Office Cleaning Cost Per Square Metre in Sydney
Regular contract cleaning in Sydney runs $2.20 to $4.30 per square metre per month, and most offices land near $3.20. The band is wide because two floors of identical area can carry very different workloads. Area sets the scale of the job; density, fit-out and how often the cleaner attends set the rate. Here is how the per square metre figure is built, what it works out to across real floor areas, and the two points where the arithmetic stops behaving.
What Sydney offices pay per square metre
That rate covers scheduled attendance: bins, kitchens, bathrooms, vacuuming, hard-floor mopping and spot-cleaning glass, on a fixed roster, billed as one monthly figure no matter how the visits fall in a given month. It does not cover periodic work, which is quoted separately and dealt with at the end of this page.
The band is wide because two floors of identical area can carry very different workloads. A quiet professional-services tenancy with 40 desks and one kitchenette sits at the bottom. A call centre on the same footprint, with three times the head count, two bathrooms and a client-facing reception, sits at the top.
| Service level | Rate per m² per month | What it usually looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Light | $2.20 | Low desk density, one kitchen point, carpet throughout, two or three visits a week |
| Standard | $3.20 | Typical open-plan fit-out, meeting rooms, one or two bathrooms, mixed hard floor and carpet |
| High | $4.30 | High head count, client-facing reception, end-of-trip facilities, daily attendance |
Every figure on this page includes GST, which is the convention across our Sydney commercial guides. Contractors quote both ways, so it is worth confirming which you are looking at before comparing two proposals.
The three ways a Sydney office clean gets priced
Contractors quote the same job in three different shapes. They are not alternatives so much as three views of one number, and knowing which one you have been handed is what makes two quotes comparable.
1. Per square metre per month
The planning rate. It exists so a facilities manager can budget a floor before anyone has walked it, and so a landlord can compare tenancies of different sizes on a single figure. It is the rate you want early, when you are sizing a fit-out or writing a budget line for next financial year.
What it hides is frequency. The $2.20–$4.30 band assumes a normal roster of roughly two to three visits a week. Push to daily and the effective rate climbs above the top of the band. Drop to weekly and it falls below the bottom. Ask what frequency a per-m² quote assumes before you use it to compare anything.
2. Per hour
Sydney commercial cleaning runs $40–$70 per hour, typically $50. Hourly is how casual and ad-hoc work is priced, and how most contractors cost a job internally before converting it to a monthly figure.
It is the most transparent shape and the least useful for comparison, because the hours are the variable. Two contractors quoting $50 an hour are quoting the same rate for different amounts of work, and the cheaper one is often the one sending someone for less time. If you are handed an hourly quote, ask for the attendance schedule in the same breath, visits per week and minutes per visit, or the number tells you nothing.
3. Fixed monthly contract
The shape most Sydney offices actually sign. A small office under 100 m² on two or three visits a week runs $270–$650 a month, typically $430. A medium office of 100–500 m² on daily service runs $850–$2,700 a month, typically $1,700.
Fixed monthly is the shape to sign and the wrong shape to shop on, because it bundles area, frequency and scope into one number. Two $1,700 quotes can differ by a bathroom clean a day. Divide a monthly quote by your floor area to get its per-m² equivalent, and you will see immediately whether it sits inside the band above.
What the rate works out to by floor area
At the typical $3.20 per m² per month, on a standard two-to-three visit roster:
| Floor area | At $3.20/m²/month | Cross-check |
|---|---|---|
| 80 m² | $256 | Below the $270 small-office floor, see minimum attendance |
| 150 m² | $480 | Inside the small-office band |
| 300 m² | $960 | Below the daily-service band, correctly, because this is not daily |
| 500 m² | $1,600 | Approaching the $1,700 medium-office typical |
| 800 m² | $2,560 | Per-m² still holds at this scale |
Two places the arithmetic stops behaving, both worth knowing before you use the rate to argue with a quote.
Below about 100 m², minimum attendance takes over. An 80 m² tenancy calculates to $256 a month, but almost no Sydney contractor will price it there, because you cannot send a cleaner across the city for twenty minutes. The floor of the small-office band, $270, is closer to the truth. Under roughly 100 m² you are buying attendance rather than area, and the per-m² rate understates.
Daily service sits above the band. The per-m² figures assume a normal roster. A 300 m² floor serviced every weekday is a materially larger job than the same floor serviced twice a week, which is why the daily band for medium offices starts at $850 and runs to $2,700 rather than tracking $960. If a per-m² quote looks cheap against a daily contract, check the frequency before you celebrate.
Periodic work sits outside the monthly rate entirely and is quoted per m² as a one-off: commercial carpet steam cleaning at $3.20–$6.50, strip and seal on vinyl at $8.60–$15, and a full deep clean at $6.50–$15. Most contracts schedule carpet two to four times a year and quote it separately.
Frequently asked questions
Is the rate calculated on lettable area or cleanable area?
Cleanable area, and the two can differ by more than you would expect. Lettable area from your lease includes plant rooms, risers and storage that nobody cleans. Ask the contractor which figure they used, because a quote built on lettable area is quietly inflated against one built on the floor the cleaner actually walks.
Does the per square metre rate include consumables?
Usually not. Hand towel, toilet paper, bin liners and hand soap are commonly billed at cost plus a margin, or supplied by the tenant. On a mid sized Sydney office consumables are a real line rather than a rounding error, so confirm which side of the quote they sit on before comparing two proposals.
How much does desk density move the rate?
It is the single biggest driver after frequency. Bins are per person rather than per square metre, and so are kitchen loads and bathroom traffic. Doubling head count on an unchanged floor plate moves a quote toward the top of the band without a square metre changing.
We are in the office three days a week now, should the rate drop?
Often yes, but less than proportionally. Hybrid patterns concentrate use into the middle of the week rather than reducing it evenly, so bathrooms and kitchens still need servicing on the days people are in. Many Sydney offices moving from five days to three have landed at roughly a third off rather than two fifths.
Do end of trip facilities change the price?
Yes, and they are frequently missed at quoting time. Showers, lockers and bike storage carry a wet area workload closer to a bathroom than an office. If your fit out includes them, make sure they appear in the scope rather than surfacing later as a variation.
What do periodic services add on top of the monthly contract?
Budget them separately. Commercial carpet steam cleaning runs $3.20 to $6.50 per square metre and is typically scheduled two to four times a year, and strip and seal on vinyl runs $8.60 to $15 per square metre and is usually annual. Neither is included in a standard monthly rate.
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