You get a cleaning contract in one of two ways: you go find the buyer, or the buyer finds you. Most advice covers only the first half (cold calls, bid boards, government portals). The second half, being the cleaner an office manager finds when they search, is the one a small company can build once and keep.
That matters in Austin because the buyers are spread out. A property manager in Round Rock, a dental office in Cedar Park, and a tech tenant near The Domain aren’t going to hear about you from a flyer. Many of them will search, compare a few sites, and ask a handful of companies to quote.
Here’s how I’d set up a cleaning company to win those contracts, starting with where they come from.
Where cleaning contracts actually come from
Commercial cleaning work comes through four routes: search, relationships, bid platforms, and government portals. Each fits a different kind of contract, so pick the route by the work you want.
| Route | Best for | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Search and Google Maps | Small offices, clinics, retail | Commercial pages, a Google profile, a quote form |
| Relationships | Property managers, builders | Visits, referrals, follow-up |
| Bid platforms and lead sites | One-off and short jobs | Paying per lead, fast replies |
| Government portals | Public buildings, larger contracts | Registration, paperwork, patience |
The forum threads and YouTube videos that rank for this topic mostly cover the bottom three rows. Those routes work, but you start over every time. A page that ranks for “office cleaning Round Rock” keeps bringing in requests after you’ve stopped working on it.
When I asked an AI assistant how a small Austin cleaning company should get commercial contracts, it recommended outreach, bid portals, and written proposals. Most of its sources were software companies and quote-comparison directories, plus a forum thread and one cleaner’s service page. The buyers are searching, and the directories are the ones catching them.
Why residential and commercial need separate pages
An office manager and a homeowner type different words, want different proof, and fill out different forms. If your site is one “Our Services” page that lists house cleaning next to janitorial work, you’re making both of them do the sorting.
The homeowner searches for a house cleaner or a move-out clean, cares about price and trust, and wants to book. The office manager searches for office cleaning or janitorial service, wants proof of insurance and a crew that shows up on the same schedule every week, and asks for a quote. Google treats those as separate searches, and so do the AI assistants.
I saw this on the residential side with Maid Zen, a cleaning company in the Houston suburbs. Research turned up 67 move-out keywords worth about 31,950 monthly searches where the company had zero visibility, because it had no page built for them. Once it had dedicated move-out, move-in, and Airbnb turnover pages, those became service lines of their own. Commercial follows the same rule: if you have no office cleaning page, you won’t show up when someone searches for office cleaning.
The pages a commercial cleaner needs
Build one page for each kind of contract you want, not one page that says “commercial.” Four is a good start for most Austin companies:
- Office cleaning. Nightly or weekly service for small and mid-size offices. Say what’s in a standard visit, whether you clean after hours, and whether you bring supplies.
- Medical and dental office cleaning. These buyers care about restrooms, exam rooms, waiting areas, and a crew that follows their procedures. Describe your process and training plainly and skip anything that sounds like a health claim.
- Post-construction cleaning. Builders and remodelers need rough and final cleans on a schedule. Austin’s suburbs keep adding offices and retail up and down I-35, so there’s plenty of new space that needs a final clean.
- Property management and common areas. Lobbies, hallways, amenity rooms, and move-out turns for apartment and office property managers. One manager can mean several buildings.
On each page, answer the questions a buyer asks before they call: what you clean, how often, when (after hours or during the day), what areas you cover, and that you’re insured. Name the places you actually serve, such as Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Georgetown, or the offices around The Domain, but only the ones you’d really drive to.
Add proof to each page. Photos of real jobs (with the client’s permission) and a short list of the kinds of buildings you clean do more than a paragraph about “attention to detail.”
If you don’t want to write these yourself, this is standard local SEO work, and my published pricing lists content writing at $150 per page.
Set up your Google Business Profile for commercial work
Your Google Business Profile is what shows up in Google Maps and the local results. Plenty of cleaning companies set it up for house cleaning and never touch it again.
- Pick the primary category for the work you want most. If commercial is the goal, that may be Commercial cleaning service or Janitorial service rather than House cleaning service. Add the others as secondary categories if they’re true.
- Add each commercial service to the services list with a short description, using the same names as your website pages.
- Post photos from commercial jobs, not only kitchens and bathrooms.
- Ask your business clients for reviews. A review that mentions an office or a medical suite tells Google and buyers you do that work.
