How to Compare Childcare Cleaning Quotes: Reading Past the Price

A centre director gets three cleaning quotes. One is $1,900 a month, one is $2,600 and one is $3,400. The obvious move is to drop the expensive one, haggle with the middle one and wonder whether the cheap one is too good to be true.

The trouble is that the three quotes almost never describe the same job. Until they do, the prices can't be compared. Here is how to line them up.

Step 1: Convert everything to hours

A cleaning price is mostly labour. Ask every provider for the hours on site per clean and the number of cleans per week. If a provider won't say, divide its monthly price by a fair hourly rate for award wages plus costs, and see what comes out.

You will often find the cheap quote assumes 90 minutes a night for a 90-place centre. Nobody can clean the rooms, toilets, nappy-change areas, kitchen and sleep room to a childcare standard in that time. Something will be skipped, and you won't be told what.

A quote with fewer hours is not dishonest in itself. But it should come with a narrower scope, and you need to see which tasks were dropped.

Step 2: Put the scopes side by side

Ask for each scope room by room and by frequency: nightly, weekly, monthly, periodic. Then put them in three columns. Look for:

Nappy-change areas: the bench, step, underside, taps and bin, every night.
Children's toilets and basins: including the base of the pan and behind the cistern.
Sleep rooms: cot rails and mattress covers, and the floor under the cots.
Low surfaces: skirting, low glass, table undersides. Children's eye level.
Kitchen and bottle prep: where the contractor's job ends and the cook's begins. See who does what in a childcare kitchen.
Periodic tasks: carpet extraction, high dusting, window tracks, outdoor equipment. Are they in the price or charged extra?

Our childcare cleaning checklist is a fair baseline to compare against.

Step 3: Check who will actually clean

Two quotes with the same hours can deliver very different cleans depending on who turns up. Ask:

Will the same cleaner attend each night?
Are they engaged by the provider, or by another company? (See why to avoid subcontracted cleaning.)
Do they hold a current Working with Children Check, and can you see it?
Is the provider on the labour hire licence register? (See your centre as a labour hire host.)

A low price built on a subcontract and unnamed cleaners is not cheaper. It is the same price for less.

Step 4: Compare what you'll be able to see

This is the column most directors leave out, and it decides whether you will be managing your cleaner or trusting them. For each provider, write down:

Proof of attendance. Is each clean recorded at the time, at your building? Or is there a paper sheet on the back of the cleaner's cupboard?
Inspections. Does a supervisor inspect on a schedule? Do you see the result?
Documents. Can you get the safety data sheets, scope and cleaner checks when an officer asks, without waiting for an email?
Requests. When something is missed, where do you report it, and can you see when it was fixed?

If one provider gives you all of this through a client portal and another gives you a mobile number, that difference is worth real money in director time.

Step 5: Read the contract terms

Term and notice. A three-year term with a 90-day exit protects the provider, not you. We work on 30 days' notice.
Price reviews. Tied to award increases is fair. "At the provider's discretion" is not.
Extras. What does an outbreak clean cost, and how fast can it happen?
Subcontracting. Is it barred without your written consent?

Our post on commercial cleaning contract clauses covers the rest.

What usually happens

Once the quotes are lined up this way, the cheapest one usually turns out to have the fewest hours, an unnamed cleaner and no records. The most expensive is sometimes paying for a brand. The right answer is the provider whose hours fit your centre, whose people you can name and whose work you can see.

The best way to get a quote you can compare is a late-afternoon walkthrough, while the rooms still show a full day of children. Ask us for one and hold our quote to the same five steps.