Cleaning & janitorial
Cleaning Square Foot Pricing Calculator
Work out a price per square foot from production rate and labour cost, and check what it implies.
Result
Overhead and margin are taken as shares of the selling price, which is why the cost is divided rather than multiplied. Adding 15% to cost does not produce a 15% margin. 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
- Production rate, which is what converts area into hours.
- Fully burdened labour cost per hour.
- Frequency, since price per square foot means nothing without it.
Where this one goes wrong
Comparing square foot rates between buildings without matching the specification and frequency. A rate that looks competitive on a daily clean of open plan is unprofitable on a three times weekly clean of a cellular office.
Questions
About this calculator
Is price per square foot a good way to quote?
It is a useful check rather than a method. The price has to come from hours and cost; the square foot figure is what you compare afterwards to see whether it is in a sensible range.
Why do square foot rates vary so much?
Because specification, frequency and space type all change the hours required. Two buildings of identical size can legitimately differ by a wide margin.
What is a competitive rate?
There is no universal answer because it depends entirely on specification. Anyone quoting a rate without a specification is quoting for work nobody has defined.
The formula
price = direct cost / (1 - overhead% - margin%)
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How to use this calculator
- Labour cost ($). Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $12.
- Other direct costs ($). Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%). Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 15%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to price to quote, 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 cost | $96 |
| Materials cost | $12 |
| Other direct costs | $0 |
| Overhead rate | 22% |
| Target net margin | 15% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Price to quote main result | $171.43 |
| Direct cost | $108 |
| Overhead recovered | $37.71 |
| Net profit | $25.71 |
| Gross margin | 37.0% |
| Markup on direct cost | 58.7% |
Quote $171.43 to cover $108 of direct cost, recover $37.71 of overhead and leave $25.71 of net profit. That is a 58.7% markup on cost.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only labour cost, this is what happens to price to quote. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Labour cost ($) | Price to quote |
|---|---|
| $48 | $95.24 |
| $72 | $133.33 |
| $96 example above | $171.43 |
| $144 | $247.62 |
| $192 | $323.81 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Labour cost ($)
- Burdened: wages plus tax, insurance and the vehicle, not the hourly wage.
- Materials cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $12.
- Other direct costs ($)
- Permits, disposal, equipment hire, subcontractors.
- Overhead rate (%)
- Overhead as a share of revenue. Work it out from last year's accounts.
- Target net margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 15%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Price to quote | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Direct cost | A money figure. |
| Overhead recovered | A money figure. |
| Net profit | A money figure. |
| Gross margin | A percentage. |
| Markup on direct cost | A percentage. |
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.