Commercial Cleaning Production Rates: A Key to Successful Bidding and Estimating

This article is a continuation of BSCAI’s Bidding and Estimating content series, helping you learn how to bid commercial cleaning jobs. Read more in the series here: “An Introduction to Bidding and Estimating for Contract and Commercial Cleaning Businesses,” by Steve Shuchat; "Do You Qualify for This Janitorial RFP? A Guide to Evaluating Commercial Cleaning Bid Opportunities," by Curtis McLemore.

In the janitorial services industry, accurate bidding and estimating can make or break a business. One of the most essential components to get right is understanding commercial cleaning production rates. Cleaning production rates directly impact staffing, which has a direct effect on efficiency, customer perception and profitability.

In this article, we’ll explore what cleaning production rates are, how to use them, what factors influence them and how they affect pricing strategies. Whether you’re a janitorial company owner, sales representative or engineer, mastering production rates will help you provide accurate estimates and meet client expectations.

What Is a Cleaning Production Rate?

In the commercial cleaning world, a production rate refers to the amount of time it takes to complete a specific cleaning task or clean an entire facility. This metric is essential for estimating the time, labor cost and resources needed to clean a facility efficiently.

Production rates are usually expressed in one of two ways:

1. Task-Specific Production Rates: The time required to perform an individual cleaning task (e.g., emptying a trash can or cleaning a restroom toilet, etc.).
2. Comprehensive Production Rates: The total time required to clean the entire facility based on the type of facility, its size, layout and scope of service.

How to Determine Cleaning Production Rates

To determine task-specific production rates, start by breaking down the time required for each individual task. Once you have completed this for each task, you can then add these times together to calculate the total time needed to clean the facility. For example, if it takes one minute to empty a trash can and the facility has 30 trash cans, the total time for this task is 30 minutes.

If you need standard benchmarks for task-specific cleaning times, consider looking into resources from BSCAI and The ISSA Cleaning Times. These organizations provide information to help companies estimate production rates with greater accuracy. Conducting your own time and motion studies can also help you determine the time it takes to perform each cleaning task.

Determining comprehensive production rates involves using an overall production rate that includes all daily cleaning task using patterns, based on previous experience and industry standards.

Drawing from work at similar facilities can help predict how long it will take to service a new one.  For example, if you currently clean a medical facility and you know the building is 25,000 square feet and it takes your cleaning crew 10 hours to perform the nightly duties, then the reoccurring or daily comprehensive production rate would be 2,500 square feet per man hour. It would then be safe to assume you could clean a similar size medical facility with a similar scope of work and density at 2,500 square feet per man hour.

APPA Standards are benchmarks that offer guidelines on cleaning times and levels of cleanliness for various types of facilities, especially in educational and public spaces. APPA's custodial service levels helps facilities evaluate the quality of cleaning and determine the appropriate staffing needs.

Using their extensive experience, industry consultants can also be a great resource for helping you determine comprehensive production rates for a specific size and type of facility that you may be bidding. 

Regardless of which method you use to determine your production rates, it’s important to make sure you include any periodic tasks, such as monthly burnishing or annual carpet or window cleaning in your final work loading calculations. These periodic tasks are normally calculated using task-specific production rates method. 

What Can Impact Production Rates?

A variety of factors influence production rates. Below are key factors to consider:

• Scope of Work: The type of area and type of cleaning tasks will directly affect the time needed to complete them.
• Task Frequency: Tasks completed daily, like vacuuming high-traffic areas, will have different time estimates compared to those performed weekly or monthly.
• Days of Service: A facility with five service days per week will require a little less time to complete a task than a facility that is only being serviced one day per week.
• Type of Facility: Each facility type has unique cleaning requirements. Production rates vary significantly based on the building’s purpose.
  • Medical facilities will require more detailed cleaning and disinfection, increasing the time needed.
  • Public schools have varying cleaning needs based on student traffic and seasonal schedules.
  • Manufacturing plants can involve cleaning specialized equipment, dealing with industrial debris, or the distance between areas being cleaned, all which impact production times.
• Density: The number of people using a facility also plays a significant role in production rates. A densely populated office may require more frequent restroom cleaning, trash removal and disinfecting compared to a low-traffic space of the same size.

How Production Rates Impact Pricing

Accurately calculating production rates is critical for staffing and pricing decisions. Here’s how these rates influence cost structures and profitability:

• Production Rates Determine Staffing Needs: If a building takes longer to clean based on production rate estimates, more cleaners will be needed to meet service expectations. Proper staffing ensures jobs are completed efficiently and within budget.
• Staffing Costs Drive Pricing: Labor accounts for 50-80% of janitorial service costs. Since staffing decisions are based on production rate estimates, these calculations directly influence the final bid. This is why it is so important to be as close to accurate as possible with production rates. 
• Aligning With Customer Expectations: It’s crucial to ensure staffing levels not only meet budget constraints but also align with the customers’ expectations for cleanliness. Understaffing may reduce costs but can risk service quality and customer satisfaction.

The Art and Science of Estimating Production Rates

Using production rates to determine work loading is as much an art as it is a science. While production rates rely on data and standards, they also require judgment and flexibility. Parkinson’s Law — which states that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion" — reminds us that estimates must be realistic and precise. Overestimating time can lead to inefficiencies, while underestimating time can strain staff and resources. The key is balancing science with practical experience to achieve optimal results.

Understanding commercial cleaning production rates is essential for janitorial service companies looking to provide competitive and profitable bids. Production rates help determine staffing levels, which in turn influence pricing strategies. Accurate production rates not only improve bidding outcomes but also ensure customer satisfaction by aligning staffing with expectations. With a mix of industry knowledge, experience and smart use of benchmarks, janitorial companies can master production rates—making bidding not just a science but also an art.