Published 30 July 2026 by Clean My Biz. 12 min read.
A cheap quote is a compliance signal.
Three quotes come back for the same commercial cleaning scope. Two sit within a few dollars an hour of each other. The third is well under both, and on a tight facilities budget it is the easiest thing to sign.
It is also the one that deserves the hardest look. A cleaning quote priced below the lawful cost of the labour it describes is not a commercial achievement. It is a compliance signal: someone is carrying a risk nobody has priced, and under Australian workplace law some of that risk can land on the business that bought the service. If you are working through quotes now, our commercial cleaning pricing guide sets out what drives a number up or down. This post covers the other half: what a suspiciously low number usually means, and the checks any buyer can run before signing.
The 2026 wage floor, in plain numbers.
This is arithmetic, not opinion: the current award and statutory rates set a floor no lawful quote can price under.
The starting point is not opinion. It is a published rate. The Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review 2026 decision of 2 June 2026 increased modern award minimum wages by 4.75 per cent from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026, and the National Minimum Wage moved to $1,004.90 a week, or $26.44 an hour.
For commercial cleaning the relevant instrument is usually the Cleaning Services Award, MA000022, unless the provider runs its own enterprise agreement. The Fair Work Ombudsman's pay guide for that award, published 24 June 2026, entitles a Level 1 cleaning service employee on a full-time basis to $27.08 an hour for ordinary daytime work, and a casual at the same level to $33.85 an hour including the casual loading. Most Melbourne office cleaning runs after hours, so the relevant rates are usually higher. The same pay guide sets the Level 1 full-time early or late shift rate at $31.14 an hour where a shift starts before 6am or finishes after 6pm, Saturday at $40.62 an hour, and Sunday at $54.16 an hour.
Those are wages only. On top of them:
- Superannuation at 12 per cent. The Australian Taxation Office confirms the super guarantee rate has been 12 per cent since 1 July 2025, the final step in the legislated schedule. A provider who tells you the 12 per cent step arrives in 2026 is working from out-of-date information; it has already applied for a full financial year.
- The Victorian portable long service levy at 1.80 per cent of ordinary wages. Contract cleaning is a covered industry under the Victorian portable long service leave scheme, and the Portable Long Service Authority sets the levy at 1.80 per cent of workers' ordinary wages, invoiced off quarterly returns. It is a statutory obligation, not a voluntary industry membership.
- Workers compensation premiums, payroll tax, annual leave and leave loading, personal leave, supervision, consumables, equipment, training, insurance, and margin.
Run the wage and superannuation alone. A Level 1 full-time ordinary rate of $27.08 an hour, plus 12 per cent superannuation, is roughly $30.33 an hour. Before workers compensation, before the portable long service levy, before a single mop, a supervisor, or a dollar of profit.
That is the floor beneath a daytime clean by the lowest-classified permanent employee. If the work is after hours, which most office cleaning is, the wage component alone starts at $31.14 an hour and rises from there. A quote that prices delivered labour at or below the bare wage-plus-super floor cannot be reconciled to the lawful cost of that labour, which makes it a compliance risk indicator rather than a bargain.
What underpayment now costs the provider.
This part of the law changed recently, and by more than most buyers realise.
From 1 January 2025, intentional underpayment of wages or entitlements can be a criminal offence in Australia. The Fair Work Ombudsman is explicit that honest mistakes are excluded; the offence turns on intent. Where it is made out, the regulator's published maximum penalties are up to 10 years imprisonment for an individual, and for a company a fine of up to the greater of three times the underpayment or $9.1 million. Suitable matters can be referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions or the Australian Federal Police.
Sham contracting sits alongside it as a civil matter. Under the Fair Work Act it is unlawful to tell a worker they are a contractor when they are in fact an employee, unless the business can prove it reasonably believed they were a contractor, and unlawful to dismiss an employee in order to re-engage them as a contractor for the same work. On the figures the Fair Work Ombudsman published at the time of writing, maximum civil penalties per contravention run to $21,840 for an individual, $109,200 for a business with fewer than 15 employees, and $546,000 for a business with 15 or more, and underpayment, record-keeping and pay-slip contraventions stack on top.
Whether a worker is genuinely a contractor is not answered by the paperwork. For most trading corporations, since 26 August 2024 the test looks at what the Fair Work Ombudsman describes as the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship, including how the contract is performed. A cleaner who is told when to start, what to do and how to do it, who uses the provider's equipment and cannot send someone else in their place, is not made a contractor by an ABN and a signed agreement.
The enforcement intensity is documented. In media releases published in July 2026, the Fair Work Ombudsman reported that across the eight financial years to June 2025 it filed 171 litigations involving visa-holder workers and secured $39 million in penalties in cases that included visa holders.
The clearest commercial cleaning example in the public record is the Fair Work Ombudsman's ProClean HQ litigation, announced on 10 March 2023 and amended in April 2024. The regulator alleged that five migrant cleaners on a commercial contract cleaning site were underpaid more than $125,000 in total and subjected to sham contracting, on flat rates of $20 to $22 an hour with a requirement to obtain ABNs. Those are allegations pursued in the Federal Court rather than findings. The pricing shape is what to notice: a flat hourly rate applied regardless of shift, with the worker carrying their own entitlements through an ABN, is what produces a quote nobody else can match.
