Flu season ramps up in the fall, and it's the time of year facility managers are most likely to ask for "extra disinfection" without knowing what that actually costs to deliver. If you say yes without repricing the scope, you've just added labor hours to a contract that wasn't built to absorb them.
Enhanced Disinfection Isn't Free Labor
Standard cleaning and disinfection cleaning are different scopes of work. Wiping a desk is fast. Disinfecting a desk — applying an EPA-registered disinfectant and observing the manufacturer's required dwell time before wiping — takes measurably longer, especially across every high-touch point in a building: door handles, light switches, elevator buttons, shared equipment, restroom fixtures. Multiply that extra time across dozens of touch points and a building, and you're looking at a real increase in hours per visit, not a rounding error.
What to Actually Reprice
- Labor hours. A reasonable planning assumption is 10–20% additional time per cleaning for buildings requesting enhanced high-touch-point disinfection, depending on touch-point density.
- Supply cost. EPA-registered disinfectants generally cost more per unit than standard all-purpose cleaners, and dwell-time requirements mean more product used per application, not less.
- Frequency. If the client wants high-touch points hit twice a day instead of once, that's effectively a second partial visit — price it as one.
How to Present It
Don't fold "extra disinfection" into your existing price as a goodwill gesture — it sets a precedent that's hard to walk back, and it trains the client that scope increases are free. Instead, offer it as a defined add-on: a specific list of touch points, a specific frequency, and a specific incremental monthly price. Clients asking for this during flu season are usually anxious about illness spreading through their staff — a clearly scoped, professionally priced response reads as expertise, not upselling.
A Simple Way to Price It
Estimate the added minutes per visit for touch-point disinfection, convert to hours, multiply by your burdened hourly rate, add the incremental supply cost, and apply your standard margin. For a building already costing $2,000/month with a 15% time increase for enhanced disinfection, that's roughly an additional $250–$350/month depending on your margin target — a specific, defensible number instead of a guess.
The Bottom Line
Enhanced disinfection requests spike every fall, and they're a legitimate opportunity to add revenue — but only if you price the actual added labor and supply cost instead of treating it as a free favor to keep the client happy.