A cleaning quote for a Scranton office and a quote for the same office in Philadelphia shouldn’t match, and when they do, one of them was copied off a national chart.
Office cleaning costs in Northeastern Pennsylvania generally run about $200 to $600 a month for a small office under 2,000 square feet cleaned two or three nights a week, and about $500 to $1,200 a month for a mid size office of 3,000 to 7,000 square feet cleaned three nights a week. Per cleaner hour, expect roughly $30 to $60.
Those are industry ranges, not one company’s price list, and this region usually lands in the lower half of them because the local cleaning wage was $18.15 an hour in May 2025, about 8 percent under the national figure.
There’s also a number under those ranges that no honest quote can go below, and you can work it out for your own office in a couple of minutes.
What Office Cleaning Costs in Northeastern Pennsylvania, by Office Size
| Office size | Typical frequency | Monthly range (industry) | Where NEPA usually lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small, 500 to 2,000 sq ft | Two or three nights a week | $200 to $600 | Lower half |
| Mid, 3,000 to 7,000 sq ft | Three nights a week | $500 to $1,200 | Lower half |
| Mid, 3,000 to 7,000 sq ft | Five nights a week | $1,000 to $2,000 | Lower half |
| Large, 10,000 sq ft and up | Five nights a week | $2,000 to $4,000 | Lower half to middle |
Two things about the table, and they’re both worth a minute. The ranges are the same ones the national cost guides publish, and that’s not laziness, because a cleaning quote is mostly paid hours, and hours don’t change when you cross a state line. What changes is what an hour costs.
And the “where NEPA lands” column is a tendency, not a rule. A converted house on a Kingston side street with three floors and one restroom per floor can price in the top half of its band for good reasons, and a modern open plan suite in a Moosic office park can price near the bottom.
The frequency column matters more than the size column, which isn’t obvious from a chart, and the monthly cost breakdown by office size goes through why.
Local prices only answer part of the question, and if you’d like the rest of the buying process, scope and vetting included, our complete guide to office cleaning services lays it out.
Where the Local Number Comes From, the Wage
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wages for the Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton metro every spring, and the May 2025 release is the one to use. It covers Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wyoming counties, which is most of what people mean by Northeastern Pennsylvania when they’re talking about offices.
- Building and grounds cleaning occupations here averaged $18.15 an hour, against $19.66 nationally. That’s about 8 percent under.
- All occupations here averaged $27.31 an hour, against $33.54 nationally, about 19 percent under.
- Nationally, the median janitor made $17.71 an hour in the same release, so the local cleaning wage sits a little above the national median and a little below the national mean.
Read those together and the shape of local pricing shows up, and it isn’t complicated. Cleaning labor here is cheaper than the national average, but only by a bit, while the rest of the local economy’s cheaper by a lot.
So a cleaning company in Wilkes-Barre pays wages close to what a company in Harrisburg pays, while its rent, its insurance, and its customers’ budgets run lower. That squeezes quotes toward the bottom half of the national band without letting them fall out of it.
The full picture of cleaning wages in the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre market covers what the crew on your floor actually takes home and why it matters to you. The short version for pricing is that $18 an hour is the starting point of every legitimate quote in this metro.
The Floor Test, the Cheapest a Real Quote Can Be
The calculation below uses made up figures for a made up office, so treat it as a method, not a price.
Say you run a 3,000 square foot office and want it cleaned three nights a week. For a standard nightly clean, one cleaner covers about 2,500 to 3,500 square feet an hour, so your visit takes roughly 50 to 70 minutes. Call it an hour to keep the math clean.
- Wage: $18 an hour, the local average.
- What the employer really pays: payroll taxes, workers compensation, and liability insurance ride on top of the wage. The exact load varies by company, but a fifth to a third on top is a normal range, so figure $22 to $24 an hour for the person in your building.
- Visits: three a week is about 13 a month.
- Labor floor: 13 hours times $22 to $24 is roughly $285 to $310 a month in wages and mandatory costs alone.
That number buys nobody’s supplies, nobody’s vacuum, no supervisor, no drive from Kingston to Dunmore, and no profit. Every one of those has to come out of the quote too.
So if a bid for that office comes in at $300 a month, the arithmetic says one of four things is true: the crew is being paid under the local average, the visit is a lot shorter than an hour, something on the scope list isn’t going to happen, or the company plans to raise the price once you’ve signed.
Run your own numbers, it’s quick. Square feet divided by 3,000 gives hours per visit; times visits per month; times $23. If a quote sits at or under that figure, something has been left out of it.
Why NEPA Quotes Sit Below the National Chart but Not at the Bottom
If wages are lower and rent is lower, why doesn’t this region price at the floor of every national range? Two reasons, and they’re both local.
The first is the labor pool. The distribution centers along Interstate 81 and the Cross Valley Expressway hire from the same group of people who take cleaning jobs, and they usually offer daytime hours, benefits, and a starting wage in the same neighborhood. A cleaning company that pays well under the local average loses its crew to a warehouse within a season, and the buyer feels it as turnover, missed nights, and a new face every month.
That’s why the honest quotes in this metro cluster around the local wage instead of under it.
The second is the minimum wage bill. As of September 2026, Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour. House Bill 2189, which would step it to $11 in 2027, $13 in 2028, and $15 in 2029, passed the House in March 2026 and is sitting in the Senate, which hasn’t scheduled a vote.
