Why childcare is not just a small school
Floors are a play surface, not a walking surface. Tables become eating surfaces three times a day. Toys and manipulatives are shared and mouthed. Nappy-change and toileting areas need a sanitation protocol, not a wipe. And every surface within a metre of the floor is a high-touch surface, which is not how any other building works.
Cleaning, sanitising and disinfecting are three different things
CDC's guidance separates them, and childcare is the setting where the distinction matters most. Cleaning with detergent removes soil and most germs. Sanitising reduces bacteria on food-contact and mouthed surfaces to a safe level. Disinfecting kills a broader range and is warranted for nappy areas, after an illness, and during an outbreak. Each has a different product, a different dwell time, and a different frequency — and dwell time is the part almost everyone gets wrong. A product that needs four minutes of visible wetness does nothing if it is wiped after thirty seconds.
Products
Around young children, product choice is a safety decision as much as an efficacy one. We work from EPA Safer Choice and Green Seal GS-37 listings, use fragrance-free where we can, and keep a full SDS file on site. For food-contact and mouthed surfaces we use a sanitiser rated for that use, not a general disinfectant. If your licensing body specifies products or a protocol, we work to theirs.
What it costs
| Small centre, ~6,000 sq ft, nightly, thorough service level | $24,500/yr · $2,057/mo |
| Larger centre, ~12,000 sq ft | $33,000/yr · $2,745/mo |
Assumes the centre sits on a route with other accounts nearby — route density is most of the price on a small building, because supervision, equipment and travel do not scale down with floor area. A standalone centre twenty minutes from anything else costs meaningfully more, and we will tell you that rather than quote low and cut corners.
Timing
Most centres close between 18:00 and 19:00 and open at 06:30, which is a workable window. Centres open extended hours usually need a split: a short evening pass on the rooms that have emptied, and the main clean overnight. We would rather design that around your actual timetable than force a standard shift on you.
Staff screening
Everyone who enters a childcare centre is background-checked before their first shift, to the standard your state licensing requires or our own company standard, whichever is stricter. We carry abuse and molestation coverage in addition to general liability — most cleaning contractors do not, because standard policies exclude it. Ask any bidder to show you that endorsement in writing.