The award went up. Passing it on is a letter, not a fight.
On 1 July 2026 modern award wages moved 4.75%. If your contract prices did not move with them, you are funding the difference out of margin, and the gap compounds every year the letter does not go out. Here is which number is yours, what an old price is actually behind by, and what goes in the letter, from an operator who runs cleaning contracts of his own.
The short version
Award rises are the one price conversation where the arithmetic is on your side and published by someone else. You did not set the number, Fair Work did, and your client can check it. The operators who lose margin to award rises are not the ones whose clients said no. They are the ones who never sent the letter.
Find the month each contract price last moved. Compound the published award rises since that month. Decide what share of the price is labour, apply the movement to that share, and send a letter that shows the working, names the new rate, and honours the notice your agreement requires. Nobody owes you the money you left behind, but nothing stops you fixing the rate from here.
Which number is yours
Two different wage figures made the news this winter, and only one of them belongs in your letter. The National Minimum Wage headline covers workers who are not on an award. If your people are employed under a modern award, and in commercial cleaning that is the Cleaning Services Award, your number is the annual wage review determination: 4.75% from 1 July 2026.
This year also carried a structural change to the lowest award classifications, so a price pinned to entry-level labour moved by more than 4.75%. If you quote the minimum wage headline instead, you are inviting the one client who checks to find a different figure and discount everything else in the letter.
What an old price is actually behind by
Award rises compound. A price that has not moved for three years is not behind by three times one rise, it is behind by each rise applied on top of the last:
| A price you last raised in | Is behind the award by |
|---|---|
| June 2022 | 25.1% |
| June 2023 | 18.9% |
| June 2024 | 12.5% |
| June 2025 | 8.4% |
An estimate from published award rises. Nobody owes you this. Compounded from the Fair Work Commission annual wage review determinations, and the month matters: a price raised in June 2022 has not had the 2022 rise, a price raised in July 2022 has. Your labour share decides how much of the movement belongs in the price; a contract that is half labour carries roughly half these figures.
Your agreement decides, not the award
The award tells you what your costs did. Whether you can raise a given customer, and how much notice you owe first, is a question about your agreement. Before writing anything, read the contract for three things:
- The review clause. Many commercial cleaning agreements allow an annual adjustment tied to award or CPI movement. If yours does, the letter invokes it. If yours does not, the letter proposes, and the client agrees or negotiates.
- The notice period. 30, 60 or 90 days are all common. The date you want the new rate to start is the date you work backwards from, which is why this is a July job, not an October one.
- When it was signed. A contract more than two years old has usually absorbed at least two rises nobody passed on. That is the compounding table above, working against you.
What goes in the letter
A price review letter that gets accepted has five parts, and none of them is an apology:
- The basis, named. "The Fair Work Commission's annual wage review increased award wages by 4.75% from 1 July 2026." A published fact, not your opinion.
- The working, shown. Current rate, labour share, the movement applied, new rate. A client who can follow the arithmetic has nothing to argue with except the award itself.
- The new rate and its start date. One number, one date.
- The notice, honoured. Name the clause if there is one, and give the days it requires.
- No flannel. You are not sorry to inform anyone. Wages went up for everyone in the industry; a competitor quoting cheaper next month is absorbing the same rise or underpaying the same award.
Start with one customer, free
The award check does the arithmetic for one customer on the spot: the price, the month it last moved, and the compounded movement since, with the working shown. It needs no sign-up, connects to nothing and stores nothing. If the number it hands back is bigger than you expected, the question stops being whether to send the letter and becomes how many of your regulars need one.
Questions operators ask before sending the letter.
Can I backdate a price increase on a cleaning contract?
Almost never unilaterally. Unless your agreement expressly allows a rate to apply from an earlier date, a backdated invoice is a dispute you started in writing. What you can usually do is have the catch-up conversation: show the published award movement since the price last moved and agree where the rate lands from here. The money already left behind is a negotiation, not an entitlement.
Is the award increase the same as the minimum wage increase?
No, and mixing them up in a price letter is how you lose the argument. The National Minimum Wage headline in the news is a different figure for a different group of workers. If your people are employed under a modern award such as the Cleaning Services Award, the award determination is your number: 4.75% from 1 July 2026, and more at the lowest classifications, which also moved structurally this year. Quote the number your client can verify against your award.
What if the contract has no review clause?
Then the price moves by agreement rather than by right, which means a conversation with notice, not a surprise invoice. The letter still does the work: it shows the published basis, names the new rate and the date it starts, and gives the client time to respond. Most commercial clients accept a documented award pass-through; what they push back on is a number with no working attached.
How much notice do I owe before a price increase?
Whatever your agreement says, and if it says nothing, enough that the client never feels ambushed: 30 days is a floor, and 60 to 90 is common on commercial contracts. Work backwards from the date you want the new rate to start. If that is 1 October on a 60-day clause, the letter leaves in July, and remembering on 1 July is remembering too late.
What has the award rise actually done to my contract price?
It depends on when the price last moved, because the rises compound. A price last raised in June 2022 sits 25.1% behind the compounded award movement; June 2024 sits 12.5% behind. Those are estimates from published award rises, not money anyone owes you, and your labour share decides how much belongs in your price. The free award check runs one customer with the working shown.
See what one customer's price should be now.
The free award check takes one price and the month you last raised it, and shows the compounded award movement with the working. No sign-up, nothing stored, nothing to connect.