Cleaning & janitorial
Job Cost Calculator
Total what one clean actually costs: hours, travel, product and the equipment consumed.
Result
Travel time is counted because it is paid and it occupies the day, whether or not the customer sees it on the invoice. Gross profit is what is left after the cost of doing the job. Overhead comes out of that: the building, the office wages, the vans, insurance, software and advertising. A healthy gross margin still loses money if overhead is larger.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Cleaner hours at burdened cost including travel.
- Product at working dilution.
- Cloths, pads and consumables replaced over time.
Where this one goes wrong
Costing time on site only. Travel between properties is paid and unbillable, and on a round of short domestic visits it can be a third of the day.
Questions
About this calculator
How much does travel cost on a cleaning round?
More than most operators expect on short visits. Two hours of work with forty minutes of driving between each is a very different day from the same work in one building.
Is product cost significant?
Small per clean and worth knowing, because it varies enormously between a maintenance visit and a deep clean. Working it out from dilution is straightforward.
What is usually missing from job costing?
Travel, equipment wear and the time spent on access, setup and packing down at each property.
The formula
cost = (job hours + travel) x crew x wage x (1 + burden%) + materials + overhead per hour
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How to use this calculator
- Labour hours (h). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 3 h.
- People on the job. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 12.
- Hourly wage ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $18.
- Labour burden (%). Payroll tax, insurance, holiday, training. On top of the wage.
- Materials ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $12.
- Travel hours (h). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 0.75 h.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to true job cost, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Labour hours | 3 h |
| People on the job | 12 |
| Hourly wage | $18 |
| Labour burden | 28% |
| Materials | $12 |
| Travel hours | 0.75 h |
| Overhead per working hour | $22 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| True job cost main result | $2,039 |
| Labour including burden | $1,037 |
| Overhead absorbed | $990 |
| Cost per labour hour | $45.31 |
The job costs $2,039: $1,037 of burdened labour, $12 of materials and $990 of overhead. Anything you charge below that loses money.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only hourly wage, this is what happens to true job cost. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Hourly wage ($) | True job cost |
|---|---|
| $9 | $1,520 |
| $13.5 | $1,780 |
| $18 example above | $2,039 |
| $27 | $2,557 |
| $36 | $3,076 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour hours (h)
- Measured in h, starting at 3 h.
- People on the job
- A number, between 0 and 30, starting at 12.
- Hourly wage ($)
- A money amount, starting at $18.
- Labour burden (%)
- Payroll tax, insurance, holiday, training. On top of the wage.
- Materials ($)
- A money amount, starting at $12.
- Travel hours (h)
- Measured in h, starting at 0.75 h.
- Overhead per working hour ($)
- Annual overhead divided by billable hours.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| True job cost | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Labour including burden | A money figure. |
| Overhead absorbed | A money figure. |
| Cost per labour hour | A money figure. |
Time is the variable that bites
Pricing that works out on paper fails when the job takes longer than quoted. First cleans, heavily soiled sites and access problems all run over, so it is worth pricing the first visit separately from the recurring one.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.