Janitorial Bidding Calculator: How to Price a Commercial 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.

Commercial cleaning pricing models compared

Cleaning companies price commercial work in three common ways. Each has a place, and a good janitorial bid usually checks one against another.

• Price per square foot. Quick to quote and easy for a client to compare. The risk is that one rate ignores what is in the building, so a restroom-heavy space and an open warehouse get the same number.
• Hourly rates. You estimate the hours and bill a rate per labor hour. It tracks the real work, but some clients find an open-ended hourly figure hard to budget.
• A flat monthly price built from hours. This is how the calculator above works. You estimate labor hours from square footage and production rates, add your true cost per hour and your margin, and quote one monthly price per package. The client gets a fixed number, and you know the hours behind it.

Once you know the monthly price, divide it by the cleanable square footage to see your rate per square foot. That gives you a quick check against the going rates in your area.

Pricing add-on services and multiple buildings

Not every task belongs in the base price. Carpet cleaning, window cleaning, deep cleaning and floor care such as strip and wax are often quoted as add-on services. In Outscoped they appear as optional add-ons on the proposal, and the client ticks the ones they want before signing.

For a contract with multiple buildings, price each building from its own areas and frequencies, then add them up. Buildings rarely clean at the same speed, so one blended estimate can hide a loss. If you offer a discount on a multi-location contract, take it out of your margin, not your labor hours, so the crew still has the time to do the work.

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.

Does the calculator work for residential cleaning?

It is built for commercial cleaning: offices, medical offices, schools, churches, warehouses, retail, gyms and restaurants, plus Airbnb and short-term rental turnovers. House cleaning is usually priced per visit or per room, so a commercial cleaning calculator is not the best fit for it.

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.