Janitorial Bidding Calculator: How to Price a Cleaning Bid

How a janitorial bidding calculator works

A janitorial bidding calculator prices a commercial cleaning job from labor hours, not from a guess. You tell it how big each area is and how often you clean it. It turns that into the hours your cleaner will spend, then adds your labor cost, supplies, overhead and profit margin. The calculator above does this for one building in a few inputs. Here is the same math, step by step.

Step 1: Measure the cleanable square footage

Walk the building and write down the square feet of each area: open office, restrooms, lobby, breakroom and so on. Count only cleanable square footage. Areas take different amounts of time, so measure them one by one instead of using one total for the whole building.

Step 2: Turn square feet into labor hours

Divide each area's square feet by its production rate. A production rate is how many square feet one cleaner can clean in an hour. Outscoped uses Industry Standard Production Rates as its built-in defaults:

For example, a 1,600 square foot restroom area at 800 square feet per hour takes 2 hours per visit. Add up every area to get the hours for one visit.

Step 3: Find monthly hours

Multiply the hours per visit by the number of visits each week, then by 4.35, the average number of weeks in a month. Cleaning frequency matters a lot here. A building cleaned 5 nights a week needs five times the hours of one cleaned once a week.

Step 4: Work out your true cost per hour

Start with the hourly wage you pay. Add payroll burden, which covers payroll taxes and insurance on top of wages. Then add cleaning supplies and overhead. With the default numbers, $18.50 an hour plus 25 percent burden is $23.13, and adding 5 percent for supplies and 10 percent for overhead brings your true cost to about $26.59 an hour ($18.50 x 1.25 x 1.15). Use your own wage and costs. Every Outscoped account can change them on every plan.

Multiply your true cost per hour by your monthly hours to get your total cost for the contract.

Step 5: Add your margin and build Good, Better and Best

Your price is your total cost plus profit. The default target margin is 20 percent. Instead of one price, offer up to 3 price options. Good covers the base scope. Better and Best add more service at a higher monthly price. Clients compare packages instead of asking you to cut one number.

Worked example: Lakeview Office Park

Lakeview Office Park is a 17,900 square foot office cleaned 5 visits a week. Using the default production rates and cost inputs, it comes to 114.6 labor hours a month. The three monthly prices are:

• Good: $3,295 a month
• Better: $3,625 a month
• Best: $3,885 a month

To price each area of a real building one line item at a time, use the advanced area calculator.

Hourly pricing versus a flat price per square foot

Many cleaning business owners quote a flat rate per square foot. It is fast, but it hides the real work. A restroom takes far longer to clean than the same space of open office, so one rate can underprice a restroom-heavy building and overprice an open warehouse. Pricing from hours ties your bid to the labor cost you will actually pay. You can still show a per square foot number to the client after you know your hours.

Frequently asked questions

Is this janitorial bid calculator free?

Yes. The bidding calculator is free on every Outscoped plan, including the Free plan, which needs no credit card.

What production rates does the calculator use?

It uses Industry Standard Production Rates as defaults, like 4,000 square feet per hour for open office and 800 for restrooms. On the Solo and Growth plans you can edit them to match your crew.

Can I use my own wage and costs?

Yes. Every account can set its own wage, payroll burden, supplies, overhead and profit margin on every plan.

How do I turn the estimate into a proposal?

Outscoped turns the same numbers into a proposal with up to 3 price options. Your client opens a secure link on any device, picks a package and signs online. See how the cleaning proposal software and the janitorial bidding software work, or start free.