Every office cleaning quote uses the same forty or so words, and the one that moves your price the most never appears on it.
An office cleaning glossary is short because the vocabulary is small. The terms on a quote fall into five groups: the task list (routine, periodic, project work, day porter), the disinfecting words (clean, sanitize, disinfect, dwell time), the floor care lines (strip and wax, scrub and recoat, extraction), the contract and quality terms (scope of work, SLA, escalator, service credit), and the pricing terms that explain where the number came from.
Each entry below tells you what the word means, where it shows up on the page, and what to check when you see it.
Read them in that order and the quote reads itself, and the term that’s missing from it turns out to be the one worth asking for.
How to Use This Office Cleaning Glossary
A quote is organized top to bottom: the price and the frequency at the top, the task list in the middle, the floor and periodic lines after that, and the terms at the end. The groups below follow the same order, except the pricing words, which come last because they’re the ones that explain everything above them.
Two habits make the glossary useful, and neither takes long. Read for the frequency word next to every task, because the same task means something different nightly, weekly, and quarterly. And when a term shows up without a number or a schedule beside it, treat that as the question to ask, not as a detail to let slide.
The terms make more sense once you’ve seen the whole buying process, and the complete office cleaning guide walks through it in roughly the order you’ll meet them.
The Task List Terms
Routine (or nightly, or daily): the work done every visit: trash, restrooms, vacuuming, floors, desks, break room, glass in reach. On the quote it’s the long list under the price. Check: every routine task should carry the same frequency as the visit count at the top. A “nightly” task on a three visit a week plan happens three times.
Periodic: work done on a schedule longer than the visit, usually weekly, monthly, or quarterly: high dusting, vent faces, detail cleaning of restrooms, edge vacuuming, upholstery. Check: a periodic task without a stated interval hasn’t been scheduled, only promised. Ask for the interval in writing.
Project work: one off or annual jobs priced on their own line: carpet extraction, strip and wax, window washing, post construction cleanup. Check: project work is either on the quote as a separate line with its own price or it isn’t in the contract. “Available on request” means not included.
Detail cleaning: the slow version of a routine task, edges, corners, baseboards, behind fixtures, the parts a nightly pass skips. It’s usually periodic. Check: if “detail” appears in the routine list, ask how many minutes the visit budgets for it.
High dusting: dusting above normal reach, roughly above shoulder height: ledges, vents, light fixtures, the tops of partitions. It’s periodic almost everywhere. Check: it should name a height or the items, not just “high dusting as needed.”
Spot cleaning: cleaning a mark where it appears (a wall smudge, a carpet spot) rather than the whole surface. Check: spot cleaning is normal in a routine list, but it’s not a substitute for a scheduled full clean of the same surface.
Touch points (high touch surfaces): door handles, light switches, elevator buttons, shared keyboards, faucet handles, the things many hands hit daily. On a quote they usually get their own disinfecting line. Check: the line should say disinfect, not wipe, and the product should be named.
Restock and consumables: refilling paper, soap, liners, and sanitizer. Restocking is labor; consumables are the goods. Check: the quote should say who buys the goods, and if the cleaner does, whether they’re billed at cost, marked up, or bundled into a flat price.
Day cleaning: cleaning during business hours instead of after them. It changes the noise, the products, and the pace. Check: a day cleaning quote should say what’s done while staff are present and what waits for the empty hours.
Day porter: a cleaner stationed in the building during business hours to handle restrooms, lobby touch ups, spills, and restocking as the day goes. It’s a labor line, priced by hours on site, not by square foot. Check: ask for the hours and the coverage, not just “porter service.”
The Disinfecting Terms
These three words are used interchangeably on quotes, and they aren’t interchangeable. The CDC’s definitions are the ones to hold the quote to.
Clean: remove dirt and most germs from a surface with soap or detergent and water. Cleaning is what every routine task does. It doesn’t kill germs; it takes them away.
Sanitize: reduce germs on a surface to a safe level after cleaning, with a sanitizing product. It’s common on food surfaces and break room counters.
Disinfect: kill germs on a surface with an EPA registered disinfectant, used according to its label. Check: a disinfecting line should name the product. If it can’t, it’s a sanitizing line at best.
Dwell time (contact time): the number of minutes a disinfectant has to stay wet on the surface to work, printed on the product label and set when the EPA registers it. Ten minutes is common; some products are shorter. This is the difference between disinfecting and wiping. Check: a crew disinfecting a restroom in the time it takes to wipe it isn’t disinfecting it.
EPA registered: the product has an EPA registration number and an approved label with tested claims. Check: the number is on the label. “Hospital grade” without a registration number means nothing.
HEPA: a vacuum filter that captures very fine particles instead of blowing them back into the room. It’s worth having in offices with allergy complaints. Check: HEPA is a filter, not a promise about how often the filter gets changed.
Microfiber and color coding: microfiber cloths and mops trap soil better than cotton. Color coding assigns colors to areas (a common convention is red for toilets, yellow for other restroom surfaces, blue for general areas, green for food areas) so a restroom cloth never touches a desk. Check: ask whether the crew color codes. It’s a cheap tell of a trained operation.
Green Seal, Safer Choice: third party labels for products with lower health and environmental impact (Green Seal is an independent certifier; Safer Choice is the EPA’s label). Check: “green cleaning” without a named label is a preference, not a standard.
The Floor Care Lines
Strip and wax: remove the old finish from a hard floor (VCT, sealed concrete, some tile) with a stripper and a machine, then lay new coats of finish. It’s the most expensive floor line, once or twice a year. Check: the number of finish coats should be on the line.
