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How to Compare Janitorial Bids Line by Line
Three bids for the same building rarely describe the same work. Line them up task by task, visit by visit, and the real differences between them come into view.
Build one grid before you read a single total
Bids come back in whatever format each company prefers. One arrives as a page of bullet points, another as a room-by-room table, and a third as a monthly figure above a short paragraph of tasks. Reading them side by side in that state invites you to compare the bottom lines and little else.
Open a spreadsheet instead. Put the areas of your building down the left side: entry and lobby, open workstations, private offices, conference rooms, breakroom, each restroom group, corridors, stairwells, storage. Give every bidder a column, then copy each task and its frequency into the matching cell. Blank cells are the first thing the grid shows you, and they matter more than any number at the bottom.
If you have not written your own room list yet, the room-by-room task list guide walks through one. Sending that same list to every bidder before the walkthroughs makes the grid far easier to fill.
Turn frequency words into visit counts
Frequency language hides more differences than anything else in a bid. “Nightly” can mean five nights or seven. “Weekly detail dusting” and “dusting as needed” sound alike, yet only one of them commits to anything. “Monthly” sometimes means twelve times a year and sometimes means whenever the crew finds time in a given month.
Convert each line into a number of visits per year. Five nights a week works out to roughly 250 visits once you set aside the holidays your building closes for, while a three-night program sits near 150. Write that count next to every recurring task. When one bid has restrooms cleaned five nights and another has them cleaned three nights plus a midweek touch-up, the counts make the gap plain.
Treat “as needed” as zero until the bidder restates it. Ask what condition triggers the task and how often they expect that to happen in your building, then record their answer as a count.
Give periodic work its own section
Carpet extraction, stripping and refinishing resilient floors, high dusting, interior glass and upholstery cleaning are the tasks most often bundled in one bid and left out of another. Some proposals fold two extractions a year into the monthly figure. Others list them as optional add-ons priced per occasion, and some never mention them at all.
Pull every periodic item into a separate block at the bottom of your grid, showing how many times a year each bid includes it and whether it sits inside the recurring price or outside it. A bid that looks expensive often turns out to be the only one carrying the floor work your building already needs. The commercial floor care page describes the treatments you are likely to see named.
Supplies, hours and the people doing the work
Next, look at consumables. Note whether each bid supplies toilet paper, hand towels, soap and trash bags, bills them separately, or expects you to keep your own stock. A bid that includes paper goods and one that excludes them are describing different services even when their task lists match word for word.
- Cleaning window: which hours the crew will be on site, and whether that fits your alarm and lock-up routine.
- Labor hours per visit, if the bid states them. Compare them against the task list; a long list paired with very few hours is worth a question.
- Supervision: who checks the work, how often, and how you report a problem.
- Insurance: whether a certificate of insurance comes with the bid or on request.
When we quote, the written quote lists day porter hours and night tasks as separate lines, so a buyer can line them up against other bids without guessing which work belongs to which service.
Spot what one bid left out
Once the grid is full, scan across each row. The tasks most often missing from at least one bid are surprisingly ordinary:
- Recycling and compost collection, separate from trash
- Entry mats, door glass and sidelights
- Breakroom appliance exteriors, microwaves and sinks
- Light switches, door handles and elevator buttons
- Stairwells, elevator cabs and back corridors
- Restocking dispensers, not just cleaning around them
- Spot cleaning walls and partition glass
A missing row does not always mean the company skips the task. It means the bid does not commit to it, and that is the version you would be signing. Mark each gap and carry it into the next step. Note too whether filling the gap would change that company’s price, because a missing task that later arrives as an extra charge belongs in the comparison now.
What the walkthrough tells you about each bid
Each bid reflects the walkthrough behind it. Think back to how each company spent that hour in your building. Did someone walk every floor, open the storage rooms and look at the restrooms at the far end of the building, or did the visit stay in the lobby and the main corridor? Did they ask when your last staff leave, how the alarm is set and where the trash goes at night?
Questions like those show up later as accurate lines in a bid. A bid that names your floor types, mentions the second breakroom and sets the cleaning window around your lock-up time was written about your building. One that could describe any office of the same size was not, and its price carries more guesswork.
Keep brief notes from every walkthrough and file them with the grid. When two bids land close together, those notes often decide it.
Level the bids, then compare the totals
Write one short list of clarifying questions and send the same list to every bidder: confirm the visit count for restrooms, state whether extraction is included and how often, name who supplies paper goods, restate any “as needed” item as a frequency. Ask each company to answer in writing and revise its bid if the answer changes the work.
Only when every column describes the same building cleaned the same way do the totals mean anything. At that point a gap between prices points to real differences in labor hours, supervision or supplies rather than to a task one company quietly dropped. If you would like a bid that is already laid out this way, request a quote from Loom Janitorial and we will book a walkthrough at an hour that suits your building.
A few useful answers
Common questions
Should we simply take the lowest bid?
Not before the bids are leveled. A low total often reflects fewer visits, missing periodic work or excluded supplies. Compare the leveled versions, then weigh price against hours on site and how the work is checked.
How many bids are worth collecting for a mid-sized office?
Three or four is the usual range. Fewer gives you little to compare against, and more turns the walkthroughs and follow-up questions into a project of their own.
What if a bidder won’t break the price into lines?
Ask for at least two figures: the recurring service and the periodic work. A single number with no task list cannot be checked against the others or against the work you later receive.
Is it fair to share one company’s task list with the others?
Write your own task list and send it to everyone instead. That keeps each company’s pricing private and gives every company the same starting point.
Does Loom’s quote follow a standard format?
Our written quote follows the walkthrough and separates recurring night tasks, porter hours and periodic projects, so each part can be compared on its own line.
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