Is this a free commercial cleaning bid calculator?

The prototype starts from how you quote today. The workflow is the loop after that: estimate, proposal, actual labor, and a margin you can learn from. A one-off calculator does not tell you which contracts are losing money.

Why does square-foot pricing fail on commercial cleaning?

Profit depends on production rate, room complexity, frequency, loaded labor, supplies, equipment, drive time, overhead, and the margin you need. Two buildings with the same square footage can take very different hours.

Do I have to replace my invoicing or scheduling tools?

No. Keep the software that already sends invoices or runs routes. This is the bidding workflow those tools usually leave in a spreadsheet.

Exact Apps / Cleaning / Bids

Commercial janitorial · recurring accounts

Know what to bid before you sign the contract.

Stop winning cleaning contracts that lose money.

Owner-operated cleaning companies grow by winning buildings. Square-foot pricing hides whether the account will clear a margin after production rate, restrooms, frequency, loaded labor, supplies, and the drive. Exact Apps builds the pricing workflow around that math.

Build My Pricing Workflow See the margin loop

For companies bidding offices, clinics, and other recurring commercial work. Your invoicing system can stay.

Harbor Clinic · 18,400 sq ft5 days / week

From the walkthrough

Exam rooms14
Restrooms6
Production rate3,200 sq ft/hr
Cleaners on site2
Loaded labor$22.40 / hr
Drive time35 min each way

At a 28% gross margin

$8,900

86 labor hours · $6,420 monthly cost

$106,800 annual contract value · about $2,480 monthly profit

22%Bid $8,230

28%Bid $8,900

34%Bid $9,730

Why the price per square foot lies

Two buildings with the same footage are not the same job.

A commercial cleaning pricing calculator that only multiplies square feet will win the complicated building and lose money doing it. The bid has to know how the work is actually produced.

Production rate changes by room

Open office, exam rooms, kitchens, and restrooms do not clean at the same pace. A single rate borrowed from the last job is how margins disappear.

Frequency is labor, not a discount

Five nights a week is not "the monthly price times something." It is hours, travel, and supplies repeated.

The wage is not the labor cost

Payroll burden, supplies, equipment, drive time, and overhead have to be in the number before you pick a gross margin.

The proposal leaves the spreadsheet

Even a careful estimate dies if the scope, the price, and the signature live in three different files.

The walkthrough becomes a bid

Hours first. Price second.

From the building

Square footage and facility type
Offices, restrooms, exam rooms, common areas, kitchens
How often you are there
Special services that are easy to forget in the price

From your operation

Expected production rate and crew size
Hours, wage, and loaded labor rate
Supplies, equipment, and travel
Overhead and the gross margin you are willing to work for

Expected labor hours

So the bid is a staffing plan, not a guess.

Monthly cost and suggested bid

With the margin, a few margin scenarios, annual contract value, and estimated profit in the same view.

A number you can explain

When the prospect asks why you are higher than the other bid, you can point at hours instead of defending a square-foot rate.

More than a calculator

Estimate, proposal, actual labor, then a truer rate.

A free janitorial bidding calculator answers one building once. The business needs to know, after you win, whether the hours you sold were the hours you worked. That is how cleaning production rates stop being folklore.

01 · Estimate
Price the walkthroughHours, loaded cost, supplies, travel, and the margin before the number goes out.
02 · Proposal
Send the scopeThe same assumptions become the proposal. Later, a client can sign it without retyping the bid into a document.
03 · Actual labor
Record the hours you really usedAfter the account starts, estimated labor sits next to actual labor. The surprise shows up in the first month, not at renewal.
04 · Margin
Learn the buildingProduction rates get updated from work you finished. Contracts that are quietly losing margin are visible.

Proposal, signature, and the labor comparison are the second phase. The first thing we prove is that the estimate matches how you already quote.

Bidding questions

What owners ask before they send a quote

Is this another free cleaning bid calculator?

You can start there. The reason to own the workflow is the loop: estimate, proposal, actual hours, and a margin you can check. A calculator does not remember the building after you win it.

How should I bid a commercial cleaning job?

Start with the rooms and the frequency, apply a production rate you believe, convert that to hours, load the labor, add supplies, equipment, drive time, and overhead, then price to a gross margin. Square footage is an input, not the price.

What production rates should we use?

Yours. The prototype uses the rates you already quote with. Over time, actual hours replace the borrowed rate for that type of room.

Can this write the proposal?

That is the natural second step, along with scope and a signature. We do not start by promising a document generator. We start by making the price defensible.

Do I have to leave the software I invoice in?

No. Keep it. This is the estimating workflow it does not run. Broader cleaning operations — crews, recurring jobs, quality checks — are described on the cleaning services page.

What should I send?

A recent bid spreadsheet, a walkthrough form, or the notes you used on the last proposal. We'll show you the pricing screen built from that, within 24 hours.

Your current quote

Show us how you quote jobs.

A spreadsheet, a PDF proposal, or the checklist you take on a walkthrough. The prototype is a pricing workflow, not a lecture about software.