Bidding and Pricing Video

How to Price Commercial Cleaning Jobs

What You’ll Learn

Estimate cleaning time per visit
Calculate numbers for wages, taxes, overhead, and profit
Price jobs based on job context

Short Summary

Pricing office cleaning jobs is not guesswork. A low bid can lose money on every visit and every week. Start with calculations from minutes per visit and the number of clean days each week. Pick an hourly pay rate, then add payroll taxes and other costs. Add overhead, then add a profit goal that fits the company. Next check the context for the site, not just the math. Price may change with competition, distance, or how easy staffing will be. Finish the bid after both parts look right on paper.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the first number to find for a cleaning bid?

Start with minutes per visit for the space. Use a real estimate, not a guess.

What costs should be added after labor pay?

Add payroll taxes and overhead next. Then add a profit amount.

When should the price change because of context?

Change the price when the site is far away. Change it when staffing will be hard.

Should a company lower the price to win a competitive bid?

A lower price can help win the job. The numbers still must cover costs and profit.

How does days each week affect pricing?

More days each week raise labor time and total cost. The bid should reflect that.

Full Transcript

Hi there. Welcome back. Dan again from CleanGuru.

How to price commercial cleaning, janitorial office cleaning jobs—how to price it. Two things to keep in mind. Let’s keep it kind of simple: calculations and context.

Calculations: the time estimate, the time calculation of cleaning per visit. How many days per week are you going to do it? What’s the wage you’re going to pay? Payroll tax, other expenses, overhead, profit—the calculations to go from how long should this job take to clean, with a number of visits and the expenses and the profit, to come up with a calculation for the price. And we know that’s really important because we want every job that we bid on to be profitable, to help contribute to growing our business.

The second part is context. I only use the word context because I heard it on a radio show that I listen to in the morning, and they say context changes everything. I don’t know if it changes everything. The calculations are what they are, but the context does change how we may want to adjust things.

So, what is context? Every job is not the same. Let’s say you’re bidding on an office cleaning job, but you know that this little branch of their company that you’re bidding on—and maybe it’s only three days a week—you may want to put a sharper pencil to it to be more competitive because you know you’re competing to get in there. But you also may know, if you can get your foot in the door, there are lots of buildings that can come from that: this company has a corporate headquarters nearby, lots of buildings. This could be your way in.

On the other hand, let’s say that little building I mentioned isn’t like that. Let’s say it’s just one little place. There’s no big company around, and it’s kind of out of the way. It’s going to be difficult for you to find someone to clean. The way you price that job, based on the context, changes things.

So, there are calculations and then context. What kind of things are there in context? All kinds of things: how competitive you want to be on the job, the number of people bidding, how far away, how easy is it to fill. There are all kinds of variables.

Those are the two important things to think about when you’re bidding on office cleaning, janitorial jobs: calculations and context.

Till next time, remember: you can do this. You really can.