The federal government announced in July 2026 that it intends to establish a specialist Fair Work Court to hear underpayment matters faster. That is announced policy with consultation still to run. It is not legislated and it is not hearing matters, so it changes nothing that applies today.
Why it is your risk too.
The instinct is to treat all of this as the provider's problem. Under Australian law it is not.
The Fair Work Ombudsman describes accessorial liability as covering a person or company involved in a contravention, meaning they assisted it, influenced it, were knowingly concerned in it, or conspired in it. Someone found to be involved can be ordered to rectify the underpayment and pay penalties as if they were the employer, and the regulator's guidance says in terms that this can include a business involved in the company's supply chain.
The Fair Work Ombudsman's labour hire and supply chain guidance puts the buyer's position plainly: "Companies that outsource their work need to make sure they're not also outsourcing non-compliance." Its worked example is a host that accepts a contract price it knows is too low to cover overtime and penalty rates, and does nothing. Awareness is what turns a cheap quote into an exposure.
Victoria adds a licensing layer. Under the state labour hire scheme, a business supplying workers to clean commercial premises generally needs a labour hire licence, and a host business, including a facilities manager procuring cleaners, must use only licensed providers. The Labour Hire Authority's guidance for commercial cleaning providers and hosts states that penalties for using or providing unlicensed labour hire can exceed $650,000 for a corporation and $160,000 for an individual. That penalty attaches to the host, not only the provider.
Occupational health and safety runs the same way. Under the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, as WorkSafe Victoria's guidance on the duties of contractors sets out, a business engaging a contractor keeps its own duties so far as is reasonably practicable. Outsourcing the work does not move that duty off your organisation.
The five-minute verification any buyer can run.
None of this requires a compliance team. Five checks separate a provider who has priced the work properly from one who has not.
- Look the provider up on the Portable Long Service Authority register. The Authority publishes a public employer lookup at portal.plsa.vic.gov.au. A Victorian contract cleaning employer must register within three months of becoming covered, lodge quarterly returns, and pay the 1.80 per cent levy. If a provider working Victorian commercial sites is not listed, ask why before you ask anything else.
- Check the Labour Hire Authority register, and confirm the licensed entity name matches the entity on your contract, not a related company with a similar name. The Authority's host checklist also recommends confirming what subcontracting is permitted, because a licensed provider passing work down an unlicensed chain puts you back where you began.
- Ask for certificates of currency in the exact contracting entity name. Workers compensation and public liability at minimum. A certificate naming a related entity, a trading name, or a director's other company is not evidence of cover for the entity you are contracting with.
- Ask for the loaded rate build-up. A compliant provider can answer this in one email: the award classification assumed, the shift windows and penalty rates applied, superannuation at 12 per cent, workers compensation, payroll tax, the portable long service levy at 1.80 per cent, leave, supervision and overhead. Every one of those is a real number the provider can name. A provider who will not produce a build-up is asking you to take the number on faith.
- Run the reconciliation test. Take the hours in the quote, multiply by a compliant loaded rate for the classification and shift window the scope requires, and compare to the quoted price. If it will not reconcile, either the scope is thinner than you read it to be or the labour is not paid at the rate its covering instrument requires. Both are easier to raise at tender than at the first invoice dispute.
The Victorian Government's own procurement guidance makes the same point. The Buying for Victoria value for money guide treats total cost of ownership, meaning all costs across the life of the arrangement, as the basis for comparison rather than the offered price. Its companion guide on evaluating and selecting offers reserves lowest-price selection for low-value, low-complexity commodities. Commercial cleaning is neither.
What a fair quote looks like instead.
A quote you can defend has a few plain characteristics.
It is itemised after someone has walked the site. Areas, frequencies, task lists, and the shift windows the work will run in. A price produced from a floor plan and a phone call is a guess, and guesses get corrected later as variations.
It has a transparent build-up. You can see the hours, the classification assumptions and the on-costs without asking three times.
It handles award increases explicitly. Modern award rates move on 1 July every year. A rise and fall clause tied to the annual wage review tells you what happens next July, and our guide to commercial cleaning contracts covers the other clauses worth checking. A contract silent on it produces an awkward conversation or a quiet reduction in service hours.
It is honest about who does the work. Standard commercial cleaning done by the provider's own employees, and any specialist or high-access scope described accurately, including who is brought in and who stays accountable.
That is how we quote. A free site visit, the work scoped against what the building needs, and the detail in writing so the price can be checked rather than trusted.
The questions behind the risk.
Four compliance questions worth answering before you sign.
Is it legal for a cleaning company to quote below award rates?
Our cleaners are subcontractors, so is any of this our concern?
What insurance should we actually ask to see?
What should we do if a current provider will not answer these questions?
If you are running a cleaning tender, renewing a contract, or want a second number against one that looks too good, book a free site visit. We will walk the site, scope the work properly, and give you an itemised quote with the detail behind it. Our guide to what drives a cleaning price covers the numbers themselves.
This post is general information about procurement practice and is not legal advice; for advice about your own contracts and obligations, speak to a qualified adviser.
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