How Much Do Janitorial Supplies Cost per Employee? Build the Number From Case Counts, Not a Benchmark

The short answer: there is no published per-employee figure, and the “$5 to $15 per employee per month” range that circulates online has no source behind it that we have been able to find. What you can do instead is build the number from four consumables whose usage tracks headcount — toilet tissue, hand towel, hand soap and can liners — using case counts the manufacturers publish and consumption assumptions you can replace with a one-week count. Below is that build, for a 50-person office, with every assumption labelled. The result is a formula you can run against your own invoice, not a benchmark to take on faith.

Why headcount is the right driver for four lines, and the wrong one for the rest

Restroom paper and soap are consumed per visit, and visits scale with people on site. Desk-side liners are pulled per desk per day. Those four lines rise and fall with headcount, so a per-employee figure means something for them. Floor chemicals, disinfectant for touchpoints, glass cleaner, mop heads and microfibre scale with square footage and cleaning frequency, not people; a 20-person office in 8,000 square feet uses about as much floor cleaner as a 60-person office in the same space. Budget those as a fixed monthly block per building. Any “per employee” number that folds them in is really a per-building number divided by whoever happened to be on the payroll.

The per-employee build, line by line

Assumptions, labelled so you can change them: 2 restroom visits per person per working day, 15 sheets of 2-ply tissue per visit, 1.5 towels per hand-dry and one dry per visit, one handwash per visit, 21 working days a month, one desk-side can per person emptied once a day. The consumption figures are working assumptions; the case counts are manufacturers’ published figures.

• Toilet tissue. 2 × 15 × 21 = 630 sheets per person per month. Scott Professional 04460 is 550 sheets per roll, 80 rolls (44,000 sheets) per case, so one person uses about 1.15 rolls a month and a case covers roughly 70 person-months.
• Hand towel. 2 × 1.5 × 21 = 63 towels per person per month. Scott Essential 01804 multifold is 250 per pack, 16 packs (4,000 towels) per case, so a case covers about 63 person-months.
• Hand soap. 42 washes per person per month. At roughly 0.4 mL a shot from a foam dispenser that is about 17 mL a month per person, so a one-litre foam cartridge covers about 59 person-months. At roughly 1.5 mL a shot from a liquid dispenser it is 63 mL, and the same litre covers about 16. Same washes, nearly four times the soap; dispenser choice is the largest single lever on this line.
• Can liners. 21 desk-side pulls per person per month, plus the shared restroom and kitchen cans, which belong in the fixed block. Case counts vary by size and gauge, so take liners per case from the spec sheet on the case you buy; our mil vs gauge vs microns post explains why cost per pull, not cost per case, is the number to compare.

Turning units into dollars

Per-employee monthly cost = (630 ÷ sheets per case × case price) + (63 ÷ towels per case × case price) + (17 or 63 mL ÷ cartridge mL × cartridge price) + (21 ÷ liners per case × case price). Fill it in from the quote or invoice in front of you; BNRS quotes live because case prices move with resin and pulp, so we do not print prices here. Once the baseline is built, the six levers that shrink it are ranked by measured effect in the companion post. To show the shape with round example numbers (example math — substitute your invoice): a $60 case of 44,000-sheet tissue is 0.86 of a cent a sheet, so tissue is about 86 cents a month per person; a $35 case of 4,000 multifold towels is 0.9 of a cent a towel, or 55 cents; a $9 litre of foam soap is about 15 cents on foam and 57 cents on liquid at the doses above; a $30 case of 500 desk-side liners is 6 cents a pull, or $1.26. On those example prices the four variable lines come to roughly $2.80 a month per person on foam soap and $3.20 on liquid, before the fixed block. Your prices will differ; the proportions usually will not.

The fixed block: what does not scale with headcount

For a single-floor office cleaned five nights a week, the fixed block is typically a neutral floor cleaner concentrate, a disinfectant for touchpoints and restroom fixtures, glass cleaner, a bowl cleaner, mop heads and microfibre replaced on a schedule, restroom and kitchen liners, and any air-care refills. Our floor chemical comparison gives buckets-per-gallon from published dilution ratios so you can size the concentrates. Add the fixed block to the variable total, divide by headcount if you want a single figure for the budget line, and remember that the single figure will fall as headcount rises even though nothing got cheaper.

Worked example: 50 people, 21 days

Variable lines at the assumptions above: 31,500 sheets of tissue (0.72 of a case, about 57 rolls), 3,150 towels (0.79 of a case), 2,100 handwashes (0.84 of a litre of foam, or 3.2 litres of liquid), and 1,050 desk-side pulls. On the example prices that is about $140 a month on foam soap; the fixed block for one floor might be another $120 to $200 depending on how much floor there is, which is why the blended figure lands anywhere between roughly $5 and $7 a head for this building and could be double that for a smaller headcount in the same space. If your count comes back at 25 sheets a visit rather than 15, tissue rises by two-thirds; that is the number worth a week with a clipboard, and our count-it-once method explains how.

What moves the number most

1. Dispenser choice. Foam versus liquid soap changes the soap line by roughly four times at the doses above. A controlled towel cabinet or a jumbo tissue roll lowers towels per dry and sheets per visit; the manufacturers market them on limiting over-use without promising a figure, and neither do we.
2. Visitors and customers. Headcount undercounts a lobby, a clinic or a showroom. Count door traffic and use visits directly; the supplies calculator accepts either.
3. Case format. Coreless and jumbo formats change the per-case count and the refill labour, not the sheets a person uses; compare them on sheets and feet.
4. Days on site. A hybrid office at three days a week uses 60% of the paper of the same headcount at five. Use average daily occupancy, not the org chart.

Bring the headcount, the days on site and the dispensers you have to a quote request and we will return the case counts and a delivered price per line for South Florida; or send the invoice you pay now and we will price it line by line. See the paper and tissue and soaps and hand care ranges for the formats above.

Gloves are the one line here that scales with the cleaning crew rather than the building’s headcount; how many gloves a cleaning crew uses per shift builds that number from pairs per task.

FAQ

How much should a business budget for janitorial supplies per employee?

There is no published figure; the $5 to $15 per employee per month range that circulates online has no traceable source. Build it instead: about 630 sheets of tissue, 63 towels, 42 handwashes and 21 desk-side liner pulls per person per month at the labelled assumptions, priced from your own case quote, plus a fixed block for floor and surface chemicals that scales with square footage rather than headcount.

Why does the per-employee figure fall when headcount rises?

Because floor cleaner, disinfectant, glass cleaner, mop heads and shared-area liners are consumed per square foot and per cleaning visit, not per person. Dividing that fixed block by a larger headcount lowers the blended figure even though nothing got cheaper. Budget the fixed block per building and only the four restroom and desk lines per head.

What is the biggest single lever on restroom supply cost per employee?

Dispenser choice for soap. At roughly 0.4 mL a shot, foam soap uses about 17 mL per person per month at 42 washes; liquid at roughly 1.5 mL a shot uses about 63 mL for the same washes, nearly four times as much. Controlled towel cabinets and jumbo tissue rolls lower towels per dry and sheets per visit, though manufacturers do not promise a figure.

Should I use headcount or visits to size a restroom order?

Headcount works for an office where the people using the restrooms are the people on the payroll. For a lobby, clinic, showroom, gym or restaurant, count door traffic for a week and use visits directly, because customers do not appear on the org chart. The supplies calculator accepts either input.