How to Bid Commercial Cleaning Jobs (vs Residential)

A different game with the same engine

Sooner or later a residential cleaner gets asked to bid an office, a clinic, a small retail space — and the instinct is to price it like a big house. Don't. Commercial is a different game: it's a recurring monthly contract, not a per-visit sale; it's won on paper against other written bids, not on a phone call; and it's priced from measured square footage and production rates, not beds and baths.

But here's the encouraging part — the engine underneath is the one you already run: estimate the hours, load the labor, add overhead, protect the margin. Commercial just demands that every step be calculated instead of felt, because a bad estimate doesn't cost you one visit. It costs you the same loss every month for the length of the contract.

The numbers that define a commercial bid

Three benchmarks anchor every janitorial bid:

• Labor is 50–80% of the bid. Cleaning contracts are labor contracts; supplies and equipment are small next to the hours. If your labor lands outside that band, re-check the hours before anything else.
• Net margin is 10–20% — thinner than residential's 15–28%, but steadier: a contract pays every month without re-selling anyone.
• Gross margin runs 35–50% before overhead — the cushion that pays for supervision, insurance and admin on accounts this size.

The discipline follows from the math: with a 10–20% net, a bid that's 15% low doesn't shrink your profit — it can erase it entirely. Residential's fatter margins forgive rough estimating. Commercial doesn't, which is why production-rate math isn't optional here.

The bid math, step by step

The sequence for any commercial space:

1. Measure the cleanable square footage. Not the lease number — the space you'll actually clean, minus areas out of scope.

2. Apply a production rate to get hours per visit. Office space cleans much faster than homes — wide-open areas, repetitive tasks — but restrooms, kitchens and floor care drag the average down. Your walkthrough notes set the rate.

3. Multiply by frequency for monthly hours. Five nights a week turns small per-visit differences into big monthly numbers — this is where estimate errors compound.

4. Load the labor. Monthly hours × wage × the 1.30 burden. Check it lands at 50–80% of your intended bid.

5. Add overhead and supplies, then set the margin. Divide total cost by (1 − target), keeping the target inside the realistic 10–20% net band.

Same skeleton as a residential quote — with a contract's worth of consequences riding on step 2.

The walkthrough checklist

Commercial walkthroughs are non-negotiable — nobody bids a contract sight-unseen. Walk the space with this list:

• Measure cleanable square footage by area type — office, restroom, kitchen, lobby, warehouse.
• Count restrooms and fixtures — the slowest, most scrutinized square footage in the building.
• Note floor types — carpet, VCT, tile, polished concrete — each with its own pace and periodic work.
• Get frequency by area — daily trash and restrooms, weekly detail, monthly floor care.
• Confirm access — after-hours entry, alarm codes, security procedures, parking.
• Ask about the current provider — what do they miss? That answer is usually the reason the contract is out for bid, and the thing your proposal should promise to fix.

Photograph problem areas as you go. The walkthrough sells the bid as much as it prices it.

Same math, whichever door you knock on

An honest note: BidCalc is built residential-first — beds, baths, home square footage, house-cleaning add-ons. It's not a janitorial contract platform. But the cost engine at its core is exactly the math this post walks through: hours × loaded labor at the 1.30 burden, plus overhead, divided by (1 − target margin). That engine is how you protect a 25% residential margin, and it's the same engine that protects a 15% commercial one — commercial just runs it on measured square footage and monthly hours.

If residential is your base and commercial is the ambition, start by making every house bid margin-protected. It's free to start — and the pricing discipline you build there is the exact skill a commercial contract will demand of you.