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Comparing Janitorial Bids Line by Line
Janitorial bids for the same building often price quite different services. This guide shows how to put them on one grid, even out the differences and find what each bid left out.
Why the bottom line misleads
When bids arrive, the first instinct is to look at the monthly total and rank them. The trouble is that each total prices a different set of assumptions. One bidder counts five service nights and another counts three. One folds twice-yearly carpet extraction into the monthly figure; another never mentions carpet at all. One supplies the paper and soap; another expects you to.
Until those differences are evened out, the totals are not measuring the same thing. The goal of a line-by-line comparison is simple: get every bid onto the same basis, so the number you finally compare reflects price and not a hidden difference in coverage.
You can head off much of this before the bids arrive. Send every bidder the same building information, task list and access hours, and ask for the response in the same layout. The more alike the bids look when they land, the less leveling you do afterward.
Set up a comparison grid
Open a spreadsheet. Down the left side, list the areas of your building and the tasks in each, taken from your own written task list rather than from whichever bid happens to be longest. Across the top, give each bidder a column. A printed floor plan beside the spreadsheet helps you catch rooms no bidder mentioned.
Work through each bid and fill in the frequency it gives for every row. Leave a cell blank when a bid doesn’t mention that task. Blanks are the point of the exercise: they show you, at a glance, where each bid is thin.
Add rows below the tasks for the things that aren’t cleaning steps but still shape the service: service days and hours, who supplies consumables, who brings chemicals and equipment, how quality is checked, who your contact is, and how the bidder covers absences.
Translate frequencies into one unit
Bids describe frequency in different words. ‘Nightly’ covers five nights in one bid and seven in another. ‘Weekly’ and ‘once a week’ match; ‘as needed’ and ‘periodically’ tell you nothing until you ask. Convert every frequency to the same unit, such as times per month, and write that number in the grid.
This is where the largest differences in labor usually hide. Restrooms cleaned five times a week versus three, or full vacuuming every visit versus traffic lanes only, can explain most of the gap between two totals. Once the frequencies sit side by side as numbers, you can see whether a cheaper bid is efficient or simply doing less.
When a bid is vague, write the question down rather than guessing. You’ll send all of those questions out together in a later step, so note which bidder each one is for and save a copy of the grid as it stood before any revisions.
Give periodic work its own rows
Periodic jobs are the other big source of mismatched bids. Hot-water carpet extraction, VCT stripping and refinishing, high dusting, full interior glass and upholstery cleaning happen a few times a year, and a bid can fold them into the monthly figure, list them as add-ons, or leave them out entirely.
Put each periodic job on its own row with two cells per bidder: the interval and whether it is included or priced separately. Then ask every bidder to show periodic work as separate lines. With recurring and periodic pricing split apart, you compare the nightly service on its own and decide on the bigger jobs separately. The commercial floor care page explains what those visits involve.
Check the intervals too. Extraction twice a year in one bid and once a year in another is a real difference in how the carpet looks and lasts, not a rounding error. Pick the interval your traffic calls for and ask everyone to price that one.
Supplies, hours and staffing assumptions
Consumables can swing a bid noticeably. If one bidder includes toilet tissue, towels, soap and liners and another leaves them to you, the totals cannot be compared until supplies sit on a row of their own. Ask each bidder to show supplies as a separate line, or to state plainly that they are excluded.
Check the access hours as well. A bid that assumes access from 6 p.m. doesn’t fit a building whose staff work until 7. Ask each bidder for the hours they planned per visit; if two bids cover the same rooms at the same frequency with very different hours, one of them has misread the building, and a conversation will tell you which.
Ask how each bidder planned supervision. A bid that describes quality inspections and names a supervisor gives you a clear route for raising problems; a bid that is silent on both leaves you guessing. Give the answer its own row, because it matters as much as the nightly task list.
Find what each bid left out
With the grid filled in, scan for blanks. Items that slip out of bids often include:
- entry mats and the glass on entry doors;
- breakroom appliance fronts, the microwave interior and the sink;
- recycling and compost streams, not only trash;
- stairwells, elevator cabs and their door tracks;
- restroom partitions and walls, not only fixtures;
- cover for the regular cleaner’s days off.
Send every bidder the same written list of clarifications and missing items, and ask for revised bids on the same basis. Purchasing teams call this leveling the bids. Give everyone the same deadline. It takes a few days, and the revised totals are the first ones worth ranking.
Making the call
With leveled numbers in hand, weigh price alongside what the grid can’t show: how quickly each bidder answered your questions, how carefully they walked the building, and what their references said. Price still matters, and a leveled grid shows you exactly what the difference between two totals buys. The company that handled your clarifications well during bidding is showing you how it will handle a missed task later.
If you include Ascent Cleaning on your bid list, ask us to break out periodic floor and carpet care as separate lines; we walk the building before we price anything, so the numbers fit straight into your grid.
Ready to add a bid to the comparison? Request a quote.
A few useful answers
Common questions.
How do I compare bids that use different frequencies?
Convert every frequency into one unit, such as times per month, task by task. A grid with numbers instead of words shows quickly which bid covers more and where the gaps are.
Should I ask bidders to revise their bids?
Yes. Send every bidder the same list of clarifications and missing items, and ask for revised bids on the same basis. Comparing the revised totals is far more reliable than comparing the first round.
What if one bid includes supplies and another doesn't?
Ask each bidder to show consumables as their own line. With supplies separated, the cleaning portions compare directly, and you can decide separately whether to buy supplies yourself or have them provided.
How much detail should a janitorial bid show?
Enough to see each area, the tasks done there and how often, plus periodic jobs on separate lines. A single-line bid can’t be checked against anything, so ask for the breakdown before you compare.
Will Ascent Cleaning break its bid into line items?
Yes. Our quote shows each area of the building with its cleaning frequency, and periodic floor, carpet or stripping work can appear on separate lines so it drops into your comparison grid.