The most expensive bid a small cleaning company sends is the one that wins. Picture a 3,000-square-foot office priced at a number someone posted in a Facebook group, signed for a year, and then taking your cleaner an extra 40 minutes every weeknight. That's about 14 unpaid hours a month, and you agreed to it in writing.
A cleaning bid calculator fixes this by making you price the job from the inside out. You figure the hours first, put a real cost on each hour, add supplies and overhead, then set the margin you need. The market rate is a check at the end, not the starting point. This post walks through that formula, runs a full sample bid with every number shown, and lists what has to be in the written bid you hand the client.
Here's the whole cleaning bid calculator on one line:
Bid price = (labor + supplies + travel + overhead) ÷ (1 − target margin)
Everything else in this post is about filling in those boxes honestly. Three mistakes in particular lead to underbids: guessing the hours, using the bare wage as the labor cost, or confusing margin with markup. We'll hit all three.
The formula works the same for a weekly office contract and a one-time house deep clean. Commercial bids are often priced per month, residential per visit, but the math underneath doesn't change.
Step 1: Estimate labor hours from tasks, not square footage
Square footage alone tells you very little. A 3,000-square-foot law office with carpet and two restrooms is a different job from a 3,000-square-foot gym with rubber floors and a locker room.
ISSA, the cleaning industry's trade association, recommends a process it calls workloading: measure the cleanable space by floor type, list every task with its frequency, then assign a production rate to each task. In ISSA's own example, vacuuming 15,000 square feet of carpet at 10,000 square feet per hour takes 1.5 hours per visit.
Where production rates come from
You have two options:
- Published rates. ISSA sells a book of benchmark cleaning times. Its article on how to calculate cleaning times shows a few: about 11.2 minutes to flat-mop 1,000 square feet, and about 3 minutes per fixture for a full restroom clean.
- Your own stopwatch. Time your team on three or four real jobs. This beats any book, because it reflects your equipment and your people.
ISSA itself says its times are benchmarks for bidding, not time-motion studies. A new hire on night one won't hit them.
Tip: Walk every commercial job before you bid it. Count restroom fixtures, note floor types, check where the dumpster is, and ask what time the last person leaves. Each of those changes your hours.
Add a real-world factor
Book rates assume someone who knows the building. Add a cushion for setup, walking between rooms, refilling buckets and locking up. We use 25% in the example below. That's our own assumption, not an industry figure, so adjust it once you've timed a few weeks on the job.
Step 2: Turn wages into a loaded labor rate
If you pay a cleaner $18 an hour, that hour costs you more than $18. Employers pay Social Security and Medicare, federal and state unemployment, and workers' compensation on top of wages.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks this in its Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey. In June 2026, private-industry service workers averaged $18.26 an hour in wages plus $2.08 in legally required benefits, which works out to about 11% on top of pay. Total benefits for that group, including any paid leave and insurance, came to $5.47 an hour.
Your burden depends on your state's unemployment rate, your workers' comp class code and whatever paid time off you offer. We use 15% in the example below. That's a planning assumption, not a published figure, so ask your accountant or payroll provider for your real number. We cover the insurance side in our breakdown of cleaning business insurance costs.
Loaded labor rate = hourly wage × (1 + burden %)
If you clean solo, pay yourself a wage here too. A bid that only works because the owner cleans for free isn't a profitable bid.
Step 3: Price supplies, travel and overhead
These are the costs that hide.
Supplies. Chemicals, trash liners, microfiber, mop heads, vacuum bags and the slow wear on your equipment. Track a month of receipts and divide by visits. For a small office, a few dollars a visit is common; for a deep clean, more. If the client wants you to stock their toilet paper and soap, price that separately or have them buy it.
Travel. The IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile for July through December 2026. It's meant for tax deductions, but it's a fair stand-in for what driving really costs once you count gas, wear and insurance. A job 4 miles away is 8 miles round trip, or about $6 a visit.
Overhead. Insurance, your phone, software, marketing, bookkeeping and the hours you spend quoting and answering texts. Add up a month and divide it across your billable work. We use 15% of direct costs in the example. That's an assumption; a solo owner working from home may run lower, and a team with an office and a manager will run higher.
Step 4: Set your margin (and don't confuse it with markup)
Margin is the share of the price you keep. Markup is what you add on top of cost. They aren't the same number, and mixing them up quietly costs you money.
| Cost | 20% markup (cost × 1.20) | 20% margin (cost ÷ 0.80) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $600 | $625 | $25 |
| $700 | $840 | $875 | $35 |
| $1,000 | $1,200 | $1,250 | $50 |
With a 20% markup you actually keep about 16.7% of the price. If your plan says 20%, divide by 0.80; don't multiply by 1.20.
What margin should you target? It depends on how steady the work is and how much risk you're carrying. A year-long nightly contract can run thinner than a one-time post-construction clean where surprises are likely. Pick a number, use it on every bid, and review it against your actual books each quarter.
A full sample bid run through the cleaning bid calculator
This is a hypothetical job, built to show the math. Every task time below is either one of ISSA's published example rates or our own labelled estimate.
The job: a 3,000-square-foot office suite, cleaned three nights a week. It has 2,400 square feet of carpet, 600 square feet of tile, two restrooms with six fixtures total, and a small kitchenette.
Labor hours per visit
| Task | How it's figured | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Empty trash, spot dust, spot wipe | ISSA bundled light-duty rate, 3.62 min per 1,000 sq ft × 3 | 10.9 |
| Vacuum carpet | 2,400 sq ft at 10,000 sq ft/hr (ISSA example) | 14.4 |
| Mop tile | 600 sq ft at 5,355 sq ft/hr (ISSA example) | 6.7 |
| Restrooms | 6 fixtures × 3 min (ISSA example) | 18.0 |
| Kitchenette counters, sink, microwave | Our estimate | 10.0 |
| Entry glass and door handles | Our estimate | 8.0 |
| Setup, walking, lock-up | Our estimate | 15.0 |
| Subtotal | 83.0 | |
| Real-world factor (+25%) | Our assumption | 20.8 |
| Total per visit | 103.8 (about 1.75 hours) |
Three visits a week is 13 visits a month (3 × 52 ÷ 12). That's 1.75 × 13 = 22.75 labor hours a month.
Costs and price
| Line | Math | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Labor | 22.75 hrs × ($18 × 1.15 = $20.70) | $470.93 |
| Supplies | $5 per visit × 13 (estimate) | $65.00 |
| Travel | 8 miles × $0.76 × 13 | $79.04 |
| Direct cost | $614.97 | |
| Overhead | 15% of direct cost (assumption) | $92.25 |
| Total cost | $707.22 | |
| Price at 20% margin | $707.22 ÷ 0.80 | $884.03 |
Round it to $885 a month.
Now sanity-check it three ways:
- Per visit: $885 ÷ 13 = about $68.
- Per square foot: $885 ÷ 3,000 = about $0.30 per square foot per month.
- Per labor hour: $885 ÷ 22.75 = about $38.90 billed for every hour worked.
If a competitor is offering the same office for $650, you now know exactly why you can't match it without cutting hours, wages or margin. That's a far better conversation than "we're a bit more expensive."
Watch out: If the client asks for a lower price, change the scope, not the math. Dropping to two nights a week, or moving restroom deep cleans to monthly, lowers the price without cutting your margin.
How to bid a cleaning job for a house
Residential bids use the same formula, just per visit. Here's a hypothetical one-time deep clean: a 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home, with a two-person team.
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Labor | 2 cleaners × 5 hrs (estimate) × $20.70 | $207.00 |
| Supplies | Estimate for a deep clean | $15.00 |
| Travel | 20 miles round trip × $0.76 | $15.20 |
| Overhead | 15% of $237.20 | $35.58 |
| Total cost | $272.78 | |
| Price at 25% margin | $272.78 ÷ 0.75 | $363.71, round to $365 |
The higher margin here reflects a one-time job with more unknowns: you haven't seen how bad the oven is, and there's no repeat visit to make up for a slow first one.
