How to Do a Commercial Cleaning Walkthrough

The walkthrough is not a formality. It is where you gather every piece of information you need to price the job accurately, set the scope, and decide whether you even want the account. Most operators rush this. They do a quick tour, guess at the square footage, and send a number that is either too low or too high. Do the walkthrough right and you come back to your desk with everything. Here is how I do it.

What to bring

Dress professionally. That is not decoration. A prospect reads you when you walk in the door, and a sharp appearance tells them you run a serious operation before you say a word. Bring your phone or an iPad so you can photograph the restrooms, the flooring, the supply closet, and anything that stands out. A laser measure or a tape measure is useful if they do not have floor plans on hand. A simple notepad works fine if you are not using an app.

Start with the square footage

Ask for it before you even show up, in the email or phone call that sets the visit. Most building managers have it. If they do not, measure the main areas yourself during the tour. You need a real number because square footage is the foundation for your production rate, and the production rate is what turns time into cost. Guessing square footage is the same as guessing your price.

Once you have that number and you know the floor type, you can run the production rate and build the monthly. The full method for that is in our guide to pricing recurring janitorial by the square foot.

Eight things to look for on the tour

1. Why are they switching?

This is the most important question you ask. If they are unhappy with their current cleaner, find out exactly why. Dirty restrooms? Missed areas? The crew stopped showing up on time? A client who is fed up with poor service is not shopping primarily on price. They are shopping on reliability. That is where you win. And it tells you where the standard needs to be on day one.

2. What are they paying now?

Ask directly. Some will tell you, many will not. If they do, you have useful context. Do not automatically undercut just to win the account. If the current cleaner charges a fair price and simply does a poor job, you charge a fair price and do a better job. Winning on price alone attracts clients who will leave you the moment someone quotes lower.

3. The flooring type

Hard floors take more time than carpet. On carpet you vacuum and move on. On hard floors you sweep and mop, and VCT tile has to be maintained properly or it deteriorates fast. A building that is 80 percent hard floor requires significantly more labor than one that is mostly carpet at the same square footage. Walk every area, note what is there, and factor it into your production rate.

4. Glass

Glass entry doors, glass partition walls, glass front offices. Finger smudges and streaks take real time to address on every visit. A building with heavy glass throughout runs slower than the square footage suggests. Build that into your scope and your number.

5. Trash cans

Count them, or at minimum estimate. An open office floor plan with 60 workstations has 60 trash cans to empty and reline. A small two room suite has maybe 10. The difference between 10 and 60 adds up fast on a five day per week service. Count restroom bins separately. They often need liners too.

6. Foot traffic

A 12 person law firm and a medical office seeing 80 patients a day are not the same job even if they have identical square footage. Heavy foot traffic means more mess, more frequent restroom attention, and floors that deteriorate faster. Adjust your scope and your price to what the traffic actually produces, not just what the building looks like standing still on a quiet afternoon.

7. Building age and condition

Older buildings are typically dirtier. Grout lines hold years of buildup. Fixtures are harder to clean. Worn flooring traps grime in ways a newer surface does not. Getting an old building to a proper baseline often takes considerably more time than maintaining a newer facility at the same frequency. If the building has been neglected, account for a heavier initial clean and price accordingly.

8. Supply closet and site access

Where do you store chemicals and equipment between visits? Is there a utility sink you can use? A dedicated janitorial closet with a mop sink is a significant convenience. If there is nothing on site, you are packing everything in and out on every visit, and that takes time. If the client wants you to stock consumables (paper towels, toilet paper, can liners, hand soap), those are supply costs you build into the contract. Note what is there and what is not.

Read the customer, not just the building

By the time you finish the tour you have observed more than the building. You have observed the client. Some prospects will tell you everything is wonderful and then call you every other day about something minor. By how someone talks about their current service provider and their own building, you can often tell what kind of account this will be. The client who describes the previous cleaner in extreme or uncharitable terms is giving you useful information. That does not automatically mean you pass on the account. It means you go in with your eyes open and price accordingly.

If something feels off during the tour, trust that. There are plenty of accounts out there. A bad client relationship costs you money in time, stress, and turnover. The walkthrough is partly an interview in both directions.

After the walkthrough

Every observation you made converts directly into the number you send. Square footage and floor type set the production rate. Glass, foot traffic, trash can count, and building condition all adjust your estimated hours per visit. From there, the bid math follows a consistent process. For a full walkthrough of the pricing method, see how to bid a commercial cleaning contract.

The scope you agreed on during the site visit should be reflected clearly in your contract. What belongs in a commercial cleaning contract covers the exact clauses that protect your price when a client asks for more than what was agreed. If the scope changes after signing, the price changes. Get it in writing from the start, based on what you actually saw in the walkthrough.

Janity.ai has a walkthrough tool that guides you through these checkpoints on site and feeds the observations directly into the bid calculator. See how it works at janity.ai pricing.