This is one of the first questions we get asked on almost every walkthrough, and it's a fair one — cleaning frequency is the single biggest thing that moves the price of a contract up or down. The honest answer is that there isn't one correct frequency for "an office". A 12-person studio and a 200-desk floor with visitors coming through all day don't need the same schedule, even if they're the same square footage.

Start with footfall, not the calendar

Footfall — how many people are actually using the space, and how often — matters more than size. A large, lightly-used office can often get away with less frequent visits than a small one that's packed with people and client meetings from 9 to 6. When we quote a building, footfall is one of the first things we ask about, before we even get to square footage.

A bright office seating area beside floor-to-ceiling windows
Footfall, not floor space, is what actually sets the schedule.

A rough guide by building type

  • Daily — Client-facing offices, reception areas, anything with regular visitors or meeting rooms in constant use. Kitchens and washrooms in any office with more than 15–20 people on site daily.
  • 3–4 times a week — Mid-sized offices with a settled, mostly desk-based team and only occasional visitors. Enough to keep on top of bins, floors and surfaces without paying for a daily visit you don't need.
  • Weekly — Small teams, low footfall, spaces used a few days a week rather than five. Common for smaller studios and satellite offices.

What pushes frequency up, regardless of size

A few things reliably mean a building needs more frequent attention than its headcount alone would suggest: shared kitchens without a rota of their own, washrooms used by visitors as well as staff, carpet in high-traffic corridors, and any office running client meetings on site. None of these are about square footage — they're about how hard the space actually gets used.

Square footage tells you how big the job is. Footfall tells you how often it needs doing.

The honest answer

If you're not sure where your building sits, that's exactly what a walkthrough is for — we'd rather look at the actual space and how it's used than guess from a floor plan. Most contracts end up somewhere between 3 visits a week and daily, adjusted after the first month once we can see the real pattern of use rather than the estimated one.