Office Cleaning Bid Calculator
Pricing from square footage, frequency, and scope.
About this calculator
This calculator builds a bid from the ground up rather than working backward from a market rate: it starts with labor hours (square footage divided by production rate), loads the hourly wage with your labor burden percentage to get a true cost rate, then adds fixed per-visit supply cost (a built-in $0.005/sq ft) and equipment cost ($0.002/sq ft), plus overhead calculated as a flat 15% of the labor cost per visit — that overhead multiplier is hard-coded in the engine and covers insurance, admin, and vehicle costs, not something you can adjust directly. Multiplying the resulting per-visit cost by visits per month gives total monthly operating cost, and the bid price is then derived by dividing that cost by (1 − profit margin), which correctly grosses up cost to hit a target margin on revenue rather than a markup on cost — a 15% margin means profit is 15% of the bid price, not 15% added on top of cost, a distinction that matters a lot at higher margins. The annual contract value is just twelve times the monthly bid.
Because supply, equipment, and overhead percentages are fixed assumptions baked into the formula rather than inputs, this model works best as a starting point for markets resembling the built-in benchmarks (general office cleaning, $0.05-$0.20/sq ft per visit, 3,000-5,000 sq ft/hr production); it will misprice specialty spaces like medical offices or industrial floors where actual supply and overhead ratios diverge from these defaults. Always sanity-check the resulting price-per-sq-ft against your local market rate before submitting a bid.
Inputs
Results
Monthly bid price
$3,255.13
Annual contract value
$39,061.51
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the office area in square feet and the number of cleaning visits per month.
- Set the production rate (sq ft/hr) for the type of space -- general office is 3,000-5,000.
- Enter the cleaner hourly wage and labor burden percentage (payroll taxes and workers comp).
- Set your target profit margin percentage.
- Use the monthly bid price and annual contract value as your client proposal numbers.
How the result changes with Office area (sq ft)
| Office area (sq ft) | Monthly bid price | Annual contract value |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | $1,627.56 | $19,530.76 |
| 7,500 | $2,441.34 | $29,296.13 |
| 15,000 | $4,882.69 | $58,592.27 |
| 25,000 | $8,137.82 | $97,653.78 |
What each input means
- Office area (sq ft)
- Total cleanable square footage of the office space.
- Cleaning visits per month
- Frequency: 5x/week ≈ 20/mo, 3x/week ≈ 12/mo, 1x/week ≈ 4/mo.
- Production rate (sq ft/hr)
- Cleaning speed. General office: 3,000-5,000 sq ft/hr. Medical: 1,500-2,500.
- Cleaner hourly wage ($)
- Base hourly wage for cleaning staff.
- Labor burden (%)
- Payroll taxes, workers' comp, benefits on top of base wage.
- Target profit margin (%)
- Desired net profit margin on the contract.
What each result means
- Monthly bid price
- Recommended monthly contract price to achieve target margin.
- Annual contract value
- 12-month contract total.
- Price per visit
- Revenue earned per cleaning visit.
- Price per sq ft per visit
- Per-visit rate on a square-foot basis for benchmarking.
- Monthly cost (before profit)
- Total monthly operating cost (labor, supplies, overhead).
- Monthly profit
- Expected monthly profit at the bid price.
- Hours per visit
- Estimated labor hours per cleaning visit.
- Labor cost per visit
- Loaded labor cost (wage + burden) per visit.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersOffice area (sq ft) = 10000, Cleaning visits per month = 20, Production rate (sq ft/hr) = 3500, Cleaner hourly wage ($) = 16 = 6 input(s) provided
- Calculate Monthly bid priceMonthly bid price = monthlyCost / (1 - profitMarginPct / 100)3255.13 = $3,255.13
- Calculate Annual contract valueAnnual contract value = monthlyBidPrice * 1239061.51 = $39,061.51
- Calculate Price per visitPrice per visit = monthlyBidPrice / visitsPerMonth162.76 = $162.76
- Calculate Price per sq ft per visit0.0163 = $0.016
Engine last updated . Checked against 4 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does profit margin divide the cost instead of just being added on top?
The bid price is calculated as monthlyBidPrice = monthlyCost / (1 - profitMarginPct / 100), which grosses cost up so that profit ends up being the stated percentage of the final bid price (revenue), not a markup on cost. That distinction matters: a 15% margin on revenue requires a bigger price increase than a 15% markup on cost, and the gap between the two grows sharply as the margin percentage rises.
What does the fixed overhead calculation cover, and can I adjust it?
Overhead is calculated as a flat 15% of labor cost per visit (overheadPerVisit = laborPerVisit * 0.15), intended to represent insurance, administrative costs, and vehicle expenses. That 15% multiplier is hard-coded in the engine rather than exposed as an input, so it scales automatically with your labor cost but can't be tuned independently — if your actual overhead ratio differs significantly, you'll need to adjust the final bid price manually after reviewing the output.
How is the labor cost per visit actually calculated?
Labor hours per visit come from dividing square footage by your production rate (sq ft/hr), then that time is multiplied by a loaded hourly rate — your entered wage increased by the labor burden percentage (loadedRate = hourlyWage * (1 + burdenPct / 100)) — to account for payroll taxes, workers' comp, and benefits on top of the base wage.
What do the supply and equipment costs include, and are they adjustable?
Supply cost is fixed at $0.005/sq ft per visit and equipment wear at $0.002/sq ft per visit, both hard-coded assumptions rather than inputs. They're calibrated to general office cleaning benchmarks, so specialty spaces like medical offices or industrial floors — where actual supply or equipment costs diverge from these defaults — will need the resulting bid adjusted upward or downward to stay accurate.
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