Cleaning crews here already earn above every one of those steps, so the bill wouldn’t change a good company’s payroll much. But it would pull up the wages of the jobs cleaning competes with, and what happens to office cleaning prices if the bill becomes law matters before you sign a three year contract with a fixed price.
What Moves a Northeastern Pennsylvania Quote Up or Down
Once the wage sets the floor, five things decide where inside the range an office lands.
- The building: a purpose built suite cleans fast. A converted house on Wyoming Avenue in Kingston or North Washington Avenue in Scranton cleans slowly: stairs, closed rooms, small old restrooms, and woodwork that can’t take the fast chemicals. Same square footage, more hours.
- Frequency: five nights a week doesn’t cost double what three nights costs, because a floor cleaned last night is quicker to clean tonight. Going from one night to two often changes the monthly bill less than buyers expect.
- Winter: this metro sees about 45 inches of snow a year, and the salt walks in on shoes from December to March. Extra entry cleaning in those months, a spring carpet extraction, and an annual strip and wax on vinyl tile are usually priced as add ons. Ask whether they’re in the number or beside it.
- Restroom and kitchen load: two restrooms serving forty people take longer than one serving eight, and a break room with a real kitchen is a nightly job of its own.
- Medical and specialty spaces: exam rooms, dental operatories, and anything with a disinfection log run 1,000 to 2,000 square feet an hour instead of 2,500 to 3,500, so the same footprint costs more.
One line that isn’t a cleaning cost at all: Pennsylvania charges 6 percent sales tax on building cleaning, and Lackawanna and Luzerne add nothing on top. Some quotes include it, some show it separately, and the labor portion of interior office building cleaning can be left untaxed when the invoice states it on its own line. Ask which way the quote is written, because a $500 quote and a $530 quote may be the same price.
How to Price Check an Office Cleaning Quote in Five Minutes
If the quote is under your floor number (hours times visits times about $23), ask the company to walk you through their hours per visit before you do anything else. A real answer sounds like “two people, thirty five minutes,” and you’ll hear it fast. A vague answer means the number was built backward from what they thought you’d pay.
If the quote is inside the band for your size and frequency, compare scope, not price. Two bids $150 apart usually differ on what’s in them: whether the kitchen, the interior glass, and the winter entry work are in or out.
If the quote is well above the band, ask what in your building is driving the hours. Sometimes the answer’s fair (three floors, no elevator, twelve private offices). Sometimes it’s a national price list applied to a Wilkes-Barre address.
Then get a walkthrough. Excellence Janitorial quotes offices across Lackawanna and Luzerne counties for free, with no obligation, and the number that comes out of a walkthrough is built from your rooms and your hours rather than from a chart. Call (800) 851-0806, Monday to Friday, 8 to 5.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does office cleaning cost per month in Scranton or Wilkes-Barre?
Industry ranges put a small office under 2,000 square feet at about $200 to $600 a month for two or three nights a week, and a mid size office of 3,000 to 7,000 square feet at about $500 to $1,200 a month for three nights.
Offices in this metro usually land in the lower half of those bands, because the local cleaning wage of $18.15 an hour (May 2025) runs about 8 percent under the national figure and overhead runs lower still.
How much do commercial cleaners charge per hour in Pennsylvania?
Across Northeastern Pennsylvania, expect roughly $30 to $60 per cleaner hour for routine office work, with specialty work and after hours or weekend visits at the top of that range or above it. The billed hour has to cover the cleaner’s wage of about $18, the employer’s payroll taxes and insurance, supplies, equipment, supervision, travel, and profit.
How much does office cleaning cost per square foot in Northeastern Pennsylvania?
Routine office cleaning runs about $0.07 to $0.20 per square foot per month nationally, and this region tends toward the lower half of that. Per square foot pricing hides frequency, though: the same $0.10 can mean one night a week or five. Ask for the visits per month next to any per foot number.
Is a $300 a month quote realistic for a 3,000 square foot office cleaned three nights a week?
Probably not for a full scope. At about an hour per visit and 13 visits a month, wages and mandatory employer costs alone come to roughly $285 to $310 at the local average wage, before supplies, equipment, supervision, or profit. A $300 quote means there’s something missing: shorter visits, a thinner scope, below average pay, or a price that will rise after you sign.
Does office cleaning cost more in Scranton than in Wilkes-Barre?
Not in any consistent way, and it’s the wrong question anyway. Both cities sit in the same BLS metro area and they’re drawing from the same labor pool, so the wage floor is the same. What differs is the building: downtown Scranton has more older multi story office buildings, and those price on hours, not on the city name.
Will the Pennsylvania minimum wage increase raise office cleaning prices?
As of September 2026 the increase is a bill, not a law: House Bill 2189 passed the House in March 2026 and is waiting in the Senate. Cleaning crews in this region already earn above the $11, $13, and $15 steps it proposes, so a good company’s payroll wouldn’t jump. Prices could still drift up over a few years, though, if the jobs that compete for the same workers raise their pay.
Is sales tax included in an office cleaning quote?
Sometimes. Pennsylvania charges 6 percent on building cleaning, and a quote may show it inside the total or as a separate line. The labor portion of interior office building cleaning can be exempt when the invoice states it separately, so two quotes for the same service can differ by the tax alone. Ask whether the number you’re comparing is before or after tax, because it’s rarely obvious.