Cleaning & janitorial
Profit Calculator
See what a clean returns after burdened labour, travel and product.
Result
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
- Actual duration against quoted duration.
- Travel attributable to the job.
- Whether the job was a first clean at recurring prices.
Where this one goes wrong
Averaging profit across jobs. Cleaning profitability varies hugely by property condition and travel distance, and the average conceals that some jobs are subsidising others.
Questions
About this calculator
Which cleaning jobs lose money?
Usually first cleans priced at recurring rates and outlying properties where travel exceeds the margin. Both are identifiable in advance.
How should I handle a job that always overruns?
Reprice it or renegotiate the scope. A job that consistently takes longer than quoted was mispriced, and absorbing it indefinitely is a decision rather than an accident.
Does route density affect job profit?
Substantially, because travel is unbillable. The same clean is materially more profitable on a dense round than on a scattered one.
The formula
gross profit = revenue - direct costs
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How to use this calculator
- Revenue ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $51,000.
- Direct labour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,200.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit, 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 |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $51,000 |
| Direct labour | $16,000 |
| Materials and equipment | $11,000 |
| Other direct costs | $2,200 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit main result | $21,800 |
| Gross margin | 42.7% |
| Total direct cost | $29,200 |
| Profit per working day | $990.91 |
That is $21,800 at a 42.7% margin, about $990.91 for every working day. Overhead still has to come out of it.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only revenue, this is what happens to gross profit. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Revenue ($) | Gross profit |
|---|---|
| $25,500 | -$3,700 |
| $38,250 | $9,050 |
| $51,000 example above | $21,800 |
| $76,500 | $47,300 |
| $102,000 | $72,800 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Revenue ($)
- A money amount, starting at $51,000.
- Direct labour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $16,000.
- Materials and equipment ($)
- A money amount, starting at $11,000.
- Other direct costs ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,200.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Total direct cost | A money figure. |
| Profit per working day | 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.