How to Bid on Commercial Cleaning Jobs: A Step-by-Step Formula

To bid on commercial cleaning jobs, walk the building, estimate the labor hours for each visit, multiply by your real hourly labor cost, then add supplies, overhead and profit. A bid built this way stays profitable. A bid copied from an average price per square foot often does not.

The commercial cleaning bid formula

The formula is short enough to do on a phone calculator:

Monthly price = (hours per visit × visits per month × loaded labor cost) + supplies + overhead + profit

• Hours per visit = cleanable square feet ÷ production rate (square feet cleaned per hour).
• Visits per month = visits per week × 52 ÷ 12. Three visits a week is 13 a month, and five is about 21.7.
• Loaded labor cost = hourly wage plus payroll taxes, workers' compensation and paid time. This is often 25% to 35% above the wage.

Price your own hours the same way, even when you do the cleaning yourself. If the bid only works because your time is free, it stops working the day you hire.

Step 1: Walk the building and measure

Never bid without a walkthrough. Twenty minutes on site tells you what a floor plan cannot. Record:

• Cleanable square feet, split by floor type: carpet, hard floor, restroom tile.
• Restroom count and fixture count (toilets, urinals, sinks).
• Number of desks, trash cans and kitchen or break areas.
• Days per week and the hours the building is empty.
• Who supplies paper, soap and liners. This changes your supply cost a lot.
• What the current cleaner misses, and what the buyer pays now if they will tell you.

Take photos with permission. You will want them when you write the scope.

Step 2: Write the scope of work

The scope is a list of tasks and how often each is done. It protects your price. Without it, "clean the office" grows to include windows, carpets and the fridge. Group tasks by frequency: every visit, weekly, monthly, and extras quoted separately such as carpet extraction or floor stripping and waxing.

Step 3: Estimate labor hours with production rates

A production rate is how many square feet one person cleans in an hour for a given task. ISSA's guide to calculating cleaning times gives the basic math: divide the square footage by the production rate per hour to get the time. ISSA also publishes a reference book of task times, the Official ISSA Cleaning Times.

Rates vary widely by building. A trade columnist at Cleaning & Maintenance Management wrote that large Class A and B office buildings need 4,500 to 6,000 square feet per hour per worker to be competitive, and also that no single average fits every situation. Small offices with many desks, restrooms and a kitchen are slower.

If you have no data yet, start a small general office at 2,000 to 3,000 square feet per hour for all tasks combined. Then time your first few cleans and replace the estimate with your real number. Your own timed rate is worth more than any published table.

Restrooms and kitchens take the most time per square foot. For those, count fixtures and allow about three minutes each, a method ISSA also describes.

Step 4: Add labor cost, supplies and overhead

• Labor. Multiply monthly hours by your loaded labor cost. An $18 wage commonly costs the company $23 to $28 an hour once taxes and insurance are included.
• Supplies. Chemicals, cloths, mop heads and equipment wear usually run a few percent of labor. Add paper, soap and liners at cost plus a markup if you supply them.
• Overhead. Insurance, fuel, phone, software, marketing and your own management time. Add up a month of these costs and divide by your monthly direct costs to get a percentage. New companies often land between 15% and 25%.

Step 5: Add profit and check against the market

Profit is added after every cost is covered. To earn a 20% margin, divide total cost by 0.80. Multiplying cost by 1.20 gives a smaller margin, about 16.7%.

Then check the result two ways. First, divide the monthly price by monthly hours. Housecall Pro's 2026 guide puts commercial cleaning at roughly $20 to $80 per hour, so a figure far outside that range needs a second look. Second, compare with local competitors if the buyer shares what they pay now.

Be careful with price-per-square-foot averages. The same guide lists standard recurring office cleaning at $0.10 to $0.20 per square foot, while the trade column above cites 9 to 14 cents per square foot per month for very large buildings. Published figures mix per-visit and per-month numbers, which is why labor hours should set your price.

Worked example: 6,000 sq ft office, three visits a week

A single-tenant office has 6,000 cleanable square feet, two restrooms and a break room. The client wants service three nights a week and supplies their own paper products.

Round to $1,150 a month. That is about $88 per visit and $36.86 per labor hour, inside the hourly range above. Profit is about $230 a month. If the client asks for five nights instead, rerun the same math with 21.7 visits.

How bids change by job type

For the requirements behind medical and construction work, see the sections in how to get commercial cleaning contracts.

What to include in the cleaning proposal

A winning proposal for a small account is one or two pages, sent within 24 hours of the walkthrough. Include:

1. The problem the buyer told you about, in their words, in the first line.
2. The scope of work by frequency.
3. Service days and hours.
4. The monthly price and what is extra.
5. Who supplies consumables.
6. Payment terms, such as net 15 from invoice.
7. Your insurance certificate.
8. Start date, trial period and a 30-day cancellation clause.

Offer one option above your base price, such as an extra day or quarterly floor care. Some buyers pick it, and it makes the base price look reasonable.

The proposal is also where buyers judge whether you are a real company. They will look at your email address, your website and your reviews before they sign. Fairhaven Design sets up websites and quote-request follow-up for cleaning companies, which helps when the bid itself is strong and the buyer is checking who sent it.

Follow up after you send the bid

Call two days after sending the bid and ask one question: "Did the scope match what you need?" It invites a correction instead of a yes or no. If you lose, ask what the winning price was and when the contract renews, then put that date in your calendar. The phone wording is in the cold calling scripts.

Common bidding mistakes

• Using wage instead of loaded labor cost. This alone can erase the profit.
• Forgetting drive time and setup. Small accounts far apart cost more than they look.
• Matching the lowest price. The cheapest competitor may be losing money or cutting hours. Win on scope and reliability.
• No price increase clause. Add a line allowing an annual adjustment with 30 days' notice.
• Bidding supplies as free. Paper and liners for a busy office add up quickly.