How To Bid An Office Cleaning Contract

Residential quoting is a form. Commercial bidding is a conversation, a walkthrough, and a document. The number is the last thing you produce, not the first.

The walkthrough

Never bid without seeing the space. What you are recording:

• Total square footage and how much is actually cleanable versus storage
• Floor types and their proportions, because hard floor and carpet clean at different speeds
• Restroom count and fixture count
• Trash volume and where the dumpster is
• Access: keys, codes, alarm, after-hours entry
• Frequency they want, and what they currently pay if they will say

The math

Estimate production rate in square feet per hour for the mix of surfaces, divide the square footage to get hours per visit, multiply by visits per month, multiply by your loaded hourly cost, then add margin. Sanity check the result against a per-square-foot figure so you catch errors of scale.

The questions that win the bid

Ask what has gone wrong with their previous cleaner. You will usually hear the same three answers: inconsistency, people not showing, and nobody answering the phone. Whatever they say, your proposal should address that specific thing in its first paragraph.

The proposal

One page of scope, a task frequency table showing daily, weekly and monthly items, the price, the term, and what is explicitly excluded. Exclusions prevent more disputes than inclusions do.

Before you sign

Model the cash flow. Commercial means invoicing monthly and being paid in 15 to 45 days while your cleaners expect payment weekly. See residential vs commercial for what that gap actually costs.

Production rates, roughly

Cleaning speed varies by surface and task. A rough working approach is to estimate cleanable square feet per hour for the space type, apply it, then sanity check against the fixture count for restrooms, which are the slowest area per square foot by a wide margin.

The most reliable calibration is not a published table. It is asking the professionals you already work with how long a space of that size and type takes them, and averaging the answers.

The specification table

Your proposal should include a table of tasks against frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. Trash and restrooms daily. Vacuuming daily or several times weekly. Dusting weekly. Interior glass, vents and detailed work monthly or quarterly.

That table is what you will be measured against, so put nothing in the daily column that you cannot deliver every single visit.

What to include beyond price

• Proof of insurance, with limits stated
• How access and keys are handled, and what happens when someone leaves
• Who their point of contact is, by name, with a phone number
• What happens if a scheduled visit is missed
• How they raise an issue and what your response time is
• Term, notice period and price review terms

The follow-up

Most commercial bids are lost to silence rather than to price. Send the proposal, follow up in three business days, again in ten, then quarterly thereafter. Facilities decisions get deferred constantly and the vendor who is still politely present when the current cleaner fails is the one who wins.

The first ninety days

New commercial accounts churn early or stay for years. Over-service the first month deliberately, check in personally at week two and week six, and fix any complaint the same week. The relationship is decided in that window and almost never revisited afterwards.

Common questions

Should I bid without seeing the space?

Never. The walkthrough is where you learn the floor mix, fixture count, trash volume and access constraints that determine your hours.

How do I win without being cheapest?

Ask what went wrong with their last cleaner and address that specific failure in the first paragraph of your proposal. Buyers who choose on price alone will replace you on price alone.

What payment terms should I expect?

Monthly invoicing on net 15 to 45. Model that gap before signing, because your cleaners still expect weekly payment.