How to write a janitorial services RFP that gets comparable bids

A janitorial RFP produces comparable bids when it removes guesswork. Every bidder should price the same buildings, the same areas, the same frequencies and the same extras, on the same form. When any of that is left open, each company fills the gap differently, and you end up comparing assumptions instead of prices.

The fields come first, then the bid sheet, including the labor-hour line that exposes a bid built on fewer people.

What a janitorial RFP needs before it goes out

Start with the facts about your buildings, because every price is built from them. A bidder working from "45,000 square foot office" will be off by hours a night compared with one who knows the restroom count and floor types.

Collect this for each site before you release anything:

Attach floor plans. A stacking plan with suite numbers is better still.

Write the scope by area and frequency, not as a task list

A scope of work that lists "empty trash, dust surfaces, clean restrooms" without saying where and how often gets you a price for whatever the bidder imagined. Write it as a matrix: each area type down the side, each task across, a frequency in every cell.

Use frequencies that cannot be read two ways:

• Nightly (5x) or nightly (7x), never just "daily"
• Weekly, with the night if it matters (high dusting on Fridays, say)
• Monthly and quarterly for detail work such as vents, baseboards and partition tops
• As scheduled only for periodic work you price separately

A typical office scope separates restrooms, lobby and entries, open offices, private offices, conference rooms, break rooms, corridors and stairwells. For what belongs under each, see what janitorial services include. A clinic suite or a warehouse floor gets its own block of rows, never a spot under general areas.

Price day porters and periodic work as separate lines

Daytime coverage and periodic floor work are where bids drift apart the most, so pull them out of the nightly price.

Day porter hours. State the hours as clock times and days: "Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., one porter." Then list the areas the porter covers. A line that says "day porter as needed" invites one bidder to price a full shift and another to price two hours. Our day porter services page shows what a porter route usually covers.

Periodic work. Ask for a unit price and a frequency for each item:

• Strip and refinish VCT, per square foot, per occurrence
• Scrub and recoat, per square foot, per occurrence
• Carpet extraction, per square foot, with the frequency by traffic area
• Interior window and partition glass, per occurrence
• High dusting above reach, per occurrence

Unit prices let you add or drop an occurrence without renegotiating. They also stop a bidder from hiding a cheap nightly rate behind expensive extras. See floor care for how these cycles usually run.

The bid sheet: make every bidder show their labor hours

The labor-hour line tells you more than any other field on the sheet. Ask every bidder to state, for each site, the number of cleaner hours per night, the number of supervisor hours per week, and the porter hours per day.

Labor is most of what you buy in a janitorial contract. Two bidders quoting the same scope can only differ so much on hours before one of them is planning to do less. With hours next to the price, the gap shows on day one instead of in month three, when the restrooms start falling behind.

A bid sheet that works has these columns per site:

Then read across the rows. If four bidders propose 14 to 18 cleaner hours a night for a site and the fifth proposes 8, you have found the reason that fifth bid is cheapest. Ask how it plans to cover the scope in that time before you score it.

Supplies work the same way. A price that includes paper and liners looks higher than one that leaves them out, so force the answer on the sheet. Our guide to commercial cleaning cost covers the other drivers behind a monthly price.

Insurance, terms and the transition

Put your contract requirements in the RFP so nobody prices around them:

• Insurance types and limits, and whether you require additional insured status
• Bonding, if your organization requires it
• Background checks for staff with keys or after-hours access
• Contract term, renewal options, termination for convenience and for cause
• Payment terms and invoicing format, especially for multiple sites
• The start date and the transition window

Ask bidders to describe their first 30 days. A transition plan should cover the key and alarm code handover, a joint walkthrough with your team, a supply inventory, and the date of the first supervisor inspection. Handover is where service most often breaks: the outgoing crew stops caring two weeks before the end, and the incoming crew learns the building on your time. Put a date next to each of those four items, and make the first inspection a joint one.

Run the process so bids stay comparable

The schedule matters as much as the document. A workable sequence:

1. Release the RFP with all attachments and the bid sheet.
2. Hold a mandatory or strongly recommended walkthrough within the first week.
3. Accept written questions until a set date, then publish every answer to every bidder.
4. Take proposals on one deadline, in one format.
5. Score against criteria you published in the RFP, with price as one weighted factor.
6. Interview the top two or three and check references from buildings like yours.

Step 3 is the one people skip under deadline. If one bidder learns the fitness room is out of scope and the others do not, your bids stop being comparable.

Scoring: price is one column

Set the weight of price before you open a single bid, and spread the rest across the staffing plan, supervision and inspection method, transition plan and references. Publish the weights in the RFP so bidders write to them.

Ask each finalist one practical question in the interview: "Who do I call at 7 a.m. when a restroom was missed, and what happens next?" The answer tells you more about the contract you will live with than the proposal binder does.

Put us on the bidder list

If the RFP is going out soon, add National Cleaning Group to the bidder list. We walk each building inside your walkthrough window and quote it as a price for the scope, with janitorial services, day porter coverage and periodic floor work on their own lines. If your bid sheet asks for labor hours, we break them out. To book the visit, request a free facility assessment or call (202) 968-1190 and give us the proposal deadline.