Window Cleaning (High-Rise) Calculator
BMU or rope access cost from floors and window count.
About this calculator
The distinctive piece of this calculator is how it prices height risk: rather than applying one flat premium to the whole building, it loops floor-by-floor and adds 5% to that floor's exterior cost for every 10 floors of elevation, plus an extra flat 10% surcharge on any floor above the 20th — so a 30-story building's top floors cost meaningfully more per pane than its ground floors, reflecting the real jump in rigging complexity, wind exposure, and insurance risk at extreme heights. Interior cleaning, by contrast, carries no height premium at all since it's accessed from inside the building rather than via rope, BMU, or swing stage, so it's priced as a flat per-pane rate regardless of floor. A one-time rigging/safety setup fee is added per cleaning based on building height tiers ($200 for 5 floors or fewer, up to $2,500 for buildings over 30 stories), representing anchor point inspection, harness certification, and safety-equipment mobilization that's largely fixed cost per visit rather than scaling with pane count.
Annual cost simply multiplies the per-cleaning total by your specified cleanings-per-year, and crew-days assumes a 2-person crew working 8-hour days at the built-in production rates of 80 exterior panes/hr and 120 interior panes/hr. This model doesn't distinguish between access methods (rope access, BMU, swing stage) even though real-world pricing and production rates vary meaningfully between them — treat the output as a rope-access-style baseline, and adjust upward for buildings that require permit fees, street closures, or union labor rates the calculator doesn't otherwise account for.
Inputs
Results
Cost per cleaning
$4,604.00
Annual window cleaning cost
$13,812.00
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the number of windows per floor and the total number of floors.
- Set the exterior price per pane and interior price per pane for your market.
- Indicate whether interior cleaning is included (0 = no, 1 = yes).
- Enter how many cleanings per year are required.
- Review cost per cleaning, annual contract cost, and crew days needed to quote the job.
How the result changes with Number of floors
| Number of floors | Cost per cleaning | Annual window cleaning cost |
|---|---|---|
| 7.5 | $2,435.00 | $7,305.00 |
| 11 | $3,488.00 | $10,464.00 |
| 23 | $7,626.00 | $22,878.00 |
| 38 | $13,597.00 | $40,791.00 |
What each input means
- Windows per floor
- Average number of window panes per floor.
- Number of floors
- Total building floors with windows to clean.
- Exterior price per pane ($)
- Base price per exterior window pane at ground level.
- Interior price per pane ($)
- Price per interior window pane cleaning.
- Include interior (0=no, 1=yes)
- Whether to include interior window cleaning in the estimate.
- Cleanings per year
- How many times per year windows are cleaned. Typical: 2-4x/yr.
What each result means
- Cost per cleaning
- Total cost for one complete window cleaning service.
- Annual window cleaning cost
- Total yearly cost at the selected frequency.
- Total window panes
- Total number of panes across all floors.
- Exterior cleaning cost
- Cost for exterior panes including height premium.
- Interior cleaning cost
- Cost for interior pane cleaning (if included).
- Safety/rigging setup
- Rigging, BMU, or rope access setup fee per service.
- Blended cost per pane
- Average cost per pane including all fees.
- Crew days needed
- Estimated working days for a 2-person crew.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersWindows per floor = 30, Number of floors = 15, Exterior price per pane ($) = 6, Interior price per pane ($) = 3 = 6 input(s) provided
- Calculate Cost per cleaningCost per cleaning = exteriorCost + interiorCost + riggingSetup4604 = $4,604
- Calculate Annual window cleaning costAnnual window cleaning cost = costPerCleaning * cleaningsPerYear13812 = $13,812
- Calculate Total window panesTotal window panes = windowsPerFloor * floors450 = 450
- Calculate Exterior cleaning costExterior cleaning cost2754 = $2,754
Engine last updated . Checked against 4 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the height premium apply floor-by-floor instead of as one multiplier for the whole building?
The engine loops from floor 1 to your total floor count and computes a separate heightPremium for each floor — adding 5% for every completed set of 10 floors below it, plus a flat extra 10% for any floor above the 20th — then sums each floor's premium-adjusted exterior cost. This means a 30-story building's upper floors carry a noticeably higher per-pane cost than its lower floors, reflecting the real jump in rigging complexity and wind exposure at extreme height, rather than smoothing that risk evenly across the whole structure.
Why doesn't interior cleaning get a height premium?
interiorCost is calculated as totalPanes * interiorPricePerPane with no height adjustment at all, because interior cleaning is done from inside the building using standard tools rather than rope access, a BMU, or a swing stage. The extra risk and equipment that drive the exterior height premium simply don't apply when you're not hanging off the building's exterior.
What is the rigging setup fee, and why is it a flat amount rather than scaling with pane count?
riggingSetup is a one-time per-visit fee tiered by floor count ($200 for buildings of 5 floors or fewer, up to $2,500 for buildings over 30 floors), meant to represent anchor point inspection, harness certification, and safety-equipment mobilization. Those costs are largely incurred once per visit regardless of how many panes get cleaned, which is why the fee is flat rather than multiplied by totalPanes the way exterior and interior cleaning costs are.
Does the calculator distinguish between rope access, BMU, and swing stage pricing?
No — it uses a single set of production rates (80 exterior panes/hr, 120 interior panes/hr) and one height-premium curve regardless of which access method you actually use. Treat the output as a rope-access-style baseline and adjust upward for buildings that require a BMU, swing stage rigging, permit fees, or union labor rates, since real-world costs and speeds vary meaningfully between those methods.
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