This month —
For one fixed 60,000 sq ft elementary, the choice of APPA service level shifts annual cost by $46,500, while the full range across mainland US metros is $40,500.
At the national median wage of $17.71/hr, the same building prices at $178,500 a year at APPA Level 2, $148,500 at Level 3, and $132,000 at Level 4. Each step down the ladder saves money: $30,000 moving from Level 2 to Level 3, and $16,500 from Level 3 to Level 4. The full ladder, Level 2 to Level 4, is worth $6,000 a year more than the entire mainland geography range of $40,500, though any single step is worth less than the geography. The driver is crew hours: 20.6 a night at Level 2 against 12.6 at Level 4, reflecting production rates of 2700 sq ft per productive hour at Level 2 versus 4400 at Level 4. Where a district sits matters less than what the specification demands.
How to use this against a bid. Before comparing bids across vendors or regions, confirm the APPA level written into the specification, because that single line moves annual price more than market location does.
The arithmetic underneath
One building — 60,000 sq ft, APPA Level 4, 185 session nights plus the summer block, 2,721 paid crew hours — costed against the median janitorial wage in 393 US metros. Identical in every row, so nothing moves but the labor market.
| Market | BLS median | Loaded | Per year | Per month | $/sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest on the mainland Shreveport-Bossier City, LA |
$12.68 | $15.47 | $111,000 | $9,259 | $0.154 |
| Median market Omaha, NE-IA |
$17.12 | $20.89 | $129,500 | $10,795 | $0.180 |
| Dearest Longview-Kelso, WA |
$22.40 | $27.33 | $151,500 | $12,620 | $0.210 |
And the same building with only the specification changed:
| Service level | Hours/night | Per year | $/sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| APPA Level 2 | 20.6 | $178,500 | $0.248 |
| APPA Level 3 | 15.4 | $148,500 | $0.206 |
| APPA Level 4 — the level most districts fund | 12.6 | $132,000 | $0.183 |
- $40,500
- a year between the cheapest and dearest mainland market
- $46,500
- a year between the top and bottom of the service ladder
- 158.315
- BLS price index for this service, September 2026 (+5.74% on the year)
- +3.74%
- CPI-U over the same twelve months
Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (metropolitan areas), May 2025. The cost schedule — burden, relief, fixed overhead, G&A — is set out line by line on the pricing page, and the production rates are APPA's.
Previous months
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The same school costs $40,500 a year more to clean in the priciest metro than the cheapest
An identical 60,000 sq ft elementary prices at $111,000 a year in Shreveport-Bossier City and $151,500 in Longview-Kelso, a $40,500 gap set entirely by local wages.
Nobody reported any of this and no study sits behind it. A public wage table and the cost schedule already published on this site were multiplied together — that is the whole provenance, and the reason the page has nothing to link to. The sentences were assembled by a language model handed the computed figures and nothing else. Two automatic checks stand between that draft and this page: one refuses it if any number appears that is not in the data, the other refuses it if any claim is not supported by the data. It runs monthly because the price index behind it is monthly; a daily note off a yearly wage table would be the same note, dated differently.