Win the jobs worth the most

Rough, final and touch-up: the three post-construction cleans

A post-construction job is not a big house clean. It's dust that's still settling, stickers on every pane of glass, and a contractor who says the site is ready Tuesday and means a week from Thursday. The quote is where most of the money on these jobs is made or lost, usually on a line nobody wrote down.

Start with the words, because builders, homeowners and cleaning companies use different ones for the same visit. Most of the trade splits the work into three cleans:

Not every job has all three. A homeowner's kitchen renovation is usually one final clean, maybe with a touch-up. A new commercial unit can have all three spread over six weeks. You'll also hear "builder's clean", "sparkle", "punch clean" and "puff and fluff". Ask what they mean by it, then put your own word and your own scope on the quote.

What post-construction cleaning costs in Canada, per square foot

Most post-construction work is quoted per square foot, because that's how builders and property managers think. Here's what Canadian price guides and cleaning companies published over the last year: other people's ranges, not rules, and not our prices.

By phase, the pattern holds even where the numbers don't. A rough clean costs well under a final: HomeStars puts it 30 to 50% lower, and one Toronto company lists $0.10 to $0.20 for a rough against $0.25 to $0.50 for a final. Published touch-up prices are all over the place, and most companies doing the work charge a flat price for the first touch-up and bill every return by the hour.

For jobs too small or too odd for a square-foot price, go hourly. HomeStars puts Canadian residential post-construction at $40 to $60 per cleaner-hour (August 2026), and a Canadian rate guide puts Toronto at $35 to $50 (December 2025).

Price it two ways

A square-foot price on its own is a guess with a decimal point. Check it against hours. Cost guides and operators who publish their job numbers put a final clean at roughly 100 to 200 square feet per cleaner-hour, depending on the dust, the glass and how much is built in. Your own crew's pace beats any of them.

Divide the square footage by your pace, multiply by your hourly rate, and compare. If the two prices are close, quote the square-foot one. If they're far apart, one of your assumptions is wrong, and the site walk will tell you which. Here's the quote from the worked example below, a 3,200-square-foot dental clinic before opening day:

The check by hours: 3,200 square feet at 150 an hour is about 21 cleaner-hours, which at $50 an hour is $1,067. The square-foot price is about 20% higher, which is right for a fit-out with cabinets in every room. Close enough to send.

What moves the price up or down

Two 2,000-square-foot jobs can be a $500 clean and a $1,500 clean. These are what make the difference, roughly in order of how much they cost you:

• The dust. A kitchen refresh leaves a film. A full gut with drywall sanding leaves a layer on every ledge, inside every cabinet and in the vents. Fine dust takes two or three passes, dry before wet, or it turns to paste.
• The glass. Construction windows take two to three times as long as normal ones: paint, stickers, silicone, sometimes mortar. Count the panes and give them their own line.
• How many visits, and how far apart. Three cleans over six weeks is three trips, three setups and three chances for the schedule to slip. Price each one.
• The deadline. A clean that has to be done in one day needs more people on site at once. A two-day window lets a smaller crew do it.
• What's built in. Cabinets, closets, shelving and appliances all have insides. A dental clinic with eight operatories has more cabinet than a warehouse has floor.
• Water, power and heat. If the water isn't on at the sinks, you're hauling it in buckets. Ask.
• Height and access. High ceilings, open-to-below foyers and exterior glass above the ground floor mean ladders, a lift or a window company.
• Getting in. Downtown parking, a loading dock you have to book, a freight elevator shared with the drywallers.

Floor stripping and waxing, carpet extraction, pressure washing and hauling away debris are usually priced as separate lines or left to a specialist. Say which on the quote.

The site walk: what to check before you quote

The most consistent advice from people who do this work for a living is short: don't price a post-construction job you haven't seen. Photos show you the mess. They don't show you that the water's off, the elevator's booked or the millwork installer is back on Friday.

Take your own photos, and leave with answers to these:

1. The square footage, and what it includes. Ask for the plan or the listing. Measure the rooms that matter if the number looks wrong.
2. Which cleans they want, and when. Rough, final, touch-up or a mix. The date the site is ready, the date it has to be done, and who decides it's ready.
3. Who's still coming back. Every trade that returns after your final is a touch-up you'll be asked for.
4. Utilities. Water at the fixtures, power at the outlets, and heat if it's January.
5. Glass. How many panes, inside only or both sides, and whether the windows were covered during the work.
6. Access and parking. Where you unload, when the building is open, keys or a lockbox, and where the garbage goes.
7. Site rules. Active construction sites usually expect boots, a hard hat and a hi-vis vest, and some want a safety orientation before you start. Ask before you arrive with a crew in running shoes.

