How to Bid Commercial Cleaning Jobs: From Square Feet to a Monthly Price

How to calculate a janitorial bid (the formula)

A janitorial bid is a cost per visit converted to a monthly price. The production rate, how many square feet one cleaner finishes in an hour, is the number that turns a building into labour hours.

1. Hours per visit = cleanable sq ft ÷ production rate.
2. Labour per visit = hours × loaded rate (wage × (1 + burden %)).
3. Break-even per visit = labour + supplies + hours × overhead per sellable hour.
4. Price per visit = break-even ÷ (1 − margin).
5. Monthly price = price per visit × visits per week × 52 ÷ 12.
6. Price per sq ft per month = monthly price ÷ sq ft.

This page is about the method. For the document you hand the client, the sheet's lines and layout, see the companion commercial cleaning bid template guide. Nothing here is an industry average: every rate, wage and supply cost is an assumption you replace with your own.

Commercial cleaning bid calculator (per visit)

The calculator below prices one visit. Enter the cleanable area, your production rate and supplies per visit, then multiply the price by visits per week × 52 ÷ 12 for the monthly figure.

For a whole contract, per visit and per month side by side, with a production-rate check against a published band, the commercial cleaning bid calculator template does the monthly conversion for you.

Worked example: bidding a 10,000 sq ft office

A 10,000 sq ft office cleaned 5 nights a week at an assumed 3,500 sq ft per cleaner-hour comes to $157.58 a visit and $3,414.23 a month, or $0.34 per sq ft per month.

Assumptions, all yours to replace: one cleaner at $18 an hour with 30% burden ($23.40 loaded); $12 of supplies a visit (liners, chemicals, paper if you supply it); $29,040 of yearly overhead across 2 people × 220 days × 8 hours = $8.25 per sellable hour; 35% margin. The 3,500 sq ft per hour is a blended rate for the whole building including restrooms and trash, and this example leaves out drive time. Add drive time as extra hours per visit if you have it.

Monthly: $157.58 × 5 × 52 ÷ 12 = $3,414.23. Break-even per month is $2,219.32. Over a 12-month term the contract is worth $40,970.80.

In practice a building cleaned once a week often takes longer per visit than one cleaned nightly, because more dirt builds up between visits. If you see that on your walk-through, use a slower production rate for the low-frequency bid rather than the same one.

How much to charge for commercial cleaning per square foot

Work out the monthly price first, then divide by square feet. Price per sq ft is an output of your bid, not an input you pick from a chart.

The production rate moves it more than anything else. Same 10,000 sq ft office, same wage, supplies, overhead and margin, 5 nights a week:

At 2,500 sq ft an hour the monthly price is $4,619.98, which is $1,205.75 a month more than at 3,500. If you bid at 3,500 and your crew actually works at 2,500, the extra cost comes out of your profit: $9,404.20 a year on this one building. Time your first few visits and reprice at renewal if the rate is off.

10,000 sq ft warehouse: a light-use warehouse cleaned twice a week at an assumed 7,000 sq ft an hour with $6 of supplies comes to $78.79 a visit and $682.85 a month ($0.07 per sq ft). Bigger open floors, fewer restrooms and lower frequency all pull the per-sq-ft figure down.

Step by step: how to bid a commercial cleaning job

Walk the building, write the scope, set a production rate per area, price one visit, convert to a month, then write the proposal. Skipping the walk-through is how bids go wrong.

1. Walk the site. Measure or confirm cleanable square footage (not the lease figure), count restrooms and fixtures, note floor types, trash points, kitchens and access hours.
2. Write the scope by frequency. Nightly, weekly, monthly and periodic tasks (carpet extraction, floor refinishing) listed separately.
3. Set production rates by area type. Open office, corridors, restrooms and break rooms do not clean at the same speed. Time a sample if you can.
4. Price one visit with the formula above, including drive time.
5. Convert to monthly with × 52 ÷ 12.
6. Price periodic work separately and spread it across months or bill it when done.
7. Write the proposal: scope, frequency, monthly price, term, what is excluded.

The three mistakes that sink cleaning bids

Multiplying by 4 weeks, pricing at the wage, and adding margin as markup. All three bill less than your costs require, every month of the contract.

The × 4 mistake alone costs $3,151.60 a year on this contract. A year has 52 weeks, and 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 weeks a month, so four "missing" visits a year go unbilled on a weekly schedule, and twenty on a 5-night one. Markup vs margin is explained in the markup vs margin guide; the loaded-rate error in the labour burden guide.

Where to find commercial cleaning jobs to bid on

Private buildings come from direct outreach to property managers and office managers; public contracts come from procurement portals. Federal notices are posted free on SAM.gov.

SAM.gov Contract Opportunities is the federal system where contracting offices post procurement notices, including solicitations, and anyone can search it. State, county, city and school-district purchasing offices usually run their own bid portals; search your state's name plus "procurement" or "bid opportunities".

Public bids are usually decided on a written response to a fixed scope, so your costing has to hold up on paper. Private buildings are more often won on the walk-through and a clear proposal. In both, a bid that shows the scope, frequency and a monthly price the client can check is easier to say yes to than a single number.

Calculator, bidding software or spreadsheet?

Use whatever forces you to state a production rate and converts visits to months correctly. The tool is secondary to those two numbers.

The cleaning contract pricing template shows break-even per visit and per month, the monthly price, annual contract value, an "am I underpricing?" check, and your production rate against the published ISSA 612 band for six facility types. Just starting? The free Job Pricing Starter handles one job at a time. Related: pricing window cleaning.

Janitorial bidding formulas in Excel

Layout: B2 = cleanable sq ft, B3 = production rate, B4 = wage, B5 = burden %, B6 = supplies per visit, B7 = yearly overhead, B8 = people in the field, B9 = billable days, B10 = margin %, B11 = visits per week.

Keep production rates on their own tab by area type, and look them up, so one change reprices every bid.

Step-by-step: How to Bid Commercial Cleaning Jobs: From Square Feet to a Monthly Price

1. Walk the building. Confirm cleanable square footage, count restroom fixtures, note floor types, trash points and access hours.
2. Set a production rate. Choose sq ft per cleaner-hour for each area type, ideally from timing your own crew, and divide area by rate for hours per visit.
3. Price one visit. Hours × loaded rate + supplies + hours × overhead per sellable hour = break-even. Divide by (1 − margin) for the visit price.
4. Convert to a monthly price. Multiply the visit price by visits per week × 52 ÷ 12. Never × 4.
5. Check price per sq ft. Divide the monthly price by square footage and compare with what local buildings pay. If yours is far above, look at your production rate and costs.
6. Write the proposal. List scope by frequency, monthly price, term, exclusions and periodic work priced separately.

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