Bidding per square foot

[tcs]

Hello, my business is kinda new, I've been in business for 16 months. My main account is a ten story commercial building (multi tenant) and we clean about 60,000 sf per night (five nights per week). I took over this contract (it was my first) at the same rate that the previous cleaners were doing it, which is 9.6 cents per sf, which includes providing toilet paper and paper towels in the bathroom and all cleaning supplies. I am very happy with the profit on this. I know that the company I work for pays other cleaning companies 8 cents per s.f. with no paper supplies included. The sf method is what I'm comfortable with, and I'm just wondering if anyone out there has dealt with large buildings before in terms of sf quoting and how this compares. I want to quote a 40,000 sf building to a property management company and all the property management companies I've dealt with (and worked for) have gone by the square foot. It also makes it simple and straightforward when tenants move in or out - no haggling on price changes. Does anyone know if this is really low compared to what others out there are charging?

[tcs]

Sorry, to clarify, that rate if for five nights a week and is per month.

[ECBS Clean Team]

We do not bid per sq ft, but...

I worked your numbers with what our production rate would most likely be and you seemed very close to what we would have bid the same building.

[jackgsd]

I have a question. I own a residential cleaning service and we are doing very well. We have a few commercial accounts that we clean in the mornings but I have a couple of employees that clean at night and want me to try and drum up some more night work so... I think this is a good opportunity for me to get a few commercial accounts.

I am just not sure how to bid them. I hear people say $x amount per square foot. Is this assuming that you are cleaning the place 5 nights per week and is the rate per month?

I read somewhere that someone said they would never do a job for less then .18$ per sf. Well, this is where I am confused.

Say I have a office that is 10,000 sf. If you were to do 10,000 x .18$, that comes to $1800. There is no way that I would charge $1800 per night.

I was also told that the average person can clean 2000 sf per hour and do a good job. Is this accurate? If it is, using the above example, it would take about 5 hours per night to clean that 10,000 sf office building.

So the $1800. If that were nightly, that would mean I was charging $360 per hour. If it were weekly, that would mean I am charging $72 per hour. Neither seems right to me.

So. Can someone answer 3 questions for me.

1. What can an average person clean in an hour? 2000 sf, 5000 sf? Assuming it's an office building. Maybe a bathroom or something (this of course is general cleaning - dusting, trash, vacuum, mop floors) - stripping/waxing floors or carpet cleaning would be separate - and Ill probably sub contract that out for a while!

2. How does the "per sf bid" work? When people are throwing numbers like .09$ or .18$ per sf around, is that per cleaning, per month or what?

3. Do you charge the same per cleaning if they use you 2 days per week, 3 days per week or 5 days per week or do you charge less per hour / per cleaning because they are using you more often? With residential, it's less expensive per cleaning if you use us weekly instead of bi-weekly or monthly, etc...

Thank you!
Jack

[logan5127]

I agree with you Jack. It is to confusing and inconsistent to bid by the square foot. Example : We clean some offices that have 50 individual restrooms. 50 individual offices with a door to each one. Now if they only had two large restrooms it would be a lot faster to clean. No two office cleaning jobs are the same. No two have the same amount of trash. No two have the identical amount of traffic. No two are just alike. So how can anyone have a sq ft price that is exactly right for each different job site? The only way that I can figure a price is by the hour price per man hour. This also takes time and experience to be able to estimate. I go into a new place and figure how many minutes it will take for each part of the job.
Example : First room 15 minutes, lobby 20 minutes, large restroom 15 minutes, small office 10 minutes, vacuuming 1 hour, sweep and mop 1 hour , time to take trash out 10 minutes, clean doors 8 minutes and so on. You get what I mean. I then add all those minutes up and add a few extra ones just to make sure. I then figure a per hour price. If it is only 1 hour a week I charge more to make it worth my time , maybe $55. If it is a 20 hour a week job I charge around $22 per hour. If it is a 40 hour a week job then I drop down to around $16 per hour. I do not worry about supplies because I always have my clients to furnish supplies.
It works out much better for me and the price seems lower to them with out the extra cost added for the supplies. If they insisted on me buying supplies I would give them my hourly price and add on a line for cost plus. Which means they will pay me my hourly price quoted plus all cost for the supplies, whatever they come to.
In the end it is what percentage is your profit for the hours you worked and is it enough hours of profit to make the job worth what you are charging.
I know there are a lot of people charging by the square foot. I guess it works for them. I just have never saw how it could always be a consistent way to bid jobs. As always this is just my opinion and what has worked for me.

[Grizzly]

I've harped on this before but here goes again. The square foot price is a CONVENIENT WAY TO COMPARE PRICES. You MUST first workload the building, (basically this means what Dan said) calculate your expenses in wages , chemicals etc. and add in your profit. Most commercial buildings in my experience want a sq. ft. price for CLEANABLE office space as they don't want to pay for it to be cleaned if there are no tennants occupying those offices. They will then want a fixed common area cost to cover the main areas of the building ie/ hallways, public washrooms, foyers etc.
You must price out the building and allow yourself to make a profit, you can go with standard production rates say from the ISSA that I have found to be a bit high. (For example they quote 3 minutes per bathroom fixture) or use your own production rates. Once you have workloaded the building and have your price per month multiply this by 12 and get your yearly price. If you divide this by the sq. footage you get the annual sq. footage cost. If you want the monthly sq. footage cost divide the annual price by 12 and divide by the sq footage and this gives you the monthly sq. footage cost.
Now, I find that if you insist on using sq footage costing, you are killing yourself on the smaller jobs. Your sq foot rate will put you below what should be a minimum price once you get to smaller buildings. IE. If you are doing a 60,0000 sq ft building at 9.6cents a sq ft. you are making 5760 per month. If you are doing a 10,000 sq ft building at 9.6 cents per sq. ft. you are making 960.00 per month. Now assuming they are both 5 nights per week with the same specs, the 10,000 sq ft. building is 48.00 per night. Mjight as well replace it with a 3000 sq. ft home or a higher priced smaller commercial.
Bottom line , cost out your jobs figuring out your expenses, (including employer expenses) materials add in your profit and then if they insist on a sq ft. costing for comparison break it back to a sq. ft cost always keeping in mind that you need to make a profit. Too many new folks figure the sq ft cost on one job that works means they'll make a profit using that figure on all jobs. IT DOESN'T

Bill

[Kevin]

Good stuff! Another good link on bidding.
usacleaning.proboards30.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Commercial&thread=1149428649