How to bid a job

[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

[Linda]

Hi Jack,

I can clean anywhere from 2000 - 2500 psf in an hour, but I cant say that I rush when I am working either. Some ppl say I need to slow down, but I feel I need to speed up, if that makes any sense lol. When I bid, I use 3000 psf per hour, because you never know what you are getting into bidding this way.
Bidding by the sf has me confused in the same way you are right now. There is a job I want to bid on that is almost 30,000 sq.ft. If I do this at say .25 then that would be outrageous. Im totally lost on this. Maybe someone can explain this method to both of us
As far as so many days per week. I think alot of ppl bid for example...

5 days - $40.00 per day or $20.00 pmh
3 days - $50.00 per day or $25.00 pmh
1 day - $60.00 per day or $30.00 pmh

Maybe someone can help us out here. I have seen this posted on here somewhere, but I am not able to find it. Sorry I could not be more help.

Linda

[amyluck1]

Need help on a building that I toured today. It is a private school. What I saw is as follows:

Trash, dusting, sweep, mop + vacuum every night, bathrooms, take chairs down from desks after mopping and wipe down desks.

Basement level - Stairway
Hallway
6 classrooms
Library
Health suite, small
2 Bathrooms

First Floor - Entry way
Parent lounge
School office
Principal office
Stage
Gym - whole floor every night
Stairway

Second Floor - Stairway
6 Classrooms
4 Bathrooms
Resource room
Teacher's lounge

They provide paper products and liners. I provide solutions and equipment.
5 nights per week.

It totals 20757 square feet, and is very high traffic, kindergarten through grade 6. I tried some calculations with labor, costs, profit, etc. It just seems like no one would pay that. If you charge by the square foot, then how often does that charge apply? If it's say 0.20 per square foot at 20757 sq feet, that's 4151.40. Is that weekly, monthly or what?

Also what are fair wages for employees? Up until now, I have been doing these jobs, just me and my husband. But this one I think will need at least 4 people on site each night. I think. Someone please tell me what you think of all of this. I have a couple of days to get this porposal together. Thank you so much.

[logan5127]

What calculations did you use? If you figured in a fair profit than it doesn't matter if they think it is to high. If they think you are non profit than thats their problem. If your willing to be a not for profit company than thats a problem you need to deal with. You can figure sq foot any way you want to. By the Day, By the Week, By the Month as long as it works out for you to make a profit. Do you think the sq foot pricing makes any difference when it comes to how long it takes to do the job, or how much chemical and supplies it takes ?

As for labor, usually in my area , anything above minimum wage will get you employees. I try to stay above the average. I start at $10 per hour. If they are good employees they go up from there. But there are a lot of cleaning employees around my area that work for schools and other cleaning services for around $6 hr. The price you pay your employees will help to determine what you need to charge to make a profit. Ask them what they paid previous employees or cleaning service. Ask if they would like you to keep any of them on as your employees.

[Grizzly]

I won't go into details about pricing as since I'm from Ontario, the figures wouldn't mean anything. As Dan says however, when you look at your production rates you had better almost double them at least for this type of work. The usual production rates have no bearing when it comes to doing classrooms , especially private schools. The moving of desks, teachers' paraphenalia and stuff from corners VERY VERY TIME CONSUMING and that is your biggest expense. FORGET ABOUT HOW MUCH A SQUARE FOOT, COST OUT THE JOB, FIGURE YOUR EXPENSES ADD IN PROFIT AND QUOTE THEM A PRICE. If everyone quotes by the square foot in your area, work it back to the per sq. ft. price after you have figured out your quote. For example approx. 20,000 sq. ft. at ..20 a sq. ft. =$4000.00 . Now, if you can get that for a night great, but I doubt it, this would be in my experience close (and I stress only close) to a monthly amount probably a little low. If you were using this as an annual figure you are working for let's see. 4000.divided by 52 =76.92 a week , I don't think so. Get this sq. ft. quoting out of your head and concentrate on making money . Use common sense when pricing and get experience. Sometimes if you aren't ready to take on a large contract it is better to walk away and offer your thanks.

Bill

[Linda]

Bill,

Thank you for putting those numbers in there. I did the same thing while I was on the phone with this man, yes while I was on the phone with him. He was determined to get a quote from me. I tried for probably 10 minutes to explain to him that without seeing the site itself I was not able to give him a price. He said the lady that cleans for him now charges .22 sf. I did not understand how she was doing that with the figures I came up with. I didnt tell him that though. I did tell him that my price was just a number and until he let me do a walk thru it was not firm. He is suppose to call me back to schedule a walk thru. I doubt it will happen.