Scrub and recoat: deep scrub the top layer of an existing finish and apply one or two fresh coats without stripping. It’s cheaper and faster than a full strip, and it’s the reason a floor can go longer between strips. Check: a floor program that has only strip and wax on it is either overpriced or overdue.
Burnish: run a high speed machine over a finished floor to restore the shine between coats. Weekly to monthly. Check: burnishing isn’t cleaning; it needs a clean floor first.
Carpet extraction: hot water extraction, the deep clean that pulls soil out of carpet. It’s usually annual, priced per square foot. Check: extraction needs drying time, so the line should say when it’s scheduled.
Encapsulation and bonnet cleaning: low moisture carpet methods for interim maintenance between extractions: encapsulation uses a crystallizing product that’s vacuumed up; bonnet uses an absorbent pad on a machine. Check: these are interim methods, not replacements for extraction.
Matting: the entrance mats that capture dirt before it reaches the floor. It’s sometimes a rental line. Check: who owns, cleans, and swaps them.
The Contract and Quality Terms
Scope of work (SOW): the list of what’s cleaned, how often, and to what standard. Everything else on the quote hangs from it, so it’s the first page to read. Check: if a room isn’t in the scope, it isn’t in the price.
Service level agreement (SLA): the part of the contract that says how performance is measured and what happens when it slips. Writing a service level agreement for office cleaning is a whole subject on its own. Check: an SLA with no numbers in it is a paragraph, not an agreement.
APPA levels: a five level appearance scale from the facilities management body APPA, running from Level 1 (orderly spotlessness) down to Level 5 (unkempt neglect). Most offices are buying Level 2, ordinary tidiness. Check: if a quote names a level, it’s telling you what it plans to deliver; if two quotes name different levels, they’re not the same price for the same thing.
Walkthrough: the site visit before the quote, where the cleaner measures and looks at every room. Check: a quote written without one was written from a chart.
Inspection and punch list: inspection is the cleaner’s own quality check, usually weekly; a punch list is the short list of misses from an inspection or from you, with dates. Check: ask how inspections are recorded and who sees them.
Service credit: a stated deduction from the invoice when a defined miss happens. Check: it should be a number or a percentage tied to a defined miss, not “credits at our discretion.”
Escalator: the clause that raises the price on a schedule, usually a fixed percent or a CPI figure at renewal. How CPI escalators work in cleaning contracts decides what year two costs. Check: the trigger, the cap, and the date.
Auto renewal and notice window: auto renewal rolls the contract into another term unless you cancel; the notice window is the period before renewal in which you’re allowed to. Check: put the notice date in your calendar the day you sign.
Bonded and insured: insured means a general liability policy (and workers’ compensation) covers damage and injury; bonded means a surety bond covers you for employee theft. Check: ask for certificates, with your business named as certificate holder.
Key holder: the named person on the crew who holds your key or code. Check: the contract should say how keys are logged and returned.
SDS (safety data sheet): the manufacturer’s sheet for each chemical, listing hazards and first aid. The cleaner is required to have them for what they use. Check: ask where the binder or the file is kept in your building.
The Pricing Terms, Where the Number Comes From
Cleanable square feet: the area the crew actually cleans, which is smaller than the lease square footage once you remove walls, closets, and mechanical rooms. Check: the quote should say which number it used.
Frequency: visits per week, written as a number (5x, 3x, 2x, 1x). It’s the single biggest multiplier on the monthly price. Check: how hourly, per visit, and flat monthly pricing compare depends on frequency more than anything else.
Per visit, flat monthly, hourly: the three ways a price is stated. Per visit and hourly move with the schedule; flat monthly averages it. Check: convert every quote to a monthly number before comparing.
Production rate: the term that moves your price the most, and the one that never appears on the quote. A production rate is how many square feet one cleaner covers in an hour on a given task. On a standard nightly office clean it runs roughly 2,500 to 3,500 square feet an hour, and how long it takes to clean an office is your cleanable square footage divided by that number.
The cleaner multiplies those hours by a loaded labor cost and by your frequency, adds supplies and margin, and that’s the price. Two quotes that differ by a third on the same building usually differ on the production rate, not on the margin. Check: ask what rate the quote assumed. A company that can answer has done the math; one that can’t priced you from a chart.
Workloading: the written version of that math, every task, its production rate, the minutes it takes in your building, and the total hours per visit. It’s how a professional builds a quote, and it’s the document that tells you whether the crew has enough time to do the list.
Ask for it. If the hours per visit on the workloading can’t cover the task list at any honest rate, the list is decoration, and that’s the one thing on a quote no glossary can fix.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a day porter?
A day porter is a cleaner stationed in your building during business hours to handle the things that can’t wait for the night crew: restroom checks and restocking, lobby and entrance touch ups, spills, break room resets, and meeting room turnovers. Porter service is priced by hours on site, not by square foot, so a porter quote should state the hours and days of coverage.
What does periodic cleaning mean?
Periodic cleaning is work scheduled less often than the regular visit, usually weekly, monthly, or quarterly: high dusting, vent faces, detail restroom cleaning, edge vacuuming, upholstery. On a quote, each periodic task should carry its interval. A periodic task with no interval isn’t scheduled.
What is dwell time in cleaning?
Dwell time, also called contact time, is the number of minutes a disinfectant must stay wet on a surface to kill the germs its label claims. It’s printed on the product label and set through EPA registration. If a surface dries before the dwell time is up, it was wiped, not disinfected.
What is the difference between sanitizing and disinfecting?
Sanitizing lowers the number of germs on a surface to a safe level after cleaning. Disinfecting kills germs on a surface using an EPA registered disinfectant applied for its full contact time. Both come after cleaning, which removes dirt and most germs but doesn’t kill them. On an office quote, touch points and restrooms should carry a disinfecting line with a named product.