If you really can't get there, ask for a video of every room plus the contractor's scope or purchase order, and read it. A scope can bury a second final clean, or a clean after every trade, in one line, and you'll be held to it.

Scope and exclusions: write down what isn't included

A post-construction quote goes wrong in the gap between what you priced and what the client pictured. Close it on paper. A good quote has four parts:

1. What you'll clean, by area. Not "final clean, 3,200 sq ft", but reception, eight operatories, two washrooms, the staff kitchen, the sterilization room and the corridors. If it's one phase of several, say which.
2. The price, line by line. The clean, the glass, each touch-up visit and anything else, each on its own line, with the tax shown separately. A client who wants to drop the glass can, without you redoing the quote.
3. What's not included. The line that saves the most arguments.
4. When it's done, and what happens after. Who signs off, and how anything after sign-off is billed.

Exclusions most post-construction quotes should spell out:

• Exterior glass above the ground floor
• Paint, stucco or concrete removal beyond small spots
• Floor stripping, waxing, sealing or polishing
• Hauling away construction debris and packaging, or say it's included and how much
• Re-cleans after sign-off because a trade came back, billed by the hour
• Scratches on glass from debris already in it (many window cleaners ask the client to sign a waiver)

Getting paid on a big job

Homeowners pay like any other cleaning customer, and a deposit at booking is normal on a job this size. Builders and general contractors are different: 30-day terms are common, and longer happens. In Ontario, the Construction Act requires a 10% holdback on payments under the contracts it covers, released later. Whether your cleaning contract is one of them depends on the job, so ask a construction lawyer before you sign builder work, and plan your cash either way.

Contractors in Ontario often ask for a WSIB clearance certificate before you start, because it protects them from a subcontractor's unpaid premiums. Check with WSIB whether your company needs coverage, and have your liability insurance certificate ready before the first site walk.

Quoting offices and other commercial cleaning

Office cleaning is the opposite of post-construction: small visits, every week, for years. It's quoted by the month, and the math starts with time, not area.

1. Walk it and count it. Desks, washrooms, kitchens, floor types, and anything unusual, like a server room nobody's allowed in. Ask what the current cleaner misses. That's what you'll be judged on.
2. Agree what happens on each visit. Garbage and recycling, washrooms, the kitchen, desks wiped, floors vacuumed and mopped. Then what happens weekly or monthly: high dusting, glass, baseboards.
3. Work out the hours per visit. Offices go faster per square foot than homes because the spaces repeat, but a dental office is slower than an open-plan floor.
4. Hours × your rate × visits a month. Three visits a week is about 13 a month. Add supplies, then check the monthly total against what it works out to per square foot.

For a sense check: HomeStars puts Canadian office cleaning at about $500 to $2,000 a month for 1,000 to 5,000 square feet, and $2,000 to $5,000 or more above that, assuming two to five visits a week (2026). Medical and dental offices run higher.

Commercial clients expect paperwork a homeowner never asks for: a written scope, a certificate of insurance and an invoice with your HST number on it (more in invoices and Canadian tax). And the best source of office contracts is often the post-construction job itself: the people moving into the space you just cleaned need a cleaner next week.

Commercial and post-construction requests in More Knocks

More Knocks doesn't price a construction site for you. Nothing should, sight unseen. It collects what you need to price it, keeps the request from getting lost, and runs the job like any other once it's booked.

Two proper request forms

There's a commercial request form and a post-construction request form, separate from the instant quote for homes. The client sends the square footage, site details, timing and photos up front.

Every request, tracked to a quote

Requests land in one pipeline, with everything the client sent on one page. You can see what's new and what's been quoted, so a $3,000 request doesn't sit in an inbox behind a newsletter.

A quote they sign online

Send the price as a signed quote: a flat price for the scope, with optional lines the client can add, accepted and signed on their phone. That's your record of what was agreed when someone asks, three weeks later, whether the windows were included.

Booked like any other job

Once it's booked, it's on the same calendar, in the same crew app and on the same payments as your house cleans. Book the touch-up as a follow-up visit and it stays linked to the original job, with its photos and notes. Every invoice carries your HST number.

Before you send a post-construction quote: a checklist

Run through this before any quote over a few hundred dollars goes out: