Commercial window cleaning in Metro Detroit works best on a fixed route: busy storefront and restaurant entrances every week or two, offices and medical suites once a month, and quiet frontage once a quarter. The price is set per visit by how much glass there is, how hard it is to reach, the interval you choose and whether the inside is included. Each site gets a free quote, and the route keeps running through the winter, when storefront glass looks its worst.
Cleaning intervals by type of business
The interval follows the number of hands that touch the glass and the number of customers who see it up close. Use this as a starting point.
Business | Starting interval | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
Retail storefronts | Weekly or every two weeks | Handprints at handle height and the front glass customers walk past |
Restaurants | Weekly or every two weeks | A busy entrance and glass diners sit beside |
Professional offices | Monthly | Lower foot traffic and lobby glass seen by visitors |
Medical and dental practices | Monthly | Entrance doors, waiting room glass and partitions |
Quiet office and industrial frontage | Quarterly | Little hand contact and few visitors |
Sites with a busy door do best on two schedules. The doors, their glass, the push plates and the sidelights go on the short cycle, and the rest of the building goes on the long one.
Why the entrance gets its own schedule
The front door is the glass every customer touches. Fingerprints collect at handle height, and in winter the bottom of the door picks up salt from every pair of boots. On each visit, the handles and push plates get wiped along with the glass.
Splitting the schedule saves money. Paying for the whole building twice a month just to keep the front door clean covers side and back windows that could wait. Putting everything on a quarterly visit leaves the door grimy for months. Two intervals keep the front clean without over-cleaning the rest.
Winter is when storefront glass looks worst
Commercial window cleaning runs all twelve months for us, because winter is the hardest season on the glass. Detroit Metro averages 8.9 inches of snow in December, 14 in January, 12.5 in February and 6.2 in March, in the National Weather Service's 1991 to 2020 normals. Every one of those snowfalls means salt. MDOT spread more than 111,000 tons of it across its Metro region in the 2025 to 2026 winter, about 35 percent above average, ClickOnDetroit reported.
Boots, tires and wind carry that salt onto the bottom of every entry, where it dries as a white, chalky band. It's a mineral deposit, so a spray bottle and paper towel only push it around. Taking it off properly is its own item on our winter visits.
Salt also collects in the bottom track of aluminum doors and under the sweep. Left there for several winters, it eats into the door's finish and the threshold under it, so the frames and tracks get wiped on every visit.
What affects access
Access is the second thing we look at after the amount of glass. Our commercial work covers storefront glass and curtain wall that can be reached from the ground, plus skylights and clerestory glass we can get to from a stable surface such as a flat roof. If your building has glass higher than that, mention it in your quote request, and we'll tell you what we can take on.
On the ground, a few things change how long a visit takes:
Beds and shrubs under the glass. Ladders have to stand in mulch or reach over hedges.
Vestibules. Two sets of doors mean twice the door glass, inside and out.
Foot traffic. A busy entrance has to stay open while it gets cleaned.
Display cases and partitions. Interior glass behind or around furniture takes careful work.
We walk the site before we price it, so the quote reflects what the building needs.
Interior and exterior glass
Window cleaning gets read as the outside of the building. The inside has plenty of glass too, and it's easy to leave out of both the janitorial scope and the window scope. Here is what each side covers.
Outside | Inside |
|---|---|
Storefront and entry glass, edge to edge | Door glass, sidelights and vestibule glass |
Frames, mullions and tracks wiped | Office partitions and conference room glass |
The salt line on lower glass through the winter | Glass stair and balcony rails, both faces |
Wall packs, sconces and canopy lights while we're on site | Lobby and restroom mirrors, and display cases |
Glass rails deserve a mention. Hands land on both faces of a rail all day, and the marks sit right where people look. We put rails on the same cycle as the entrance, since they get dirty at the same pace. Lit signs and sign cabinets vary too much to price blind, so we look at them and quote them separately.
How route scheduling works
On a route, your site keeps a fixed visit day and a repeating interval. Let us know when you're open, and the visits get planned to fit. Your staff always know which day we're coming, and the glass gets cleaned on schedule, without waiting for someone to remember.
The route keeps going through the winter. That's the season a schedule is easiest to let slide, and the one where the glass shows it.
If you run several locations, each site gets its own quote and its own interval, and you can get one bill for all of them. One contact covers every site. Property managers can put a portfolio on one schedule this way.
What moves the price
We price commercial window cleaning per visit. These are the four things that set it:
The amount of glass. Storefront panes, door glass, sidelights, partitions and rails.
Access. Glass behind beds, in vestibules or on a skylight takes longer than a clear run of storefront.
The interval. More frequent visits cost less each, because glass on a two-week cycle is lighter work than glass that waits three months.
Inside, outside or both. Interior glass adds time to each visit.
If the building also needs its walkways or exterior washed, our pressure washing can go on the same account. For a new storefront or office that hasn't opened yet, start with new construction window cleaning, then move the site onto a route once the doors open.
Where we work
We clean commercial glass in the towns we serve across Metro Detroit. Farmington Hills has a lot of office, medical and light industrial space on Orchard Lake Road, Grand River and Twelve Mile, covered on our Farmington Hills window cleaning page. Novi's storefronts around Twelve Oaks and along Novi Road are on our Novi page, and Livonia's Schoolcraft corridor is on our Livonia page. Every town we serve is listed on our window cleaning service areas page, and the full service is on our commercial window cleaning page.
Questions people ask
How often should a restaurant clean its windows?
A restaurant's entrance glass needs cleaning every week or every two weeks, because the door takes handprints all day and diners sit right beside the front windows. The rest of the building can go on a longer cycle. Splitting the two keeps the entrance looking right without paying for every pane on every visit.
How often should a medical or dental office have its windows cleaned?
A medical or dental office does well on a monthly visit for its entrance doors, waiting room glass and interior partitions. If the practice shares a busy building entrance, that door may need a shorter cycle of its own. Winter visits matter too, because salt dries onto the lower glass from December through March.
Is commercial window cleaning cheaper on a more frequent schedule?
Each visit costs less on a more frequent schedule, because glass cleaned twice a month never builds up the grime that three months leaves behind. The yearly total depends on the number of visits. A split schedule, with the entrance on a short cycle and everything else on a long one, keeps that total down.
Does commercial window cleaning include the inside glass?
It can, and it's worth deciding before you get quotes, because interior glass changes the price. Door glass, sidelights, office partitions, conference room glass, glass rails and lobby mirrors can all go on the same visit as the outside. Interior glass is easy to leave out of both the janitorial and window scopes, so write it into yours.
Get a quote
Send us the address, an estimate of how much glass there is and the interval you'd like. We've been owner-operated in Northville since 2014, we're rated 5.0 on Google, and you can read the reviews before you call. When you're ready, Get a Free Quote.
