How Do You Price Commercial Cleaning Services?

In my experience as a Cleaning Company owner, one of the questions that are most frequently asked of me is ‘how do you price commercial cleaning services? Ascertaining what prices to charge a Client can be one of the most difficult challenges one would face when starting a cleaning business. There are a number of factors to be considered when costing a cleaning job. Amongst which are: cost of labor, type of cleaning service required, location, nature of the business and experience with previous cleaning service suppliers.

Once you have considered the above, here are steps you need to take before arriving at a price for your Office Cleaning Clients:

Study Your Competitors

Perhaps a good starting point before costing a cleaning job is to study what your competitors are charging for similar services. Your marketing can be very good, you may be getting lots of inquiries and visiting potential Clients on a daily basis. If, however, you are not competitive in terms of your costing, it may be very difficult to survive in the cleaning sector. It’s a cut-throat business where several providers undercut each other to win contracts. Whether those cheaper contracts do a good job after charging so low is another thing.

Visit the Office

Find out if you could arrange a site visit to see the premises. Costing of cleaning services should not be a guessing game. In order to be able to accurately cost how much a cleaning job would cost, you need to carry out a site visit. This would allow you to do a walk-through of the building. Be prepared to ask questions regarding the size of the offices in square feet, current waste disposal arrangement, what are the specific areas that they want you to focus on, the frequency and time of cleaning either daily, weekly, morning or evening cleans. Importantly, do not hesitate to ask the client about their cleaning budget. If you succeed in getting this at least you have a definite figure to work.

Costing Guideline for Cleaning

Having been equipped with relevant information and knowledge about the needs of the Client, you should be able to determine the level of cleaning that would be required. Determine how many hours it would take to do the job. In London, the average labour rate for an office cleaner is £8. 75, then you need to factor in employer taxes, other associated labour costs, overheads, insurance, cleaning products and your profit. At the end of this process, you will be able to arrive at a standard pricing figure which you could even use for future jobs. The average cost per hour of commercial cleaning services in London is £15.00

Decide on Your Profit Margin

It is important to have an idea of how much profit you would like to factor into your costing, the amount of profit you want will affect the amount you eventually charge because most of the other variables may be fixed but profit margin can be scaled up or down to make sure you win that contract ahead of your more established competitors. Once you have added all of the other cost elements into the equation including your profit, this should then be the amount you should charge. In the long run and as you get more experienced in costing your cleaning job, you would be able to know if your pricing is too high or too low in comparison with your competitors. As a result, you would know when to adjust your profit margin to suit a specific client.

Article written by Krystal McLean, who is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Citywide Cleaning, She is got over 25 years in the cleaning sector