How Much Does Commercial Cleaning Cost in NYC?

September 1, 2026·7 min read

If you search this question you will find plenty of pages confidently quoting a rate per square foot. Treat them carefully. A number that has not seen your building is a marketing device, not a price — and the gap between two honest quotes for the same site is usually explained entirely by scope, not by margin.

What follows is what actually moves the number, so you can read a quote properly and compare two of them fairly.

What drives the price

Roughly in order of how much difference they make:

• Frequency. This is the biggest lever by a distance. Nightly service is not five times a weekly price — the per-visit cost falls as frequency rises, because each visit has less accumulated work in it.
• Square footage, but less than you would think. A 3,000 sq ft office and a 3,000 sq ft restaurant are not comparable jobs. Use it to compare like with like, not as a price.
• What is actually in the space. Washrooms, kitchens, food preparation, tiled floors, glass, and anything that generates grease or dust all add real time. Open desk space adds very little.
• Intensity of use. A 1,500 sq ft office holding thirty people needs a different frequency from the same office holding eight. Washrooms and break areas take the brunt of headcount.
• Access and hours. Overnight work, freight elevator booking windows, walk-up buildings with no service access, and sites where a van cannot park near the door all cost time before any cleaning happens.
• Condition at the start. A space that has been under-cleaned for a year needs a reset before a maintenance schedule means anything. That is a one-off cost, not an ongoing one, and it should be quoted separately.
• Consumables and supplies. Whether paper, soap and liners are your cost or the cleaner's changes the comparison between two quotes materially.

Why per-square-foot pricing misleads

A rate per square foot is a useful shorthand between two similar buildings on the same schedule. It falls apart the moment either changes. A commercial kitchen and a showroom of identical size differ by a factor that no single rate can absorb, and a nightly contract and a fortnightly one are not on the same curve at all.

It is most misleading at the bottom of the market. If one quote is dramatically cheaper per square foot, the usual explanation is not efficiency — it is that the scope is shorter, the frequency is lower, or the detail work that costs time has quietly been left off the list.

Questions worth asking before you sign

• Can I have the scope in writing, with a frequency against every line?
• What is explicitly not included — and what would it cost to add?
• Who supplies consumables, and is that in this price?
• Is there a separate initial deep clean, and is it in this figure or on top?
• How does the price change if we go from three visits a week to five?
• What happens if something is missed — what is the process and the timescale?
• Who is actually doing the work, and will it be the same team each visit?
• Do you hold insurance, and can you provide a certificate naming our building if the managing agent requires one?

The last two matter more than most buyers expect. Consistency of staff is the single best predictor of whether standards hold at month six, and in a managed Manhattan building a missing certificate of insurance is the most common reason a start date slips.

One-off work versus a recurring contract

These are priced on different logic and should be quoted separately. A one-off deep clean is priced on condition — how much accumulated work is in the building right now. A recurring contract is priced on frequency and scope, and assumes it starts from a maintained baseline.

That is why starting a recurring agreement with a deep clean often works out cheaper overall than starting without one. If the schedule begins with a backlog in the building, either the early visits overrun or the backlog never gets cleared and you spend the year paying for maintenance on a space that was never brought up to standard.

How Likti prices it

We do not publish a rate card, because any number we printed here would be wrong for most buildings and we are not willing to quote a site we have not seen. We walk the space with you, write down what needs doing and how often, and give you that scope and the price in writing. If the list needs to change later, we change it with you rather than quietly dropping items.