The industry benchmark for commercial janitorial operations is 30% to 40% gross profit margin. That means for every dollar of contract revenue, you keep 30 to 40 cents after paying the direct costs of delivering the service. Residential cleaning tends to run higher because you can charge more per hour, but commercial is where most operators in the Bronx build volume.

That range assumes reasonable labor costs. In the Bronx and across NYC, “reasonable” is relative. Once you factor in the hourly wage, employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation insurance, and any benefits, you’re easily paying $20 or more per hour for each crew member. If your contract pricing doesn’t account for that fully loaded labor rate, your margin on paper looks fine but your bank account tells a different story.

Supplies and equipment eat into gross margin too, though less than labor. Cleaning chemicals, trash bags, paper products, and equipment maintenance are all direct costs. On a large commercial account these might only run 3% to 5% of revenue. On smaller accounts where you’re providing all supplies, it can be higher. The point is that labor dominates your cost structure, and that’s where margin protection starts.

The real problem most cleaning business owners face isn’t that their margins are bad. It’s that they don’t actually know their margins by account. A five-night-per-week office contract and a once-a-week retail location have completely different cost profiles. If you’re pricing both based on square footage without tracking the actual labor hours each one consumes, you might be making 45% on one and 15% on the other. The blended number looks acceptable while one account quietly drains profit.

Job costing fixes this. Track labor hours by contract, not just in total. Track supplies used per account when possible. Compare what you quoted against what you’re actually spending to service each client every month. When a contract falls below 25% gross margin consistently, you either renegotiate, reduce scope, or accept that you’re doing that work for almost nothing after overhead.

Speaking of overhead, don’t confuse gross margin with net margin. Gross profit only accounts for direct costs of delivering the service. You still have rent, vehicle expenses, insurance, office costs, and your own salary to cover. A 35% gross margin can turn into a 5% to 10% net margin quickly, which is why protecting that gross number matters so much. Every point you lose at the gross level comes straight off your bottom line.

If you’re operating in the Bronx and landing consistently above 30% gross margin on your commercial accounts, you’re in a healthy spot. If you’re below that, look at your labor efficiency first. Are crews spending more time on-site than the contract justifies? Are you understaffing bids and then sending extra people? Are drive times between job sites eating into productive hours?

Working with Bronx bookkeeping services that understand the cleaning services business can help you set up the tracking to answer these questions with actual numbers instead of gut feel. The difference between a cleaning company that grows profitably and one that just grows is knowing where the money goes on every single account.