How often should you professionally clean a commercial space?

"How often should we get cleaned?" is one of the first questions shop, office and gym owners ask, and the honest answer is that it depends on your foot traffic, your industry and what your customers or staff expect to walk into. Here's a realistic guide to get you started.

Retail and shopfronts

High foot traffic means dirt, dust and marks build up fast. Most retail spaces need a clean daily or every second day to keep floors, glass and fittings presentable during trading hours. Shopfront glass in particular gets touched constantly and shows fingerprints within hours.

Offices

Smaller offices typically do well on two to three cleans a week, covering bins, kitchens, bathrooms and high-touch surfaces. Larger open-plan offices with more staff and meeting rooms usually need a daily clean, especially around shared kitchens and bathrooms.

Gyms and fitness studios

This is the one category where we don't recommend anything less than daily. Shared equipment, sweat, mats and change rooms are a hygiene issue as much as a presentation one. Members notice a dirty gym immediately, and it directly affects retention.

Medical and allied health

Clinics, allied health practices and similar spaces should treat daily cleaning as the minimum, with a higher hygiene standard than a standard office: disinfection of high-touch surfaces and waiting areas, not just visible tidiness.

What actually changes the answer

• Foot traffic: more visitors means faster build-up, full stop
• Floor type: carpet shows less than hard flooring day to day but needs periodic deep cleaning
• Industry expectations: a medical waiting room and a warehouse office have very different standards
• Staff and customer feedback: if people are commenting, you're already behind schedule

Signs you need to increase frequency

Visible dust on surfaces by mid-week, complaints about bathrooms or kitchens, lingering odours, or a noticeable uptick in staff sick days are all signals your current schedule isn't keeping up.

There's no one-size-fits-all schedule. We walk every new commercial site before quoting and recommend a frequency based on what we actually see, not a generic package.