Apartment building cleaning services: common areas are a commercial contract, and the units are not
The cleaning a property manager buys for an apartment building is a commercial contract that happens to sit in a residential asset. It covers lobbies, corridors, stairs, lifts, bin stores, laundry rooms and whatever amenity space exists, and it stops at every front door. That boundary is worth stating plainly, because the rates in this record apply to the common-area side of it and not at all to the units, which are the residents' own arrangement.
- median published rate, in the unit each company used
- 13companies that will print a rate
- 0metros with measured demand in this record
Figures on this page are quoted from the company's own page, in the unit that company used, with the date the page was read. Nothing is averaged across units.
- 13 company pages checkedevery figure matched verbatim to the company's own page
- Quoted and dated, never estimatedlast verification pass 2026-09-11
- 0 metros with measured demandcover evidenced by the company's own live page
What the companies publish
| # | Company | Published rate | Unit · What it covers | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anago Cleaning Systems | ||||
| 2 | Big League Clean | ||||
| 3 | Buildingstars | ||||
| 4 | Clean Estimator | ||||
| 5 | CleanNet USA | ||||
| 6 | Commercial Cleaning Corp | ||||
| 7 | Fraser Commercial Cleaning | ||||
| 8 | Idaho Maintenance & Cleaning | ||||
| 9 | ISSA (the worldwide cleaning industry association) | ||||
| 10 | JAN-PRO Cleaning & Disinfecting | ||||
| 11 | LeadDuo | ||||
| 12 | Method Clean Biz | ||||
| 13 | Millennium Facility Services | ||||
| 14 | Plan B Facility Services | ||||
| 15 | Smart Janitorial | ||||
| 16 | XIRI Facility Solutions | ||||
| 17 | Ziva Cleaning |
Scoping a common-area contract
- Measure the common area, not the building. A hundred-unit block might have fifteen thousand square feet of common area or forty thousand, depending entirely on its corridor layout and amenity space. The gross building area is the wrong number and it is the one most often handed to contractors at tender.
- Set frequency by traffic, floor by floor. The ground floor lobby, the lift lobbies on upper floors and a rear service corridor do not need the same attendance. Frequency by zone is a cheaper and better specification than one frequency for everything, and it is what a good contractor will propose if you leave room for it.
- Name the bin store and who takes the bins out. Refuse rooms are the line that decides whether a building reads as well kept, and moving bins to the kerb on collection day is a separate task from cleaning the room. Say which of the two you are buying, and on which days.
- Decide what happens to a move-out. Turnover generates corridor damage, packaging and lift marks on unpredictable days. A call-off rate agreed at contract is far cheaper than an emergency booking, and it also removes the argument about whether it was in scope.
Common questions
- Does this include cleaning inside the apartments?
- No. This is a common-area contract. Cleaning inside a unit is the resident's own arrangement, and it is a residential purchase that the commercial rates in this record do not describe.
- How does it compare to office cleaning per square foot?
- Common-area work is generally lighter per square foot than office work because there are no desks, no kitchens and few washrooms, but it runs seven days rather than five. Frequency, not intensity, is where the money goes.
- Who should hold the contract, the manager or the association?
- Whoever holds the budget and the authority to enforce it. What matters more is that one party does, because a contract nobody owns is a contract nobody inspects.
- Are windows included?
- Interior common-area glass usually is; exterior facade glass almost never is, and it is a separate specialist trade priced its own way.
Ask several contractors for a price
By market
Sources
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Cite as: "Buffrota Price Record", updated 2026-09-11, https://buffrota.com/apartment-building-cleaning-services/.