How to price a federal janitorial contract

Most federal cleaning contracts are won or lost on price, and most of the ones that go wrong after award were priced wrong. The method is the same one you use for a commercial building: work out the hours, cost the labor, add supplies, overhead and profit. The federal parts are a wage floor you cannot go under, a price schedule you have to fill in exactly as written, and option years whose prices you commit to now. This page walks through it in order. For the bidding process as a whole, see how to bid on federal janitorial contracts.

It explains how the process works. It is not legal or accounting advice; your state's free APEX Accelerator can review a specific bid.

1. Start from the work statement, not the building size

The performance work statement (PWS) lists the areas, the tasks in each and how often: restrooms daily, offices three times a week, carpets extracted quarterly, floors stripped and refinished twice a year. Build a spreadsheet with one row per area and task and a column for the frequency per year. Many solicitations attach a list of buildings with square footage by floor type; use it, but check it on the site visit if there is one.

Gross building square footage overstates what you clean. Walls, furniture and equipment take space, and storage rooms or secure areas may be excluded. One industry consultant puts cleanable area at around 55 percent of the total (CleanLink); your own past jobs are a better guide than any rule of thumb.

2. Turn square feet into hours

For each task, hours = area ÷ production rate (square feet per hour), times the number of times a year it is done. ISSA's method is the same: square footage divided by the hourly rate gives the time for one cleaning (ISSA). Rates come from your own crews' timed work or from published tables such as ISSA's 612 Cleaning Times. A rate from a table assumes a trained worker with the right equipment, so adjust for what slows a crew down: many small rooms, stairs, occupied offices during cleaning hours, security escorts, long walks between buildings.

Add the hours a production rate does not cover: travel between buildings, setting up and putting away, supervision, and the periodic work (stripping, extraction, window and high dusting) that is easy to forget because it is not on the daily list. Then check the total against any staffing the PWS requires, such as a full-time day porter or an on-site supervisor during set hours: required positions are hours you pay whether or not the cleaning needs them.

3. Cost the labor at no less than the wage determination

Cleaning contracts over $2,500 fall under the Service Contract Act, and the solicitation includes a wage determination with a minimum hourly rate for each job title (for cleaners, usually 11150 Janitor; floor care and supervisor titles often appear too) and a health and welfare amount per hour, plus vacation and holidays. Those are floors. Price each hour at the rate for the title doing the work, then add:

health and welfare (cash or benefits) for every hour paid, as the determination states;
paid vacation and holidays, which add hours you pay but nobody works;
payroll taxes and workers' compensation insurance, which you owe on top of the wage;
any higher wage your own state or city requires, since the higher rule applies.

The wage determination guide reads one line by line with a worked example.

4. Supplies, equipment, overhead and profit

Read who furnishes what. Some contracts have the government supply paper products and soap; most expect the contractor to supply everything, sometimes to a named green-product standard. Price consumables from the building's population and restroom count, not just square footage. Equipment you buy for the job (an auto-scrubber, an extractor) should be spread across the years you will use it on the contract.

Overhead covers what the contract does not pay directly: insurance at the limits the solicitation requires, bonding if any, office time, payroll processing, background checks and badging for federal buildings, and training. Profit goes on top. There is no required margin on a fixed-price service contract; what matters is that the total is a price you can perform at for every year of the contract.

5. Fill in the price schedule exactly as written

The schedule (often called the CLIN schedule, or Section B) decides the shape of your price: a monthly price per building, a yearly lump sum, separate lines for periodic floor work, or an hourly rate for extra work on call. Enter a price for every line in every period the schedule lists, in the units it asks for. A blank line or a total that does not add up can make the offer unacceptable.

Keep each line close to its real cost. Putting a large share of the price into one line, or into the base year, to look cheap elsewhere is called unbalanced pricing, and contracting officers are told to look for it and can reject an offer for it (FAR 15.404-1(g)).

6. Option years

Most janitorial contracts run a base year plus up to four option years, and you price every year now. The usual clause, FAR 52.222-43, adjusts the contract price when a new wage determination raises the minimum wages or fringe benefits at an option year, but only for the increase the new determination requires. Your own cost increases that the determination does not cause, such as supplies, insurance or raises above the minimum, are yours, so build them into the option-year prices.

7. Check it against what the agency paid before

If the contract is a rebid, the last award is usually public. Search USAspending.gov by the agency and NAICS 561720 to see what the incumbent was paid per year. A price far below it should make you recheck your hours; one far above it should make you recheck the scope. Neither is wrong on its own: the scope may have changed, and the wage determination has almost certainly risen since. The recompetes by state pages list cleaning and grounds contracts ending soon, with the agency and current holder to look up.

Then reread the evaluation section. When award goes to the lowest price that is technically acceptable, the price is most of the decision, but an offer priced below what the work can be done for at the required wages can still be judged unrealistic or the firm not responsible. When award is a best-value trade-off, a slightly higher price with a clear staffing plan can win.

Where we fit

The free weekly list sends every open federal janitorial and grounds solicitation, plus rebids coming up, your state first, every Monday. The bid desk ($149 a month, 14-day trial) adds a go/no-go note on each one, and we can draft the response, including the price workbook, when you decide to bid. See a full sample bid.

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The first list goes out Monday, November 2, 2026, and every Monday after that. Pick a state to get its contracts first. We store only your email address and the state you pick, and every email has an unsubscribe link. Privacy

Checked October 21, 2026 against the linked pages. The notice on SAM.gov is the authority on dates and requirements.