history per facility type on Growth, so you see how your store prices compare with the bids you won and lost.
- Your own production rates and wage on Pro, so a crew that already cleans ten stores bids with its real square feet per hour.
Starter is 79 USD a month or 468 USD a year for one service area. Growth covers three areas, which suits companies that follow a chain across a metro. One signed 12,000 sq ft store at 3,400 USD a month pays for the Starter plan more than forty times over.
Retail cleaning contracts, common questions
Are retail cleaning contracts available near me?
Yes, when a store, showroom or strip center tenant in your service area posts a request. Janitorial matches every request to the cleaning companies that cover that area and clean that facility type, so retail cleaning requests near you land in your feed with a price range already attached.
How much should I charge to clean a retail store?
Charge about 0.22 USD per square foot per month for five nights a week and about 0.31 USD for seven nights in Texas, built up from labor hours at a 22 percent margin. Higher-wage states run about a third more. Quote window cleaning, floor refinishing and day porter service as separate lines.
How often should a retail store be cleaned?
A retail store should be cleaned every night it is open, with entrance glass, fitting rooms, restrooms and checkout counters done every visit. Fixtures and shelving are dusted weekly, hard floors are burnished or recoated monthly and stripped about once a quarter. Busy stores add a day porter on weekends and during the holiday season.
What should a retail cleaning contract include?
A retail cleaning contract should include the scope by area (sales floor, fitting rooms, restrooms, stockroom), the nightly schedule and alarm procedure, key control and loss prevention rules, floor care frequency, who restocks supplies, the monthly price with optional lines, insurance requirements and the notice period for cancellation. Chains attach their brand standards.
Do mall stores hire their own cleaning company?
Usually yes for the space inside the lease. The landlord's contractor cleans the mall corridors, food court and common restrooms, and each tenant hires its own cleaner for the sales floor, fitting rooms and back of house. Check the lease rules on hours, access and where your crew may dump trash.
Do stores pay to post a cleaning request?
No. Stores, showrooms and multi-store retailers post cleaning jobs at no cost. Cleaning companies pay a flat subscription, with no per-lead charges and no credits.
Get retail cleaning contracts in your area
Choose your service area, select retail store as a facility type and bid with the price already calculated.