In cleaning, the contract is a checklist or it is nothing.

Cleaning is bought on trust and argued about in detail. The disputes are never philosophical: it is whether the inside of the microwave was included, who pays for the bin liners, and what happens when the team arrives and cannot get in. A specification beats a paragraph every time.

What goes wrong in this trade

Five things this document has to handle.

Vague scope	"General office cleaning" is an invitation. A room-by-room, task-by-task specification with frequencies is the only version that holds.
Keys and alarm codes	Holding them is a real liability. Say how they are stored, who has them, what happens on loss, and how they come back at the end.
Consumables	Toilet rolls, soap, bin liners. Small money, constantly absorbed, and it adds up across a contract year.
Periodic versus regular work	Carpet cleaning, windows, deep kitchen work. If not named as periodic and priced, they are assumed to be included.
Damage claims	A mark that was already there. Note the condition at the start and require prompt notice of any claim.

The clauses

What to put in, and what each one is for.

Specification by area and frequency

A table: area, tasks, how often. This is the contract; the rest is terms.

Periodic works schedule

What is quarterly or annual, when, and whether it is in the fee or extra.

Access, keys and alarms

How access works, how keys are held, what happens on a failed visit through no fault of yours.

Consumables

Supplied by whom, and if by you, whether at cost or included to a limit.

Staff and vetting

Whether named staff, background checks, and what notice you give on a change.

Damage and claims

Notice period for a claim, and condition noted at the start.

Term, price review and notice

Usually twelve months, auto-renewing, with an annual review. Say the notice period.

Out-of-hours and holidays

Which days are not covered, and how bank holidays are handled.

Commercial norms

How cleaning contracts are usually priced

Per visit	Common for domestic and small commercial. Transparent, and easy for a client to cut.
Monthly fixed	Standard for commercial. Say how many visits the fee assumes.
Per square foot	Used on larger commercial sites, priced by area and frequency.
Periodic works	Quoted separately. Carpets, windows and deep cleans should never be bundled invisibly.

Worth its own section

How quality gets judged, before anyone is unhappy

Cleaning is the one trade where the client inspects every single delivery, informally, every day. Give that a shape: a named contact, a stated way to report an issue, and a period in which you will put it right at no charge. A contract that promises a standard without saying how it is measured or how a complaint is handled leaves both sides arguing about whether a surface is clean, which nobody wins.

One sentence in

This much is enough.

Commercial cleaning for Northwind's two floors: Monday to Friday evenings, spec attached by area, quarterly carpet clean priced separately, we supply consumables at cost, keys held in a coded safe, twelve months with 60 days notice.

Out comes the agreement with the clauses above, the figures computed from your catalog, the signers set and the signature fields placed. Send it as a link and they sign on a phone on site. Once signed, the terms are read back so a renewal or a defects period does not surprise you.

Questions people actually ask

Straight answers.

What should a cleaning contract include?

A specification by area and task with frequencies, a periodic works schedule, access and key handling, who supplies consumables, staff vetting, a damage claims process, and the term with its notice period. The specification is the contract; everything else is terms around it.

Who should supply cleaning consumables?

Either, as long as it is written down. If you supply them, decide whether that is at cost, included up to a stated volume, or billed monthly. Consumables are the most commonly absorbed cost in the trade because each individual item feels too small to raise.

How should key holding work?

Say who holds them, how they are stored, that they are not labelled with the address, what happens if one is lost including who pays for a lock change, and that they are returned at the end. Key holding carries real liability and deserves its own clause.

What notice period is normal?

Thirty to ninety days on a commercial contract, and most auto-renew annually. Whatever it is, diarise it: an auto-renewing cleaning contract nobody cancelled is one of the most common quiet costs in a facilities budget.

General guidance for this trade, not legal advice. Requirements vary by state and by the work, particularly around licensing, insurance and lien rights. Have your standard agreement reviewed once by a lawyer who knows your jurisdiction, then produce every job from it.

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