Compare the result with what homes like this go for in your area. Our guide to house cleaning rates has current national ranges and the hourly, flat-rate and per-square-foot models side by side. If your number sits well above the local market, look at your hours first. Five hours for two people may be generous for a home that's cleaned regularly. For quick ballparks on a standard clean, there's also our house cleaning price calculator walkthrough.
What a written cleaning bid must contain
A price on a text message isn't a bid. The written version protects you when the client remembers the scope differently three months in. Use this as a checklist:
- Your business name, contact details and the date of the bid
- Client name and the service address
- Scope of work: every task, listed by area, with how often it's done (nightly, weekly, monthly)
- What's excluded (interior windows, carpet shampooing, stripping and waxing, biohazards)
- Schedule: days, time window, and how holidays are handled
- Price per visit or per month, and what triggers a change (added square footage, extra visits)
- Who supplies consumables like paper goods and hand soap
- Sales tax, if your state taxes cleaning services
- Payment terms: due date, accepted methods, late fee if any
- Contract length and how either side cancels (we suggest 30 days' written notice)
- Proof of insurance and bonding, or a line saying a certificate is available on request
- How long the bid is valid (we use 30 days)
- A signature and date line for the client
Your task list doubles as the client's checklist, so you can build both from the same document. Our cleaning checklist templates are a good starting point for the scope section.
Sales tax deserves its own mention. Rules vary a lot by state. Texas, for example, treats janitorial and maid services as taxable, and its comptroller says tax is due on the charge to clean a home, office or other building when you run a cleaning service. Other states handle cleaning services differently. Check with your state's revenue department before you send your first commercial bid.
Send your first calculated bid this week
You don't need special software to do this. A spreadsheet with the tables above makes a perfectly good cleaning bid calculator. What matters is doing it the same way every time. Here's the short list:
- Time your team on your next three jobs and write the minutes down by task.
- Ask your payroll provider or accountant for your real labor burden percentage.
- Add up last month's supplies and overhead and divide by the number of visits.
- Pick a target margin and write it at the top of your bid sheet.
- Rework one current client's price with the formula and check that you're making what you think.
- Turn the checklist above into your bid template, with your insurance details filled in.
When the client signs, the same scope and price should flow straight into your schedule and your bills, so nothing gets retyped. If you'd rather not juggle a spreadsheet and a calendar, DusterBook keeps quotes, bookings, scheduling and invoicing in one app you can run from your phone, with a free trial to test it on a real bid. Once the work starts, our cleaning invoice template guide shows how to bill the job so it matches the bid line for line, and our post on setting up a cleaning scheduling system covers fitting a three-nights-a-week contract around your residential clients.
FAQ
How do you calculate a bid for a cleaning job?
Estimate the labor hours from the task list, multiply by a loaded hourly rate (wage plus payroll costs), then add supplies, travel and overhead. Divide the total by one minus your target margin. For a 20% margin, divide total cost by 0.80.
How much should I charge per square foot for commercial cleaning?
It depends heavily on how often you clean, the floor types and the restroom count, which is why per-square-foot pricing is better as a check than as a starting point. In our hypothetical three-nights-a-week office example, the calculated bid came to about $0.30 per square foot per month. Build your own number from hours and costs, then compare.
What profit margin should a cleaning bid include?
There's no single right number. Steady, recurring contracts can usually carry a thinner margin than one-time jobs with more unknowns, like move-outs or post-construction cleans. Pick a target, apply it to every bid, and compare it with your actual results each quarter.
Should a cleaning bid include supplies?
Usually yes, for the chemicals and tools you use to do the work. Consumables the client's staff use, such as toilet paper, paper towels and hand soap, are often billed separately or bought by the client. Spell out which way you're doing it in the written bid.
How long should a cleaning bid be valid?
We suggest 30 days. That gives the client time to decide and protects you if wages, mileage or supply prices rise before they sign. Put the expiry date on the bid itself.