- Link the profile’s website button to your commercial page if commercial is your main goal, or to the homepage if it’s evenly split.
Build a quote form that does half the bid for you
A commercial quote form should ask for the same details you need to price the job. Then your first call can go straight to the job itself.
The trade association ISSA lays out how to bid on cleaning contracts, and step two is defining the scope: which areas get cleaned, how often, when, and any special needs. Put those on the form. Here’s the field list I’d use:
- Business name, contact name, email, phone.
- Type of facility (office, medical or dental, retail, property common areas, post-construction).
- Address or area (a dropdown of the suburbs you serve works well).
- Approximate square footage.
- Number of restrooms.
- How often (daily, several times a week, weekly, one time).
- When (after hours, early morning, during business hours).
- Special requirements (floors, windows, supplies included, security access).
- Current cleaning setup (in-house, another vendor, none).
- Preferred start date.
Keep the residential booking form separate. Homeowners want a price and a date; they don’t know their square footage and shouldn’t have to scroll past questions about restrooms.
The form and the path to it matter more than most owners expect. When I worked on Maid Zen’s site (residential), we cut friction in the quote and booking flow and added tap-to-call on mobile. In the first 12 months, free-quote submissions rose 69% and total lead conversions rose 203% year over year. A commercial buyer is different, but a form that’s clear and quick to fill out helps any buyer. Fixing that path is what conversion optimization means in practice.
What to do when the bid request lands
Answer the same day, book a walkthrough, and send a written proposal. Speed matters because the buyer asked other companies too.
- Walk the building. Your form answers get you close, but a walkthrough catches the carpeted stairwell nobody mentioned.
- Write the scope as a list: areas, tasks, frequency, and times. ISSA’s guide recommends tailoring each proposal to the client rather than sending a template.
- Have your certificate of insurance ready to send. Commercial buyers and property managers ask for it early.
- Follow up after you send the proposal, and again after the first month of service. The second follow-up is where referrals to other tenants and buildings come from.
Government and bid-board contracts: worth it?
Sometimes. Public contracts are real money, but they run through registration portals such as SAM.gov and come with paperwork and long timelines. Lead sites such as Thumbtack, Angi, and Bark charge for leads that go to several companies at once.
Use them if you have spare capacity and someone to handle the paperwork. Don’t make them your only source. A contract you won through your own website doesn’t come with a per-lead fee or a crowd of other bidders who got the same notification.
Where to start this month
Pick the one commercial contract type you want most, build its page, add the quote form, and set your Google profile category to match. Once that’s live, it collects requests while you keep cleaning.
If you’d like a second set of eyes first, I’ll look at your site and tell you whether it can catch commercial searches and bid requests. You can request a free website audit here.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to get cleaning contracts?
Combine one inbound route with one outbound route. Inbound means dedicated commercial pages, a Google Business Profile set up for commercial categories, and a quote form that asks for square footage and frequency, so office managers who search can find you and request a bid. Outbound means visiting property managers and builders and following up. Bid sites and government portals can fill gaps, but they’re the most competitive way to win work.
What should be included in a cleaning contract?
A clear scope: the areas cleaned, the tasks in each area, how often, and what times. Add who supplies products and equipment, how access and keys work, the price and billing terms, how either side can end the agreement, and your insurance details. ISSA’s bidding guide also recommends tailoring the proposal to the client’s needs instead of sending a generic one. Have an attorney review your standard contract once.
Can a residential cleaning company win commercial contracts?
Yes. Small offices are the easiest place to start because the work is close to what they already do. The buyer is different, though. They care about insurance, after-hours schedules, and consistency more than price per visit. Give commercial work its own page and quote form, get your certificate of insurance ready, and start with the building types your crew can handle well.
Are bidding sites and government portals worth it for a small cleaner?
They can be, if you have time for paperwork and capacity for the work. Government contracts run through registration portals such as SAM.gov and move slowly. Lead platforms charge for leads that several companies receive at once. They work best as a supplement to contracts that come to you through your own website and referrals, where you’re not competing against everyone else on the list.
How long does it take for a commercial cleaning page to bring in bid requests?
For a young site, I usually see search movement in two to four months, and competitive niches can take three to six months longer. Nobody can guarantee rankings. Your Google Business Profile can start working sooner once the categories and services match the work you want. Meanwhile, share the new page directly with property managers and past clients so it’s doing some work before it ranks.
